Yesterday I shopped for the mountain tourism business at Nuk Tessli. Most summers I would be in the mountains for 4 months with very little opportunity to acquire the kind of food I prefer to eat (ie not convenience food.)  This year friends will be coming in mid July so I can ask them to bring anything I might have forgotten – which is good news as I could not find the list I made at the end of the season last year!  Nonetheless, it was a prodigious shopping expedition.  I spent around $2,000, mostly on food although I bought a couple of chimney parts.  I fetched some items from 100 Mile so drove for about 9 hours total and shopped for at least 7 hours.  (About 40 minutes was spend visiting.)  I left at around 5.30 am, not long after sunrise, and got home 10.30 pm.
As I like neither driving nor shopping this was a gruelling day.

The weather, however, was gorgeous.  (The sun rises around 5.00:am right now.)

A sharp frost after the rain of the day before created lots of mist.

This is a slough not far from Ginty Creek.  You can just see Finger Peak on the left.

In case I did not get back that night, I dropped my dogs off with friends who have recently bought the Paradise Resort on Eagle Lake, which is not far from Tatla Lake on Highway 20.

Around there, highway 20 is unfenced and designated open range.

As at the Precipice, the ranchers had turned their cows out over the weekend.  They are always skittish with cars at first, particularly the calves who have never seen traffic.  Combined with the fog this made for hazardous driving.

Towards Williams Lake the country gets lower and grassier (as opposed to being almost exclusively forest.) Loud  Western Meadowlarks’ songs burst through the window of the car as you drive by.  And on the East Chilcotin was a lovely display of balsamroot daisies.

These leafy plants are good to eat for both livestock and humans.  An absence in a field indicates overgrazing.  It was good to see that some areas were solid yellow with blooms.