road trip 2021 i'm just coming up to hope british columbia
best known as the sleepy town which was visited by john rambo in the movie first blood
they drew first blood not me now when you're coming into hope heading east you're going to
have to make a decision because the road splits into three different directions
if you continue on the number one the transcanada highway it goes north to the gold rush trail
and you're going to end up in places like boston bar hell's gate eventually ashcroft
or if you head due east you're gonna take the number three which is the crow's nest
and that winds its way sort of along the southern border of british columbia
into the okanagan but today we're going to go to kelowna so the quickest way to do that
is to take the number five the coquihalla when the coca-cola or the coke as it's known opened up in
the mid-1980s it offered to travelers a quicker way to get to the interior of british columbia
it's not as scenic as the number one which travels through the freezer canyon
but it does save travelers a lot of time so it kind of became the route of choice
and not too far away from here you can visit the othello tunnels
which is a series of train tunnels that wind its way through the coquihalla canyon
always a cool stop and i like to try and stop there when i can
so in summer this is a fairly easy route
but by the end of september early october the weather changes and it becomes treacherous
and the coquihalla has its own tv show because of it it's called highway through hell
which focuses on a crew of tow truck drivers which work to rescue vehicles and keep the road clear
during the winter months but let's hope today things stay clear for us as we make our trip
up towards kelowna the coquihalla more or less follows the route of the kettle valley railway
that used to run through this uh area and here we're at the first snow shed some bears up there
and we start to get some real elevation here
heading up towards the summit
my ears popped is the elevation change
there we are coquihalla summit we made it there aren't too many places to stop along
the coquihalla with services but we're coming up on the britton creek rest area
so i think i might stop and have a quick leg stretch samosas
we're here there we go this plaque commemorates the
30th anniversary of the coquihalla being opened on may 16 1986.
there's a map of the coquihalla
there's already started right down there by hope and we are coming up the number five
at merrit we're gonna cut across to kelowna and that's our first stop for the night all
right we're on an adventure so here's something i've never tried before it's rest stop samosas
so i got one veggie samosa and one chicken samosa and never thought i'd see rest stop
samosas but kind of excited about it here we go a little fresh air and a samosa
yeah that'll hit the spot
starting to see signs of the recent forest fires just a couple of weeks ago the interior of bc
was completely on fire we hadn't had rain in weeks and weeks and it seemed like there were fires out
of control everywhere right now i'm seeing a few wisps of smoke here and there and i can smell a
little bit of the forest fires but this is nothing like it would have been even a couple of weeks ago
all of this completely scorched you can see the bottoms of the trees completely burnt out
so not too long ago the fire was right up next to the road right here
coming down the hill to cross the lake into kelowna
pretty view of the lake
but i did want to end the night with something interesting so let's have dinner
inside this pub that's housed in a 1926 cn train station
the train station pub is housed inside a historic canadian national railway
train station the building was constructed in 1926 to accommodate passengers and light
freight brought to kelowna by the newly constructed canadian northern railway
almost 100 years later this building has been designated a heritage railway station by the
government of canada and lives on as a lively spot filled with good food and friendly people
that's it this is home for the night comforting and suites kelowna
looks decent so today was mainly a travel day but tomorrow we have lots of fun stuff lined up
so i'm gonna crash and we'll see you back in the morning until next time