Fernie

this is mount fernie. isn't she a beaut! samuel and i loved this place from the moment we pulled into town. from the guys hitting softballs in the baseball field to the girl that didn't make us pay until the end of the week at the gym, it was a winner. here are some pictures from the yoga studio in the gym we went to that week. it was awesome.

p.s. if you are looking for a gym to join anywhere in eastern bc 

we've pretty much been to them all so don't hesitate to ask! ;)

fernie in my mind:

pitch me a bucket

boston's

that high class mickey d's

a parking lot

mountains e'ry whurr

the smoothies at the gym

singing in the truck

the giant oil derrick

Sparwood

the weekend we left fort steele there was one night in a canadian tire parking lot (ha), and then sparwood. on the drive over we saw a baby black bear on the side of the road. exciting! right? but um, yeah. sparwood is an interesting little town. the mountains are beautiful, and the main attraction is this GIANT truck that was once used for mining.

sparwood is right on the alberta boarder, not too far from fernie, a slightly bigger city where we went to the gym every morning. i wish i had a lot of interesting things to say about our time in sparwood, but mostly, i don't. so here is a picture of samuel and peyton that i happened to take in the trailer one night when we were there. they are so cute.

when i think of sparwood:

hot radiators

black poles in parking lots with black asphalt

a walk with peyton in the dark

imagine dragons

that blasted aux cord

just the two of us

they call it a ghost town.

after a week in cranbrook we decided to spend some time outside of the city for a change and headed to fort steele. i, for one, was ecstatic about the idea because of two things; one, we would be even closer to the mountains, and two, we would be even closer fort steele heritage town.

for all of you who don't know (probably all of you), fort steele was a gold rush boom town founded in 1864 by john galbraith. there is a bunch of interesting history on town name changes and such, but i don't want to go into that here. mainly, i want to talk about how this boom town turned into a ghost town. really it is all the fault of a mr. james baker. you see, the canadian pacific railway wanted to build a station in fort steele, therefore having the railway pass through the town, but mr. baker, a member of the british columbia legislature didn't like this idea. he owned a logging camp nearby called joseph's prairie and wanted the railway to build its station there. after some bribery, blackmail, and one "lost" letter declaring fort steele as the place for the station, mr. baker got his way. fort steele was bypassed by the railway and the station was built in joseph's prairie. mr. baker renamed the logging camp "cranbrook," then sold a lot of land to a lot of people who abandoned fort steele for the more happening city. and fort steele became a ghost town. shoot.

and my story intertwined with this history on august fifth when we went to visit the now heritage town, which is a preserved tribute to the history of the old west, or something. samuel and i really just wanted to take one of those old fashioned photos, you know the ones. they were really busy though, so we went to kill some time and explore the old west. yee haw.

it was almost closing time, so we literally were like two of maybe ten people in the whole place. talk about a ghost town. sam walked with peyton here and there and kept leaving me behind while i snapped photos of basically everything. it wasn't so much fort steele that i was fascinated with, but just the ideas that started bouncing around in my head.

...continued after a million pictures of this beautiful place:

i thought about my life as we wove through these old buildings, watching the sun twinkle through old stained glass, buying old fashioned candy, and opening old, old books inhaling their musty goodness. and i thought about all the situations where i turned my path in a different direction. sometimes it was just a small meander, other times, there were sharp corners. but all these meanders and sharp corners and twists and turns add up. and i thought about all the little ghost towns that lay at various distances away from the track of my life.

there was all this time that was invested, and friendships, and lives that i had spent days, years even building and nurturing only to leave them behind. and part of you, or i guess part of me wonders what would have happened if i had stayed and nurtured those little ghost towns. how would things be different now? if i wouldn't have veered two degrees to the left right then, or if i wouldn't have turned around when i did? what then?

i suppose that there will never be answers to these questions. and how grateful we should all be for that. how amazing is it that life never plays movies of "where your life would be if...." ambiguity. isn't that what makes this experience beautiful? we know not what could have been, only what can be. and we have the power to make it be. how cool is that?

so i'm thankful, for my ghost towns. because i never have to visit them, if i don't want to. and unless they are preserved, they will eventually crumble and decay. and that, my friends, is wonderful. life doesn't wait for you to romance your past. it keeps chugging along, and you are either on board, or you get left behind in a ghost town.

Cranbrook

if you're still following our journey, creston was the last place i blogged about. after we left creston we went on a small trip down to post falls, idaho. we were just getting supplies such as, but not limited to; cheap groceries, and discounted diabetes supplies, and church shoes, and a meal at texas roadhouse, because you know, we are american and all that. we miss that stuff.

here are some sights from that little jaunt.

finally, we made it to cranbrook. it is beautiful there. when you look up all you can see are the bc rockies just towering in the distance. some of thee most beautiful mountains i have ever seen. while we were there peyton and i went to the farmers market with some friends and it was rad. i loved all the little booths with homemade things. from magnets to bread, it was all so lovely. on our walk there and back we saw churches like this:

and benches like this

and houses like this

i went with samuel one day on an adventure up into the mountains and met the sweetest lady in the world. she showed us around her little oasis up there. and when she told us to come back when her apple trees were giving ripe fruit and her grapes were ready, i wanted to tell her how bad i wished we could. but alas, you can never count on gypsies.

she gave us some things to remember her by, though; three old glass jugs, one clear a&w bottle, one unknown green bottle, and one really old brown bleach bottle. she was just as sweet as she was feisty, i think she is the only old lady i know that could handle living up in that untamed mountain country. it was like something straight out of "the man from snowy river."

memories in cranbrook

murderer in the dark

camping in the middle of the city

denny's

peyton's first vet visit

mrs. johnston

the farmer's market

those mountains

yoga

loss

the box game

a birthday to remember.

samuel and i have actually never celebrated his birthday together before so this was a really special one for us both. i don't know about any of you, but birthdays have always been a big deal to me. i mean, when i was growing up i didn't even have to do my chores on my birthday! crazy, i know. that being said, i wanted samuel to know just how special he is to me and i wanted him to feel extra loved and spoiled on his day.

we started the day off in the best possible way. it's called a crepe bar! and it looks like this:

they were super delicious and totally fat free ;) (we wish).

after i sent my cute, birthday-having husband off to work i got busy in the kitchen--where i stayed busy all day! i made him a white cake (from scratch) with lemon buttercream frosting and lemon bars and chicken enchiladas and black beans! all on my travel size stove/oven in our trailer. go me. i know, you're impressed.

so that night we had logan and simon over for dinner. then we sang samuel the happy birthday song and watched him blow out all 24 candles. good thing he wasn't turning 25, candles only come in a pack of 24, i learned. and what a shame it would have been to need two packs for one more lousy candle.. ;)

happy birthday samuel! the seventh of september has never ever been better!!

i love you!  xo