Telkwa and Smithers, British Columbia

On June 3d, we headed to Telkwa, north on the Alaska Highway (BC Highway 97) and then west on Yellowhead Highway 16. As we mentioned, the logging industry is huge in British Columbia. A couple trucks at the junction of the two highways and part of a complex turning sawdust into heating pellets:




A cemetery just before the Stellat'en First Nation's store and fuel station on the Yellowhead Highway:




Welcome and air quality signs, trembling aspens, a map board, Barkley, Bill, and wildflowers at a rest area:












Meadow Chickweed:




We couldn't identify this Phacellia-looking flower with ferny leaves until we got to Tok, Alaska and bought the fantastic book Wildflowers Along the Alaska Highway, by Verna E. Pratt. It's perfectly named - Beautiful Jacob's Ladder.




Unidentified:








It rained most of the day:


We stayed at Ft. Telkwa RV Park along the Bulkley River, where we couldn't quite capture a picture of a beaver working near the bank of a little island. These pretty trees with the curling trunks were growing along the bank below the road (the Yellowhead Highway is directly behind the fence).


Our site, the river (down a steep bank from our site), and the distant view from our side window:






We visited the village of Telkwa on rainy June 4th. Telkwa has a lovely little park with several benches at its municipal building on the Bulkley River.


The Telkwa River flows into the Bulkley at the park.


Norma's Ark Playday Centre is housed in an old church building.






The current Mount Zion Lutheran Church building was built in 1911 as St. Stephen's Anglican Church.


Also on June 4th, we took a rainy drive to Smithers, which looks very much like an Alpine town and even has a statue of an alpenhorn player in the center of one of its short shopping avenues.








The town's ice hockey rink, formerly rarely used tennis courts:


Twin Falls is just a short drive from the Smithers downtown area. The rain relented long enough that we could hike to the falls and take some photographs before returning to the truck in a downpour (with the camera safely tucked inside a rainjacket).


Bill on an observation deck between the two falls:










The water plows beneath several feet of snow (covered with rocks) before re-emerging.


Our expert use of the camera's timing mechanism:

Tombstone and Mt. Lemmon

Our next stop was Tombstone, where we enjoyed the Tombstone Western Heritage Museum, a private museum owned by Stephen and Marge Elliott. When we told him we were from Pennsylvania, Stephen said that Steve Reed was his best customer ever, spending over $1,000,000 at once. (While Mr. Elliott didn't know it, that purchase was probably one of the reasons Steve Reed was voted out last fall as the mayor of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's capital.) The museum was loaded with artifacts, including pictures, letters, newspapers, guns, jewelry, and even rocks from Wyatt Earp's last mining camp. Pictures are not allowed to be taken in the museum, but these signs provide a taste of what can be seen there:




Stephen and Marge Elliott also own the Silver Lady Antiques shop:


This street is closed to automotive traffic:






The Tombstone Courthouse is now a state park. It was built in 1882 and was the Cochise County courthouse for a few years until the county seat was moved to Bisbee.




Tombstone welcomes dogs:


Inside the Tombstone Epitaph, a newspaper which has been published continuously since the 1880s. Just an old softy?


Think again!


The Boothill Cemetery grave of a man mistakenly convicted and hanged in Tombstone:


The graves of Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury and Tom McLaury, who were killed at the OK Corral on October 26, 1881:


Mt. Lemmon looms over Tucson. In the time it takes to drive the 22 miles to its peak, the landscape changes from scorching desert to snow-covered pine forest!

Overlooking Tucson from a low point on Mt. Lemmon:


The Seven Cataracts (waterfalls) on Mt. Lemmon:


The top two waterfalls:


Sometime in the past, a van went over the side and into the canyon at the Seven Cataracts:


Hoodoos on Mt. Lemmon:






A Mexican jay on Mt. Lemmon:






A Beaudry neighbor climbing to his roof to photograph the March 29th sunset:




The Beaudry RV Resort is beautifully landscaped with cacti, yellow noisette roses, oleander, bottle brush trees, and citrus trees. Everyone is urged to collect as much fruit as they can use, so we froze lots of lemon juice!