Thanks to covid-19, my vacations will be close to home this summer. Thankfully, my husband and I live in a very beautiful part of the world and enjoy camping and hiking in the backcountry. We just picked up a new-to-us travel trailer that’s a little bigger than our previous one, so we are looking forward to a lot of camping beside quiet mountain lakes this summer, where we can paddle our kayaks and soak up some nature. Ah, bliss…
And so, in June’s Sunday Editions, I’m going to take you to some of our favorite camping spots in southeastern British Columbia, Canada. We’ll be going back to some of them this summer for sure! Today’s photos are from Elk Lakes Provincial Park.
Winners this Week
If you’re a winner, you should have received an email from the author in charge of the giveaway. If not, please email us at: prizes at inspyromance dot com.
Liwen Y Ho’s winner is Rose Lasker!
Marion Ueckermann’s winners are Jessica B and Pat Tomlinson!
Deb Kastner’s winner is Sonetta Jones!
Congratulations!
Don’t forget… every comment you make qualifies you to win one of the monthly Amazon card giveaways! Our May winners are Patty and Dalyn!
Specials this Week
Liwen Y Ho’s novel The Sweetest Spark will be free through June 8.
Elizabeth Maddrey’s series bundle Operation Romance Complete Collection is $2.99 through June 9.
Valerie Comer’s series bundle The Riverbend Romances is $2.99 through June 9.
Valerie Comer’s series bundle Garden Grown Romance: The Complete Collection is $3.99 through June 9.
Elizabeth Maddrey’s series bundle The Baxter Family Bakery is $3.99 through June 9.
Sally Bayless’s series The Abundance Series: Books 0-2 is $3.99 through June 9.
Reader Gathering
Did you know Inspy Romance hosts a Christian Romance Reader Gathering group on Facebook? This week Heather Gray is hosting a takeover! Join us… but don’t forget to answer the questions for admittance.
Elk Lakes Provincial Park
British Columbia, Canada
Last Week on Inspy Romance
On Monday, Narelle Atkins shared the chaos of Covid for a downunder writer.
On Tuesday, Laurie Larsen announced it’s time to meet the moms… and #giveaway
On Wednesday, Sally Bayless mused about the road home… and #giveaway
On Thursday, Shannon Taylor Vannatter lamented when it rains, it pours… and #giveaway
On Friday, Toni Shiloh shared her summer TBR pile.
On Saturday, Jan Thompson five questions for chef and restaurateur Piper Peyton… and #giveaway
Next Week on Inspy Romance
Monday: Valerie Comer: Interview with Chef Tony Santoro… and #giveaway
Tuesday: Jaycee Weaver: How Being an Empath Impacts My Writing (and everything else)
Wednesday: Elizabeth Maddrey: An Interview with Laura Willis from the Grant Us Grace Series
Thursday: Tara Grace Ericson: Things I’ve learned while researching for a book
Friday: Valerie M Bodden: Summer Reading Survey & Giveaway
Saturday: Heather Gray
Elk Lakes Provincial Park
British Columbia, Canada
New Releases
June 2020
Lavished with Lavender (Urban Farm Fresh Romance 9) by Valerie Comer
The Cowboy’s Missing Memory (Hill Country Cowboys) by Shannon Taylor Vannatter
The Black Sheep’s Salvation (Rocky Mountain Family) by Deb Kastner
Meet the Moms (Matchmaking Moms of Oceanview Church 1) by Laurie Larsen
Second Chance Gift (Pinecrest 2) by Merrillee Whren
May 2020
The Trouble With Love (Faith & Fortune 1) by Toni Shiloh
A Date for Daisy (Bloom Sisters 1) by Tara Grace Ericson
Whatever Happens Next (Everyday Love 4) by Jaycee Weaver
Elk Lakes Provincial Park
British Columbia, Canada
A complete list of Inspy Romance books by our authors is always available on our BOOKS tab. Find our audiobooks, our permanently free e-books, and our thank-you gifts for newsletter subscribers there as well!
Valerie Comer is a USA Today bestselling author and a two-time Word Award winner who writes where food meets faith and fiction. She injects experience laced with humor into her green clean romances. Her life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local foods movement as well as their church. She only hopes her creations enjoy their happily-ever-afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughters.
Hi Valerie. Thanks for sharing the beautiful pictures of the mountains. During this unusual time, I agree with you – I am thankful to live in a beautiful area of the country. With the stay at home order, we could drive by the beach and with our windows down could hear the waves on the shore. Our county has many a state park and many local beaches – staycations. Living in a fruit farming community – the blooming trees uplifted the spirit. Now that the state is slowly reopening – Michigan especially the Detroit area had a high number of Covid 19 cases, day trips will be the norm and virtual travel through post, blogs. Thanks for sharing. Stay safe. Best wishes.
Those are beautiful photos, Valerie, thank you so much for sharing! I am glad you will be able to get back to enjoying the great outdoors soon!
You do live in a beautiful part of the world. So glad you will be able to take advantage of camping in your new trailer. I was planning a trip to Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming with my parents this summer and was looking forward to seeing some similar scenery that is totally different from the area where I live in the Midwest. Unfortunately, it looks like COVID-19 has put our plans on hold.
It’s a year to enjoy the beauty close to home, for sure! Our nearby “big” lake is much smaller than Lake Michigan, but big enough for the open vistas and lapping waves. I’ve got a few photos of it queued up for another Sunday in June.
Glad to hear things are opening up. They are here, too.
We never stopped enjoying the great outdoors :) We weren’t in full lockdown here. It was acceptable to go for walks along the creeks and lakes, so long as appropriate physical distance was maintained. Some parks and other areas were closed, but most were accessible.
Have a great week :)
Covid has put a lot of plans on hold everywhere! We had a big trip planned for this fall, but thankfully we hadn’t put any money down on it yet. My husband’s vacation time was approved just as everything went crazy in early March.
All my photos in June’s Sunday Editions are taken not far north of Montana and Idaho, so I hope you enjoy your virtual vacation through them??? I know. It’s not the same :(
Can’t wait to take a virtual tour with you each Sunday! I’d like to be in the picture you shared today!
Me, too! That was a few years ago, and we haven’t been back. Maybe this summer…
Glad to have you along on the tour :)
What a beautiful view! It’s the kind of place where I would go camera crazy. Worshiping God’s majesty is so much easier when presented with reminders like that!
Isn’t it, though? Majestic vistas feed and soothe our souls and turn us to the Creator. My husband and I desperately need nature to buffer the noisy world and give us time to just rest.
Also, yes, to the camera crazy. And I was still packing a fairly heavy Nikon back then. LOL
Yeah. If it isn’t hanging around your neck, getting in the way and making you wonder what you did with the lens cover, it isn’t a real camera. LOL!
Canada has outstanding natural beauty, so glad you will be able to enjoy it this year,
I’ve got a Canon Powershot now, probably five years old (ish). Lens cover has a cord of its own. The thing is still a little heavy for dangling, especially when hiking, so I usually have it around my neck AND carry it in one hand. So… sometimes I just rely on my phone camera. And that is when we see bears or moose or otters and I desperately wish for the zoom on my Canon. Can’t win sometimes!
Valerie,
What lovely photos! Years ago my hubby and I visited, and again later our family of 3 sons joined us as we re-visited, the Lake Louise/Moraine Lake/Johnston Canyon/Banff area. We camped in a tent and explored the mts, lakes, valleys, canyons, and creeks. It was absolutely gorgeous. We have hopes of returning some day. Is Elks Lakes nearby? It looks very similar to what I remember – breathtakingly lovely! The outdoors are a great way to see God’s hand everywhere, restore hope and a realigned perspective. Enjoy!
We sure do! We have so much beauty it has popped the seams and overflowed into the adjacent areas of the USA! Western Montana and northern Idaho and NE Washington are just as beautiful. Well, almost, anyway… ;)
Hi Penelope! I’m sure that was a fabulous vacation! That is a beautiful area, and just a little bit north of Elk Lakes, all in the Rocky Mountains.
Where Banff and Jasper and Kootenay are national parks and accessed from the Trans Canada Highway (Highway 1), Elk Lakes is provincial and is accessed from the southern trans-provincial highway (Highway 3). It’s also quite a bit further from the cities and highways so it’s more remote and therefore much less visited. And we prefer the quietness and solitude that brings!
Thanks for sharing the gorgeous photos! I live near the coast in northern California, so we’ve been able to do some hikes along the coast, as well as in the redwoods.
We’ve been through your part of the world twice (October 2016 and November 2019). We love the west coast and the redwoods! In November, we road-tripped to a conference in Las Vegas and desperately needed trees and water by the end of a few days there, so we spontaneously came home “the long way” via the central valley then over to Eureka and north on the coast. We had to duck inland again at Newport and head for home so only had one day at the ocean, but it was so great. Now that we’re stuck close to home for the summer with no ocean visit in sight, I’m so glad we did that “little” detour last fall!
Hi Valerie! I hear you about Covid-19 ruining plans :-( My whole family was planning a Spring Break vacation to visit my sister-in-law in Washington ( 4 hour drive) at the end of March. My husband was especially excited because it’s the first “real” vacation he was able to take in ages! His job isn’t one where you can take summer vacations because he works at a resort motel here on the Oregon coast and that is out tourist season. All that changed when things starting going really south because of the virus. My sister-in-law lives in a hot zone for it (Seattle WA area) and by the time we wanted to go, things were starting to shut down! We thought it best to cancel our plans, it was such a bummer let-down though. I don’t know when we will be able to all go up there again, but I’m hoping maybe later in the year. Things are just starting to open up a bit more where we live as we just started Phase 2 yesterday. Here’s crossing fingers we’ll be able to travel again!
I love that you and your husband will be able to camp a bit in some remote and quiet places. That sounds like heaven on earth to me :-) I’m looking forward to seeing your beautiful pictures, your area of the world is beautiful…kind of like here on the Oregon coast. I bet you guys will have a very relaxing time and soak in all God’s beauty in nature!
God bless and happy SONday!
We love the Oregon coast! Almost as much as we love Vancouver Island. There’s just something about the wild Pacific that calls us, as I mentioned in my reply above to Margaret. I wouldn’t mind being quarantined there, but it’s not home, and home is where we are most content longterm…
Here in BC, things have opened up a little, too. I got a haircut!!!! It was so exciting LOL.
Beautiful photos.
No vacation plans for us.
I hope you enjoy your staycation then :) Thanks for coming by!
Hi, Thank you for sharing your beautiful photos. We have no plans for a vacation , maybe when things get back to normal, it’s still kind of scary to just go out and go anywhere. I love to go to the mountains and stay in a cabin , Godwilling one day we will be able to do that again. Stay safe and take care. God Bless you and your family . Have a Great week.
Thanks, Alicia! I’m thankful the mountains and lakes and creeks are close to home, so there’s no risk for us traveling there. Hopefully you’ll get a chance to get out sometime soon! Take care.
Happy Sunday!
Lol :)
You too! Have a great week. :)
I have been to parts of BC and loved them. I spent some time in Gibson on the Sunshine Coast. I Love Pemberton. My friend use to run a B&B there and the view of the mountains is so beautiful. You live in a beautiful part of the world. I did spent time near Toronto (well about an hour away I think) and found I missed the west coast.
I hadn’t been to Pemberton for many years until the fall of 2018 when we drove through there on our way to and from the coast. It was a nice change form driving all the way through Vancouver to the ferry landing, but it did take longer! We also spent some time in Gibsons. My hubby was a great fan of the Beachcombers show on CBC that was filmed there when he was a kid, so that was especially fun. :) Great that we know some of the same places!
I loved the Beachcombers when I was a kid too. It was on here in Australia. I saw the boat and Molly’s reach.
Oh fun! We had lunch at Molly’s Reach the day we were there! I didn’t grow up watching the show (or any show) because my parents were anti-TV. I didn’t live in the same house as a TV until after our second child was born. Which might explain why I never got addicted.