Prairie Valley

Between 1910 and 1915 the Kettle Valley Railway was built to accommodate the gold rush. During the same period, Sam McGee developed an orchard and worked on road construction in Summerland. A little over a hundred years later the Pearson's boarded the 3716 in anticipation of the 90 minute tour from Prairie Valley station to Trout Creek Bridge and back again. We were tired, hot and a little cranky after more than a week on the road. Earlier in the morning, a ribbon of smoke having blown in from the BC wildfires had encircled the hills and hoodoos around Summerland. By the time our steam engine pulled up to the old timey platform, the sky was clogged with gray as if trolls had stoked fires under all the fairy chimneys in the West. The train jogged along the north side of Conkle Mountain, overlooking Prairie Valley. A banjo player walked up and down the cars taking requests for country music. By the time we rounded Giant's Head Mountain our kids and many others on the train had decided to revolt. I'd like to share more of what I learned from the sonorous voice of the conductor as he described landmarks and historical points of interest but I couldn't hear much other than Tobin wailing for snacks which we didn't have. At the Trout Creek Bridge I bought a pint of hand picked raspberries for five bucks and Toby ate them all in about five minutes. He and Ollie crawled behind the seats of some folks from Vancouver and we pretended not to notice. Jessica promised that would be the last vintage train ride we ever go on.

I hit a wall today. We went home for lunch and a nap. After the nap we went to the Sun-Oke Beach and splashed around for a couple of hours. After the beach and a DQ side serve ice cream the kids and I went for a hike on the trails behind our host's house while Jessica made dinner. It was pleasant until Ollie decided to run down a slope of loose gravel and sand followed by Toby who wiped out skinning a knee that was already scabbed over a few times. I had to carry Toby after that and Ollie had to carry both wooden swords which evidently was too much a burden because he sat down in the middle of a trail and refused to budge for long enough that I had to put Toby down at which time he promptly tripped again landing face first on some rocks. We returned, both kids yelling and crying in a way that was clearly blaming me for their suffering. They were at least good enough to contain themselves just as we met our hosts on their way to yoga class. When I asked them if the kid on my shoulders looked ok, Brent said he looked great and Ceri said he didn't look as tired as I did.Read more