Day 17 - Woodbury to Nelson, British Columbia - 50 Miles

Today was nothing if not intensely interesting and exciting. Though we didn't go far in the RV, only about 50 miles tops, we spent a lot of time "traveling." I ended up with over 21,000 steps and Concetta racked up about 18,000. What were we doing? Well, we did a bit of shopping when we arrived in Nelson opposite the local Walmart. That used up a few steps. But most of the day we spent hiking up hill and down dale in search of Roxanne. Yes, Roxanne -- the movie, which was filmed right here in good ol' Nelson on the very streets that we trod for hours.

Our camp hostess last night gave us a map of the downtown area and told us that if we looked hard enough we should be able to find some of the shooting locations around the business district. But at first we couldn't make sense of anything we saw as we explored the sidewalks along Vernon and Baker streets. At one point, however, Concetta stopped to look at some handmade jewelry that was being sold by a vendor set up on the sidewalk. While I waited, I talked to another nearby vendor whom I thought was a youngster.

Turned out this "youngster" was born in 1981 and was eight years old when Roxanne was filmed in Nelson. When I asked him if he knew anything about where the movie was shot, he scrunched his eyes a bit, looked up and down the street, then proceeded to tell me about how many blocks east the fire station was located, how many blocks north Roxanne's house was located, and how many blocks west a mural of Steve Martin was located.

Excited, we left that interview with a new resolve. Finally we had at least potential destinations. The first thing we did was tackle the steep hills to the east in search of the fire station. Believe me, the hills were steep and we rested often on the way up. During one of our rests we sat with a woman and her son who were also ascending the hill to their house. We all agreed that when you lived in Nelson you immediately get in great shape if you do any walking at all.

Once we had moved on, we almost immediately found the fire station, and though it appeared to have grown some in the last 29 years, it was obviously the correct station. They've either added wings on the original building, or the cinematographer had cropped down tightly to remove the more modern wings so as to make the station look more small and quaint.

With the fire station under our belts, and feeling more confident, we descended Wade Street all the way to Vernon to find the mural. When we found it, we saw that the mural of Steve Martin's C.D. "Charley" Bales was rather crudely done and no small amount of weathering had taken place, but shooting it helped keep our spirits up for all the walking we had to do.

At this point we proceeded north on Vernon Street and unknowingly walked right by the building used for the exterior shots of Dixie's cafe where much of the action took place. At the time we were more concerned with Hume's Restaurant across the street [bottom photo] that we were scoping out for dinner. Besides, the cafe had been altered considerably and we would have had a hard time recognizing it even if we'd been aware of its existence.

Unfortunately we sailed right by the cafe as we walked north in search of the street where the Baker Street vendor had told us we would find the splendid Victorian house that Roxanne had "rented" from Dixie in the movie. The Vendor had said that all we needed to do was go all the way north on Vernon and we would run right into it. Well, all we ran into was a forest of trees and a road that curved away to the west and out of sight.

At the precise moment that we arrived and stood there dumbly, trying to decide what to do, a trio of teens emerged from the forest and walked toward us. Since they were handy, and intended to walk right by us, we stopped them and interviewed them on the subject of Roxanne's house. They seemed to be vaguely aware of the movie, one even saying he'd seen it, but they didn't seem to have any idea where it might be. Still, they managed to illuminate what lay all around us and effectively convinced us that we were in the wrong place.

Once the teens had left, I told Concetta to stay put and I moved off in the direction of the next street to the west in hopes of seeing something that might give me a clue. Once I got down, I immediately saw that no 19th century Victorian houses were down there. As I trudged back up the hill toward where I'd left Concetta, I saw that she was talking to a young woman who was out walking her dog. Once I got within speaking distance, Concetta informed me that the young woman, whose name was Ellie, and who was a native of Grass Valley, California, said that she knew where the house was located.

Ellie started to give us directions, but then said, "How about if I take you at least close to there while walking my dog? We immediately agreed and off we went. Well the first thing that we did is tackle a set of stairs that ran on for about four city blocks, I kid you not. Once we had climbed a couple of city blocks worth, we arrived at Ellie's house and she gave us directions to continue up the hill to find the house. And, as an added measure of assurance, she looked up the address of the house on her IPhone, as well as the address of the cafe, which at this point Concetta remembered seeing and told me we had already passed down near the mural.

Thanking Ellie profusely, we said goodby to this charming young lady, and turned our attention to climbing another two city blocks of stairs toward our goal. It was a long climb, and we were about all in by the time we emerged on Cabonite Street where Ellie said we needed to hang a right and proceed downhill to Hall Street. Once there, Ellie said, you'll be at the house.

Well, as you might expect, we gleefully turned our steps downhill and thoroughly enjoyed not climbing stairs anymore. But our glee was short lived. Once we arrived at the corner of Carbonite and Hall, there was absolutely NO house that resembled Roxanne's. Desperately, I left Concetta in the shade of a large oak, and climbed Hall Street to the next cross street higher on the hill, but no soap, there was no such film location to be found.

At this point I agreed that we were NOT going to find our quarry, and we moved to the next item on our list to photograph, Dixie's Cafe. This one was going to be easy as we already knew exactly where to find it. It still was a considerable walk, but since we were headed for our last photo op of the day, it felt easier.

Once our cafe shoot was over, it was an easy jaunt to the next block to the south where we had made plans to have an early dinner. Having skipped lunch, we felt more than justified in having a big dinner at 4:00 p.m. Before entering the restaurant we responded to a hello by an outdoor diner who was seated right near the entrance. Turned out he was just as much of a talker as me and we spent at least 10 minutes chatting with the guy whose name, quite incredibly, was Nelson. I had to ask him twice since I didn't think I'd heard right. "Yup," Nelson said, "I'm Nelson from Nelson. Lot's of people have difficulty with remembering my name.

It was Nelson from Nelson who clued us about Roxanne's house when we told him what we were doing in town. "Well, you won't find the house here," Nelson said. It's in Vancouver."

"Well, I guess that explains why we can't find it," I said.

"But," Nelson went on, "the house where he rescued the kid from the top of the roof is back there where you were looking if you wanted to see that one."

I shrugged. "I think we're done looking for today," I said. "But we sure appreciate the information."

"And," Nelson said, "the tree where he rescued the cat is up there somewhere on the hill, too."

"Hmm," I said. "Well, listen, I think we'll just go in and eat instead. But thanks for the info and it's been a pleasure meeting you."

Nelson beamed, and I could see we'd made another friend. In fact, Nelson would have been happier, I think, if we had just taken a seat at his table and joined him. But we decided we wanted to eat inside, so bade him adieu. We had already visited the restaurant interior earlier in the day and it was so cool and plush and comfy in there we just didn't want to sit outside in the heat. I think Nelson understood.

After our dinner of fish and chips for Concetta, and seafood fettuccine for me, we got directions to the local camp from one of our waitresses, then set off for the Walmart parking lot to retrieve our home on wheels. We did stop along the way in a video rental shop to see if the proprietor had a copy of Roxanne to sell, but he told us he only had one to rent.

Some minutes and about five blocks later we emerged on the Walmart parking lot, fired up the rig that had spent the whole day nestled next to Kootenay Lake and all the passing sail boats, and headed for the exit. Though we overshot the turnoff the first time around, the municipal camp proved fairly easy to find with Concetta's navigational skills working superbly. There was only one spot left with full hookups when we arrived about 5:30 p.m., but then one was all we needed.

Our own mobile hot spot won't pull in a signal here, but fortunately the municipal Internet connection appears to be pretty good, so having had my shower for the evening and no dinner dishes to clean up, I was able to dive right into the blog. I did tarry a bit to meet our Scandinavian/Irish neighbors who lassoed me when I ventured out to take a photo of the rig in our camp site for the night. I sat with them for a good twenty minutes discussing everything from DNA to Napoleon's invasion of Russia. But mostly we discussed RV types, cool places to see in Canada, and the possibility of us coming to Edmonton to visit them.

Since we don't know where in the country we will be dropping our hook tomorrow night, I was noncommittal with Paul and Shawna's invitation to Edmonton. But these sort of invitations are pretty commonplace. We almost always find that our fellow campers are wonderful, talkative, friendly people. Last night we got the same invitation from our Canadian neighbors, though I've already forgotten where they told me I should come visit them.

But when you get ready to meet your wonderful fellow campers, hit the road, and set out on your own personal quest for adventure, we wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.