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

where in the world are sam and keisha...?

so, there are about seven places that we have been that i haven't wrote about yet, and well... i'm kind of sick of living in the past and getting further behind each week! just know, i will post about those places we have been to--only later. deal?

k, so right now we are in port alberni, bc. which is on vancouver island. we arrived today and were greeted by the most magnificent fall weather and a rain storm. score.

i am currently in the trailer catching up on some work and hoping to make arrangements for salmon fishing later this week. this place is world famous for it, and i couldn't be more excited! i hope it happens. i am also desperately wanting a shower, and little peyton already had one as she was outside during the rainstorm. whoops.

so she is drying off and i am ferociously typing away on the keyboard to catch all those who follow our journey on this here blog up to the here and now. you're welcome.

p.s. i would like to mention that we are now into month five of the gypsy life. what a feat!

Pause.

My amazing Tia Betty sent me this speech by Maria Shriver entitled, "The Power of the Pause." I took a lot from it and thought that maybe some of you could use the reminder as well.

 

photo via here

i said i was a gypsy.

i've been listening to this song a lot. and it makes me laugh because, well. this is like our life. we are just traveling around and around and around. and did you know that part of the exact definition of a gypsy in the dictionary is: "a person who leads an unconventional life" and "a person who moves from place to place as required by employment?" i mean i was a self proclaimed gypsy, but i didn't realize i was the definition of one.

it's more than that though... i've had a lot of time for self discovery out here. and there is so much inside of me that is "gypsy-like" if you will. it's not the fact that we move from place to place. it's how my thoughts move around so quickly inside of my brain from place to place--never staying exactly still, never settling on one topic. it's how my ambitions change from day to day. it's just all the change, all the time. 

and like this song "passenger." i feel some days that i am dragging samuel along with me, from mood to mood, idea to idea, city to city. and he comes home and just looks me in the eye and diagnoses my crazy. and gets me a ginger ale when i need it. because it's not just for sick bellies, it's for overwhelmed souls too. and then he cuddles me and helps me make sense of all my gypsy tendencies. he listens and nods when i make no sense. and even though i know i'm crazy he refuses to believe it.

and that makes me happy.

because a gypsy soul like mine needs that constant. and he knows it. so he's always bringing me back to earth, always reminding me how good we have it. and sometimes i look at him, and i look at me. and i think, 'we are so  different. how in the world did we ever end up together?' i don't think either of us really know the answer to that; but we are so grateful we did. and we wouldn't have it any other way.

so he let's me cry over silly things, and he guides me through my tantrums. and he puts a movie on for me while he does the dishes because he knows it's been one of those days. and then i cry because i am supremely grateful that i am blessed to have such a good friend and such an amazing husband all wrapped up into the same person. and that he is so willing to be my passenger and try to make all of my travels--internal and external--a little bit easier.

Creston

creston, bc was to be our next adventure. but i was sad to leave that bridge over the kettle river in grand forks. it was just so much fun. creston turned out to be another fun little town, though. plus, even if i didn't like it we wouldn't have had to stay long! (perks of being a gypsy you guys).

this little town holds some dear memories for me. it had so much character. it was just like, the flowers on the street lights and the old time theater. you know? mostly though, i just loved running in the morning with my husband. we ran every single morning while we were there and it was fun! amazingly. and one morning we saw this:

which reminded us of our dear friends who left us while we were in chase. and it made us sad. but also happy because they are such good friends and we can't wait to hang out with them again this winter!!

a funny story from creston...

one day i decided that i was going to be productive and do some laundry. so, i loaded up all the clothes into our laundry basket, grabbed the detergent, bleach, oxy-clean spray (because duh, that stuff does wonders), and fabric softener (because, well, no one hates soft clothes!). so i proceeded out the door awkwardly holding all of these laundry supplies in my hands because our basket was too full to try and fit them in there.

now, the laundromat was across the highway from where we were staying, right next to the dairy queen; where, mind you, a group of four old men sat everyday for hours eating their vanilla cones and talking up the talk. what they were discussing for that long none of us will ever know. but they were there nonetheless, every single day, for hours. like i said.

so as i am approaching the crosswalk right in front of the men, something horrible happens. my hands start feeling like they were going to give up on holding all that bleach and detergent and oxy-clean spray and fabric softener and dryer sheets! (which i forgot to mention earlier, but as you can see we like our clothes extra soft around here). and i was thinking, oh no! am i going to have to set all of this stuff down in the middle of the street right now and rearrange in front of all of these old men who will most certainly talk about this for days, even weeks, to come!? *breath*

but instead i gritted my teeth and i held on and kept holding on until i had safely kicked open the door to the laundromat, thrust my way inside and set all of my clothes-cleaning supplies down on a folding table like a real-life classy lady. and then i realized that classy ladies probably don't parade their dirty laundry across main street in downtown creston. and then i looked down and in my attempt to keep the bleach steady, i had somehow gotten some on the front of my shirt.

but i didn't want to take the car, because it was just right across the street... you know?

creston in my mind:

yoga in the park

lemon scones

raspberries

hauling that laundry

running in the mornings
the old guy who gave us the door & his story

reading the kitchen house

midnight movie

summer night walk

the mosquitos (sooo many of them)

ticket to ride, like every night

those old guys in front of dairy queen

becoming the oa

those dishes. ugh.