Sept 21,
First of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY LORNE HOLLAND!!!
We're still here at Christina Lake.  Can't beat it for location, weather or peace & quiet!  We're heading out tomorrow tho - to Nelson, BC.
We took a drive yesterday for something to do - towards Grand Forks and Greenwood.  We'd read some interesting stuff about Greenwood and their ghost town and deserted mine and it sounded interesting.
After arriving in Greenwood we dropped into the Visitor's Information Centre to get directions.  What a hoot! 
We were met with a big smile and hello from a lovely older gal.  She wondered what on earth brought us to Greenwood and told us right away:  "There's no shopping here today!"  "Hmmm" we said "we really weren't interested in shopping so that's ok".  "There's no restaurants open today either!"
"Hmmm ... ok ... is there at least a coffee shop open?"  She looked genuinely confused and thought a bit.  "I don't think so".  Now ... Greenwood is small.  VERY small.  And the information lady doesn't know about a coffee shop?  And why is everything closed?? 
Finally she offered an explanation of sorts:  "Our water has been tampered with!!" Oh?  "Yes, all we can do is flush our toilets!!"  Seems like that would have been a good place to start but hey ... she was very nice and really sweet so how can you be grouchy with her?

Linda Prospecting

Okey-dokey.  What about Phoenix Road up to the abandoned mine?  We got a blank look, then she proceeded to rummage around in the pamphlets and produced one with a flourish.  "Here it is!!"  Ok ...not much of a map ... how do you get there?  After a puzzled look she started telling us to "go down the road and turn at the place where there's 2 stores for sale ... although there IS a lot for sale right now so you might not find it."  And:  " then go to the old smoke stack - but don't go in there - and then turn and go up that road on the" (here she proceeded to start turning in circles trying to figure out if it's right or left.)  Ok ... no problem we said ... we'll find it.

Water bomber

Well, we did but after about an hour of roaming around very BAD logging roads we found a memorial to the lost town and that was about it.  We had to ask directions from some German tourists in a camper for directions on the way down.  But we did see a momma bear and 2 cubs! 
We also find some spots where there was old tailings from the mine and I found some interesting stones ... copper?  Gold??  Don't know.
When we got back to Dora we had a good show of water bombers scooping water for the nearby forest fire.  They went all day and were quite noisy but entertaining!

Trestle on Trans Canada Trail

Bruce got out for some mountain biking and said it was spectacular - neat trestles and magnificent view.  Good thing I didn't go as it was close to 30C and the trail went up for about 2km before leveling out. 

Wonderful night!

That night was spectacular with our Campfire in a Can, a glass of wine for me, Scotch for Bruce and a calm evening looking at the lake and watching the bats do their ballets in the sky!