So. What Happened Next after Camp Dog...(and Mom Researches Some Weird Town Names...)

When Mom last wrote a post for me she told you all about what happened when I was Moyo, Camp Dog and the stuff we did there. That was at Kruger Lake, which was in the middle of the BC COLD PLACE on the other side of Wells.

After we left our friends who live in Quesnel and have that camp, we drove on our way to get to a part of British Columbia which was a bit warmer because WINTER WAS COMING!

Dad and me, Moyo. In The Noahbago.

We drove back down the way we had come so we went through a lot of the places we had visited on the way there and then we took a turn off that road and started to head towards Our Destination - which was The Fraser Valley.

We stopped and stayed a night at a place called Spences Bridge, which was right on a Very Big River and then the next day we drove and drove - all of us, Dad, Mom, The Bastards and me, Moyo - until we got to...

Spences Bridge

Very dry in Spence's bridge...much like the Karoo area in South Africa.

But first, let me tell you about Yale. That was an interesting place, indeed. And it came after a town called SPUZZUM. Yes, exactly. Spuzzum. We also don't know.

Here is Spuzzum

And here is Yale...

But Yale, now. Yale is a teeny, tiny village which sits right in the mountains and it has beautiful. big trees and an incredible sense of Time: Captured. There are Old Houses there which have been there since the start of that village - and it used to be a Mining Town. Now not many people live there because it is quite remote - but when we stopped to have some lunch, Mom and me, Moyo got talking to an Old Man outside the shop. And then Dad came to join us and we spent about an hour just listening to him.

Mostly, though? That hour was spent trying to UNDERSTAND what he was saying. And it was not so much that he did not have many teeth in his head that made him hard to understand, but that his English Canadian was....ummm...just Very Hard To Follow. So moist (Freudian typo, maybe??)MOST of the time? That Old Man talked and Mom and Dad just Nodded Their Heads. And hoped for the best as they did.

It's entirely possible that there were times they should have been Shaking Their heads. Or Laughing. Perhaps even Frowning. But it was Impossible to be Sure. Also, Mom shared her biscuits with him and, because of the Singular Lack of Dental "Splash Shield" that beset that delightful Old Man, we all got a little covered in (Somewhat!) Masticated Biscuit.

I was happy about that as I am Very Good at Hoovering up crumbs and stuff. Mom and Dad, though? They were not quite as happy. Nevertheless, a Happy Biscuit Crumb Covered / Biscuit Crumb Hoovering Up Hour was spent, and even if Mom and Dad's necks were a tad stiff after all that Nodding, it was a lovely experience. We think. Hard to be certain. We only wish we had understood him. He may well have been giving us the Directions to A Vast and Immensely Valuable Hidden Treasure. It was not possible to tell.

So after cleaning up and removing stray biscuits, Dad said ROAD TRIP and we piled back into The Noahbago and headed on to our destination...but not before we drove through...SQUEAH.

And this is what Mom said: WTF is it with these names? I want someone to sit down and give me a history lesson on them.

And Dad said Perhaps that is exactly what Old Biscuit Spit was doing...

And Mom said GAH! You probably find that in a hundred years that village will have been renamed Biscuit Spit - and some poor traveller will be in exactly the same boat we are in right now...wondering how the fuck that even happened?

Dad said Well, if you stop and think about it, Mom, that's probably precisely how places get their names. Consider Pofadder. (*Translates from the Afrikaans as Puffadder - which is a nasty snake in Africa)

So Mom did.

Then she said And what about PutSonderWater? (* Pit without water - South Africa)

Dad nodded and said Yup. And how about...

And right at the same time, Mom said Exactly the same thing...how about TweeNuffelsMetEenSkootMorsDoodGeskierFontein!! (Two Buffalo Killed Stone Dead By One Shot Fountain - South Africa)

Some Pictures to PROVE those places Do Exist...

And that was the end of the discussion on strange town names. At least until Mom started Googling them and almost wetting herself over names like:

Anus, France...Beaver Lick, Kentucky...Intercourse, Pennsylvania. ...Idiotville, Oregon. ...Toad Suck, Arkansas. ... and Ding Dong or Cut and Shoot in Texas.

But at least all that hilarity meant that Mom did not Seat-Snooze which she tends to do when we travel in The 'Bago and before too long we drove through a town with the normal sounding name of Hope, British Columbia....followed by Chilliwack. Which was where we were heading, notwithstanding the connotations, varied and sundry, THAT name conjured up for Mom.

Just outside the city of Chilliwack, we found an RV park at Bridal Falls run by an ancient German called Ziggy - and so we decided we would stop and stay there in that neat, ordered and precise RV park where the cedar trees all did as they were told and stood in neat, precise lines. And there we stayed for a month!

It was Snowy in Bridal Falls - even if it wasn't as much as at Kruger Lake. Did told Mom to stop worrying about my feet getting cold. He showed her that I grew Good Labrador Hair on my Tootsies against the snow and ice and such shit.

Now in Chilliwack, it's not as cold as it was up in Quesnel but it does rain quite a lot - which means that all around it was still very green and reminded Mom and Dad of where they come from in South Africa. Also? The people in Chilliwack were lovely. Dad met his other friend who has a brewery in Chilliwack and we would go and visit there sometimes - especially when there was live music being played.

Those were afternoons and nights that Mom really liked because Mom will dance her feet right off if she is given even a split second's chance.

Dad just watched Mom and smiled.

At Flashback Brewery in Chilliwack

We met some Good People in Chilliwack – and it’s a place we could live in Canada, for sure. We thank Gord and Stephan and Cristal for their kindnesses and friendship.

Now. What comes after Chilliwack? Mom will tell all about this soon – and it’s an important story because something happened after Chilliwack which went Very Far to Cement for us that being In Canada IS the Very Best Thing. So Keep Following my stories to hear About That.

Posing at a HUGE Mural painted outside a restaurant in Bridal Falls...Dad and JesusJones in The 'Bago...and an old neon sign that Mom really liked!