This was our last stop with the RV and it had been my good intention to write about this fabulous campground and to recommend you stop there if you were driving Highway 33 through the Kettle Valley between Highway 3 and up through to Kelowna.

But our holiday memories became memories in a final sense of the word starting yesterday.

British Columbia’s forest fire situation has become personal, and that campground is burning. Depending on which newsfeed you read, between 750 and 1300 hectares of forest is “aggressively” burning and 270 homes in the Rock Creek area have been evacuated. It’s hard to estimate accurately because of billowing, thick smoke. How very scary for those people.

It was a beautiful campground…one of the best I’ve been to in BC.

Stands of ponderosa pine with bunchgrass along the banks of the Kettle River, with the abandoned right-of-way of the historic Kettle Valley Railway running through it for walks and bike rides. Swimmers could jump off the old trestle bridge into the river. Recreation opportunities for canoeing and inner tubing…it was fabulous.

The campground was lovingly maintained. Pristine and peaceful. The bathrooms were brand new, and cleaner than clean. A playground for kids. Lots of great things for families.

It was the trees that I really remember.