BC trip - part 4

We stayed with Bill & Martine (my older sister) for the week. They very recently had another baby, but they happened to have a guest room for us. Hank and Karin (my even older(!) sister) live far far away (or so it seemed back in the day... 11km) in Smithers; they didn't have room to put us up, but we bravely made the trek to see them on occasion.

Since Carrie's work currently involves the softwood lumber issue, we thought she should get a tour of the sawmill in Smithers, thereby ensuring that she knows a hundred times more about actual softwood than do her deskbound coworkers fighting for the cause. Hank works at the mill so he gave us a tour of the mill and planer.


All dressed up and somewhere to go. Do we look awesome or what?


I couldn't hear much of the tour spiel over the roar of machinery, but I'm an educated fellow. Each of these logs becomes a pencil, a chopstick, or a toothpick, depending on market conditions; extra-straight trees can produce two toothpicks!


I couldn't take many pictures there -- much less post them -- lest I be persecuted. Or was that prosecuted?

Playing that mandatory game of Settlers...


Enjoying a nice long evening of raclette...


Niece ready to play a sport (really not sure which one)...


The doting aunt...


The longsuffering uncle (will we never learn not to buy stickers?)...


I tracked down an old buddy in town and he told me he happened to be getting firewood that night, so I helped him out. We drove a short ways out of town and cut up some nice trees we, um, found lying around. I'm figuring that 10 years ago when he fixed up his '66(?) Ford he never dreamed he'd end up abusing it by (way) overloading it with firewood. More about him later.