Visiting Chilliwack Lake

We've got a streak of beautiful weather, so what are we going to do? We're going to go camping. But of course the pandemic is still on, we're in the third wave, so we have to be careful and we have to stay local. Thankfully though, camping in a local campground is a Bonnie Henry approved activity. So we're going to go out just down the highway and go for a little camping trip in our local area. Let's go! Check propane full, mostly. Offline maps, yes. Camera gear, right there. That's all right. All right. Nearly there. Almost. Let's go. So we had a little bit of trouble on the way here. The poor Benny got sick, so Mel is cleaning his carrier. The truck did not smell pleasant for the last half of the drive. So this is a very small accessory that I honestly didn't think was necessary at first, but now it's really good that we have it. It's just a trailer hitch lock and all it does is just makes it a lot more difficult for someone to just come by and take your trailer away. So if we want to go into town or get firewood or just leave for an extended period of time, it gives a little bit of peace of mind. Cheers to warm weather camping again. I can only see one other RV. Oh, I thought I saw another one over there. Do the horses go second or third in? So we're sticking with second in. If we're totally wrong, let us know in the comments. That's about what I was thinking. People are going to think we've never gone camping before. I've never chopped wood before, so I have an excuse. Oh yeah! Best fire starter? Toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls. First campfire of the season. Is the water boiling yet? I don't think so. It's our favorite stuff. It's not really hot yet. No, it's warm, but not hot. Okay. Oh, this is fun. Now that I don't have ash in my eyes. Bon appétit. Bon appétit, honey. So we should probably update you guys a little bit about our future trip that we had mentioned in one of our last videos. Doing a big loop from Hope all the way around to Whistler and back. Delayed. Delayed. Due to COVID. Yeah. You know, you might have already heard at the beginning of the video that some restrictions have changed again. They're really, really trying to prevent people from traveling outside of their region, and they've shut down Whistler. So we are going to just continue doing a little bit of local travel, and that trip will be delayed until it's safe. Because honestly, we have so much locally. We could probably go the entire summer and not go more than 100 kilometers from our house. Yeah. So, I mean, we have a lot of choice, so we should just... We're very lucky that way. Yeah. So now we're going to make first s'mores of the season. Where'd my stick go? Oh, look at that. Oh, that's gorgeous. There we go. Yum. Marshmallow down. I really want to cook my s'more though. Get the sandwich press. We're going to try and sandwich press a s'more. It's warm, but it still didn't melt the chocolate. Just pulled over beside Chilliwack Lake. Gorgeous view out the south side of the lake. There's some snowy peaks, and oh my gosh, it's just absolutely gorgeous. So what we're on right now is what's called a resource road. So we didn't get it on video, but a little while ago there was a massive logging truck that we kind of came face to face with and had to pull over. So that's one of the things you have to watch out for when you're on these resource roads. Eventually we're going to get a radio that'll let us listen in to all the calls that they make, but it's not mandatory. You basically just have to keep your wits about you and be ready to pull aside if you need to. But it'll be nice to have one for when we have the trailer, because if we had to be on this narrow road with the trailer and a logging truck came towards us, it would be a lot harder to pull over. Yeah, if we had the trailer, one of us would have had to back up quite a long ways, and it probably wouldn't have been the logging truck. They kind of have priority. Well, we're here at Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park, and it seems like a nice warm day, but we're reminded that it's not quite spring yet because of all the snow that's still around. It's making Mel cold just looking at it. Yeah, this seems like a nice park. Lots of campsites. Looks like a pretty big campground, and they've got a boat launch and a day use area. That's where we're headed right now. Yeah, there's supposed to be a really nice beach down here at the lake. I can see the bottom of it from here. It's a good thing we brought our hiking shoes. We've got loose gravel. Could have been treacherous. And a slight incline. Come outside. You just feel safer there. He's like, yeah, I've eaten. I'm going back to the trailer. Hello, dude. What's up? Watch your face. Watching the Mel in her natural habitat. Far from natural. We're starting to get some wood chips catching. Starting to look really good. I didn't keep it going with enough kindling. We're on to the second attempt, and this time she's adding a lot of paper. We're going for take three here. We've got ourselves a campfire. Hard work. It is. And we now have a good cooking fire. That is some serious heat coming off of there. All right, Mel's getting her oven mitts on. I'm gonna put the pizza on the fire. Really? Yep. Just like that. And this is Jay's custom-made salad dressing slash utility sauce. Utility sauce. It's good for dipping pizza in. It's good as salad dressing. It's good on really just about anything. Yeah, we don't buy salad dressing anymore because of the magic sauce. And the cool thing is it's different every time. I can't give you the ingredient list because it's top secret. How's the fire pizza? Smoky? No, it's good. It's like crispy on the bottom and like soft on the top. Does it really count as fire cooked? It was really just kind of like fire reheated. S'mores 2.0. So a common problem with s'mores is that you have this beautiful hot toasted marshmallow and your graham cookies and chocolate that never melts. So we found out, we figured out a solution last night and so now we're going to do it. Okay, there we go. Crackers. All right. That is so good. It's not hard and crunchy. It's like this beautiful layer. Oh yeah, that's good. That is the way to do s'mores. So it's just after midnight. Benny has already caught one mouse and he seems to be thinking that there's another one hanging around too. So it's kind of interesting. It seems like when it's raining we pick up mice. We're gonna have to take another look all around the trailer and try and find out where they're coming in. We think it might be the heating system. Yeah, we'll have our work cut out for us. But in the meantime, Benny's got his work cut out for him. Good morning. So I think Jay told you in the middle of the night we had a visitor and Benny caught it. He kind of kept hanging around the vents and stuff a little bit more and but then eventually did come to bed. Didn't catch anything more. And then we had a quiet, peaceful night the rest of the night. Right? Yeah. Yes, you're a very good boy. Also last night we were a little bit, or I was a little bit worried. I should say Jay wasn't worried at all that the battery was going to run out overnight with the furnace running and stuff. But we're down to 11% left and so yeah, that's pretty great actually that our batteries can last us three days on a single charge. Four days. Oh yeah, sorry, three nights. Four days on a single charge during like a colder season where we have to run the furnace. We're predicting that this summer we'll be able to go probably closer to nine days. Earlier in the season on a colder day when we had to run the furnace, our lead acid battery would only let us go one night and two days. So we've tripled that capacity with these, with the battery upgrades. We're really, really happy about that. So yeah, it's our last morning here. We're just going to have some tea and pack everything up and then head home. All right, just getting ready to pull out here. We've got much better weather than we expected. It's actually sunny, which is fabulous. You might notice our site and the angle here that we have to get out. So we've got our walkie talkies and Jay is actually going to pull forward over there and then he's going to back up into there and then come down here. So let's see how that goes. Cutting close to that tree. All right, keep pulling forward. All right, I'm going to start backing up now. Okay, looking good. Keep coming. Watch that tree at the front of the truck. Got some rocks and trees. Do you need me to come to the front to take a look? I think I got him. Okay. I might be on too tight. Okay, you still got about a foot or so. You don't have a couple of feet. All right, going ahead. That's better. Okay, now you should be able to come back. Keep coming back. You're looking good. All right, you ready for me? Looking pretty good. Heading out of the park. We've got one last chore to do, which is dump our garbage. Four days worth of garbage. Not bad. Well, that is our little tour of the Chilliwack River Valley. So thank you very much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed it. Remember, if you like this video, please be sure to give us a like and subscribe and hit that notification bell. It really helps us. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. And in the meantime, keep on living the life you've imagined. Mel, take her home. So if we go away and go into town or... Those ATVs are loud. There appears to be a problem with the weather. Yes, there does actually. How does this thing work? So on our grate, we're going to attempt to cover the grate. I feel like... I think you might have to go the other way around. The heat is just so strong. There's smoke in my eyes. Okay, try again. Maybe do it kind of like wrapping around. Yeah, this way. Like, yeah. Oh great. This isn't working as well as I'd hoped. All right, try just that one. Okay, there we go. Apparently there's an art to wrapping foil around your grate.