The Jeep Brothers Go On A Road Trip - Day Four - Last Day

"Welcome to Salmon Arm" ..........  That's what the sign says, and we awoke to a great last day of the road trip in sunny Salmon Arm.

We started off our day of caching at a tiny neighbourhood park at the edge of a suburb looking for a tricky cache. Well, I guess my morning cup of English Breakfast worked just fine, as I walked right over to it and picked it up right away. It's always good to start the day with a "find", makes you feel so much better about yourself.  :)

The next couple were just a block or two away near a lake front park. One cache was tucked away out on the long pier sticking out into the lake. It was a little cool first thing in the morning walking out on the water with a bit of a wind...it cut right through the light weight clothes we had on. Oh well, we considered it invigorating (rather than considering ourselves stupid for not dressing warmly) and we made the best of the lack of pedestrian traffic on the pier. Ed (that's me) was busy taking pictures while Bowser98 and MrTJ diligently found the cache - was again teamwork works well for me.....  :)

Next cache was located along an elevated pedestrian walkway over the tidal marsh right in front of a senior citizens complex, and of course all the windows facing the lake are big picture windows, and of course all the senior citizens are up early watching out the windows. Not much to do about that, except ignore any one watching and go find the cache. We needed the ling arms of Bowser98 to ferret out this cache from it's hidey hole, all the while hoping he doesn't drop it....it's a long way down and pretty mucky to retrieve it.  :(

Done with the water front, we headed back into town towards a BC Government office located off in another suburb and this cache was a wee bit tricky. You see, the cache is hidden in a 10 foot tall and 80 foot long retaining wall, and...the cache is well camouflaged to fit in with the look of the wall. Once again my morning cup of English Breakfast tea aided my geosenses and after about 20 minutes of looking I spotted the well hidden little bugger. Man, we were happy to find that one!

A few blocks away up on the highway was an easy pick me up cache, but it provided a nice view of the Shuswap Valley and Salmon Arm itself. It's always rewarding to see an area from above, you get such a better idea of the town is like.

The next couple of caches we did were almost right across the street from each other...well, actually they were! The were on the banks of the Salmon River, so named from the salmon that come back to spawn every year. One cache was an earth cache, the other a regular cache located along a shaded part of the river.

ABOVE: tjguy98 holding his GPS at the Salmon River Earth cache

Earth caches are always interesting as you learn so much about the local area both from a geological view, and conversely, a human point of view, as invariably the landscape shapes the history of our forefathers who were in the area. Here's some things I did know about the Salmon River before we discovered the Earth cache: there are 6 rivers in BC named "Salmon River", the one I see the most is the small one that runs past the site of Derby in Langley, the location of the first Fort Langley; the Salmon River arises in the cattle ranching area of the famous Douglas Lake Ranch, the Canada's largest working cattle ranch, a small non-descript Salmon Lake known for good fishing is the head waters of the river that lazily flows past downtown Salmon Arm and into Shuswap Lake miles later.

We poked around the city of Salmon Arm for most of the day, finding a few city caches and the occasional cache on the hills above the city lending good views up and down the lake.

Our last cache in the area was at an urban farm, where they had a small grocery store on site selling local products fresh off the surrounding fields. What we liked about this was the fact the farm had taken the time to collect old farm tractors and turn them into a bit of a showcase of snippets of life on the farm way back when.

Now, not that I'm a great aficionado of farm tractors, but I do appreciate it when someone goes out of their way to preserve a bit of our past for all to enjoy.

And, to ensure we did our part in helping the farm, we popped into the shop and picked up snacks for the road! Hey, it's the least we could do!

OK, it's the end of the caching adventure for this road trip - we've maxed out our daylight of caching in the area, time to hit the road and dead head all the way back to the Lower Mainland on the Coast.
We didn't pick up as many caches as we thought we might; we opted to pass up on quantity in order to maximize our sight seeing in the cities we passed through and in the surrounding lands we passed over. I think we all agreed spending most of the afternoon wandering the forest roads outside of Kamloops was the most scenic and enjoyable for all of us. We could have built up our totals had we skipped the countryside and just concentrated on the densely packed cities, but that wouldn't be keeping with the spirit of a "road trip" now would it?  :)

Thanks for reading this 4 parter story of "Jeep Brothers Go On A Road Trip"
All pictures I've taken for all my caching adventures can be found on my Flcikr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjguy98/
Videos I've done can be found on my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/tjguy98
56 wonderful videos await your perusal!  LOL

Until next time.....
(tjguy98 rests his pen)