It's Hard Being Too Popular!

Although not intact until after we'd eaten breakfast, I was fairly sure we had a good plan hatched for BC Day. We might take a little ride to the Buntzen Lake in Anmore, BC.  It's close to a 15-mile drive.  Even if we didn't bring a picnic lunch, we could enjoy a few hours in the bright sunshine, or so I thought.   But the standard English version of the Robert Burns poem goes:

"But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!"

Seven years ago, we picnicked with friends at Buntzen Lake.
It was not to be.   I guess half of the province, or at least most of the Lower Mainland, had had the exact same thought. Perhaps if we'd headed out by 8:00 am, we may have found a place. Yet by mid-morning, the parking lots were full. I mean they must have been extremely full.  We didn't get within the gates at Buntzen for the line up. Then, as everyone else, we tried our luck at Belcarra Regional Park as long as we were in the area. Again passing several kilometers of cars of the adverturous parked along the roadway, we encountered a full car park.  It was a little sad but not quite the disaster as penned by Bobby.

I did get a bit lost. My phone's GPS swiftly pointed me in the right direction out of some unknown streets in North Burnaby. I set the navigation for Deer Lake Park. I wondered if there's be a place to shoehorn the Ranger for a visit there. Luckily it was not full and with good reason as there's really not a beach worthy of swimming. I suppose that the mercury barely hit 24C (74F), so that wasn't a problem. It's about five miles from the house! Regardless, it was nice to look at the water and the reflection of today's terribly-blue sky.


We stopped for a bit at Deer Lake in Burnaby on BC Day.