We decided to have our Thanksgiving meal yesterday instead of today. With Margo baking all day, and Sarah wanting to stay home (she
never wants to go out), I came up with an outing for myself. I'm rarely in our car, so the idea of the open road and some nice tunes sounded good.
After consulting maps, I decided to explore what is effectively a single road. If you start at the Western edge of Vancouver in the University of British Columbia and head east on Broadway, it will be renamed as Lougheed Highway at the Vancouver-Burnaby border (Boundary Road). Lougheed then proceeds about 125 km along the northern shore of the Fraser River, ending just about at the resort community of Harrison Hot Springs and passing through the tri-cities of Port Moody, Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam as well as Mission and Dewdney.
I stopped in Mission to briefly look around. I knew there was something like a monastery on a hilltop there, but after a few minutes of driving around the city centre, even going uphill a bit, I didn't see any references to it, so continued East.
Harrison Hot Springs is a small resort town at the bottom of Harrison Lake. I didn't stay more than a few minutes but did see a public pool that appeared to be fed by natural hot springs. But the natural beauty is a draw and many hotels and resorts are there to accommodate visitors.
Natually the focus of the city planning is the waterfront. At the end of the road there's a nice gathering place.
Here's the lake. It extends for hundreds of kilometers. In the centre is one of its larger islands. The southern end is more broad and shallow; the northern end is more fjordlike, narrow and deep.
A large pool has been built at the waterfront, ringed by sand.
On the way back, traffic slowed to a crawl. For a while all I could see was a moving van going very slowly along the side of the road, holding up traffic behind it. Turns out it was a support van for what looks like a skateboard-related fundraising activity.
Approaching Mission from the East, it was easy to see the spire of Westminster Abbey, which wasn't visible from the West. I worked out which road to take up toward it and was soon parked. Much of the grounds are closed to visitors but a path has been provided to a lookout point, giving a fabulous view of the Fraser river and valley.
Here's the main building of the Abbey and its tower.
At the bottom of the Abbey's drive, instead of turning right and rejoining Lougheed, I turned left onto Dewdney Trunk Road, which I knew rejoined Lougheed just before the Pitt River bridge. I'm glad I did. Traffic was much lower and the drive more exciting. I saw lots of motorcycles, a sign of a good road to drive. Soon enough the road hit suburbia, widening to two or more lanes, and I could see distant condo towers, so the rest of the ride back was a slog. But it was a nice afternoon drive overall.
