Drive to Houston, BC

Saturday, August 19, 2017

WOW, August is already more than half over. What a blessed and inspirational summer we have had. Today is going to be a long driving day for us...4 hours driving time.

We left Meziadin Lake about 8am. Shortly after we got off the Cassiar Hwy and onto Hwy 16, we stopped to see a canyon and waterfall on the Bulkley River.

Even though it was overcast the color in the rock walls was beautiful! This picture doesn't do it justice.

This picture is looking up river from the bridge. Look carefully near the small waterfall on the right side of the river is a little pink dot. Below you see that pink dot is a young man.

I'm not sure this kid was really doing anything. It does look like he was maybe supposed to catch fish that came flowing by. We never saw him catch anything. On down the road we go.

A little west of Smithers, BC we saw this glacier.

The top of the mountain and glacier are in the clouds. This is Hudson Bay Mountain and Smithers Glacier with Twin Falls waterfalls. Below are a closeup of both the mountain peak and the glacier with its twin waterfalls.

We were only about 10 minutes out of Smithers, BC. We stopped at Safeway in Smithers to do some grocery shopping.

This wooden carved statue was at the intersection of Main Street and Hwy 16 in Smithers. Had to have a picture.

The next little town on our route was Telkwa. There was a little park next to the Bulkley River named Eddy Park.

Look at the size of this cottonwood tree along side the river. It's wider than me!

This is the Bulkley River again.  The Bulkley River is known for its salmon and trout. We are looking up river here at Eddy Park.

Looking up river from the same spot you can see the Telkwa River flowing into the Bulkley River. This is a railroad trestle crossing the Telkwa River.

Just to the left of the railroad trestle is this vehicle bridge that crosses the Bulkley River. You can see people along the shore and under the bridge fly fishing.

The railroad trestle had a pedestrian walkway/bridge attached to it on the side towards the Bulkley River. We walked across it and got this picture of how strong the water was rushing out of the Telkwa River just under the railroad bridge.

The bridge crossing the Bulkley River had concrete decking, but the bridge was wooden. Below is a close-up of the structure of the bridge.

Other than fishing, this area seems to be a strong agricultural area. Not only are there many fields of hay, but we have also seen lots of green houses and many fresh vegetable stands.

Stands of trees like these line many of the fields. In our research we believe these are aspen.

We made it to Houston, BC. Having been raised in Houston, TX, I was surprised to find a Houston in Canada.

Houston is a pretty little town with a well manicured town park named Steelhead Park. We just learned that steelhead fish are also prevalent in the Bulkley River.

Thus the Steelhead monument which was made and donated by a local artist. 

There were many kinds of flowers and decorative vegetables throughout the park. Look at the size of this lettuce!

Look at the size of these flower gardens. This is only one of many. All this is maintained by volunteers. And we noticed there was not trash thrown around. Why can't we do something like this in the US?

Look at these huge decorative cabbage also.  Everything was so healthy looking and most of the flowers blooming! Stunning for such a small town.

Houston holds the record for the largest fly-fishing rod in the world at this time. The 60-ft-long anodized aluminum fly rod wa designed by a local avid fly fisherman and built by local volunteers. The 21-inch fly is a fluorescent "Skykomish Sunrise". See detailed picture below.

These young children may help to give perspective to the size of the rod.

This is our parking site for the night at the Shady Rest RV Park just 1km east of Houston.  Nice spacing between sites, clean shower/restroom combinations and very nice and helpful owners.

By the time we got dinner cooked and eaten it was nearly 8pm. It was a long day and we were tired, but we did get to see a lot of beautiful country.