Our visit to Castlegar was primarily to share in the joy of opening the Melbra Estate, which was indeed delightful, evidenced by the movie which you can view from here or via our Movies! page.
However, the Melbra Estate wasn't yet open for visitors so we booked three nights at the Twin Rivers Motel & RV Park. Except for a short fence, it was like staying in someone's backyard, although far be it for us to complain as they were the only RV Park open this time of year in Castlegar--and they had excellent WIFI. (Of note though, they only had one full hook up site for visitors [the rest of the small area is full of full-timers] and although they said they had water at the pitch, it was frozen so we had to borrow the spigot next door.)
But we weren't concerned with what we could or could not see outside of Salt, especially when Deborah & Mel arrived as our first Cocktail Hour visitors! After cocktails, they treated us to dinner at the Cuisine of India restaurant which was quite good with authentic and tasty food--the garlic naan especially was a delight.
Our first full day in town Alan & I stopped in at the Visitor's Center (yes, we are finally learning to use all of our resources!), and received some (turned out to be bad) directions to start our hike up the Brilliant Overlook Trail. Despite the poor directions, we eventually found the trail head parking and set off. A nice hike, hilly and rocky (and this time of year it was a little snowy and icy in spots), but they warn you at the start that it is not a hike for beginners. It felt great to work up a sweat and we logged just over three miles before heading back to Salt.
Our main goal for that day and the next was to get some heat tape installed on our exterior pipes as we had been in below-freezing weather since leaving Grand Forks. (OK, my main goal was to get Alan to install some heat tape.) So Alan headed off to four different hardware stores while I did a thorough Salt clean-out.
I spent the following day with Deborah visiting my cousin Sarah and her two beautiful children in Trail - a movie of Sadie and Sarah's dancing lessons and class at Steps Dance Center will be coming out soon. It was great to see my incredibly talented cousin (her impressive dancing career includes teaching at Arts Umbrella in Vancouver) sharing her talents with earnest young dancers in tow.
That evening we enjoyed a picnic dinner in Salt with Deborah and Mel. It was a cozy and delightful time during which Mel promised to meet Alan for the Mongolian leg of the Aventura.
Hope he remembers.
I will not forget.
-K
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