Weeks 2-3 Barkerville and a whole lot

Well we ended our second week on a trip to barkerville.  Our trip started off on a bumpy road, we had wanted to leave at 6 am, but the night before noticed our tire was low, and everywhere was closed.  So 7 am Jeff drove to kal tire to get it replaced.  The nail in the tire was at an odd angle and it took almost 2 hours to repair.  So we were off like our typical heard of turtles at just after 9 am.  After a few struggles with car sickness and dropping off ginger we arrived at wells around 6 pm.  We found a super cute motel after I curled my nose up at the other possibilities, Jeff made fun of the fact I wanted luxury.  We had one of the best dinners I have ever had at the bears paw just across the road.

Next morning we woke up early and headed to barkerville for opening time.  Poor nathan wasn't doing so well in the morning he had one of his mood swings and hated being there, it was stupid etc.  Jeff and I were rolling our eyes I believe as we knew nathan would love the place.    But his poor eyes were twitching and he was miserable.  We sat down to eat, and the rest of us tried to enjoy our meal.   Thankfully by the end of the meal nathan had suddenly returned to normal, if not on a slight high.  We left the restaurant and he ran all over trying to see everything.  We railed him in and headed to our first experience which was a tour of barkerville.  We all loved this one and the general information we recieved.  

So day one we explored a lot on our own and did the following shows.  

- introduction tour 1 hour long

- billy barker tour 40 minutes a new feature now that they have discovered where his claim was. 

- musical at the theatre.  We really enjoyed this musical- even more so that it was heated inside and we were freezing, we didn't bring toques with is and nathan and Jeff were wearing shorts.  I think it felt like it was going to snow. 

- waterwheel - this one was great and we were able to discus the mechanics of it after and discuss the energy involved.  The guides were great with this one, although we did catch some wrong information when she said there was no mechanical energy involved, what she meant was there wasn't any electrical energy, thankfully we had just learned about this.  

The day was rainy but we still enjoyed our time.  We explored a lot on our own and headed to the hotel at about 5 pm

Just when we were trying to settle down for bed, Nathan got restless, and then ended up with headache and lots of weird aura.  This aura lasted until he fell asleep about 12:30, he was having such a hard time falling asleep because of the aura, even when he closed his eyes he was seeing things.  He was having alice and wonderland affect as well, he saw icicles hanging from the ceiling.  Lots of lots of interesting things he was seeing, but hard to sleep during.

Day 2 

There were a bunch of the activities and shows that we still had left to see and we wanted to compete in the amazing race challenge they were having in the afternoon, so we arranged our time very carefully. 

- school room experience- wow kids think I'm awesome now, and they thoroughly enjoyed seeing daddy get in trouble, Jeff definately felt like he was back in school

- courtroom experience in Richfield.  This was a 1/2 hour walk away, it was a murder trial, definately gave us an understanding of life in those times.  The walk back gave us a lot of time to discuss the case and circumstances around it. 

Chinese school - this was a totally different experience, they focused less on the discipline and more on what you would learn in a Chinese school.  We worked with an abicus, and leaned Chinese calligraphy.  Gigi loved the calligraphy.   

Right after this was the amazing race.  This was the best part of the day I think.  We worked as a team and were given challenges.  Some only one member could complete, some all of us.  We had to do things like find a spittoon brush in a store, I had to grind a 1lb of coffee the old fashioned way.  Lots of trivia questions and the best challenge of all was the one we picked Jeff to do!  It was a chilli eating challenge.  He could pick fire or ice chilli.  Of course he picked ice thinking it would be less hot chili.  What he got was really smoking hot chilli frozen in ice cubes and one of those ginormous bread bowls.  It was the funniest thing ever tring to get Jeff to eat the entire bowl.  Jeff was already tring to finish and someone else came in to attempt the challenge.  She was an amazingly fast eater and we thought she would win, but her stomach could not handle the heat!   Poor Jeff we were laughing so hard and he managed to shove the last bits in his mouth, run out and spit it out ha ha it was a 45 point challenge!  

We ended up coming in third place and the only one disappointed was Jeff, he thought we should have won for all the suffering he was going through, I am still laughing as I wrote this!  I wish I had pictures, I was having to much fun to take pictures of him.   

Next morning we left for Prince George.  I think we had a pretty relaxing time here and we all really enjoyed the Canucks training camp.  Nathan most especially!  His favorite player skated up and have his stick to nathan.  He could not believe his luck.  

I wish we had more pictures but all I can say is we were having too much fun to take pictures!