While in Kamloops, we had breakfast at Denny’s. It was the only restaurant we could find nearby which is opened that early. Anyway, Arkensen loves any breakfasts which has hash browns. When we were there, the restaurant were practically empty.

Did you know that Denny’s is largest full service family restaurant in North America? In Canada British Columbia, you can find Denny’s in almost every city and town.

We sat down and ordered 2 coffees ($3.98 each) and 2 frothy hot chocolates ($2.80 each). There are free refills for the coffee.

Since 1977, when the Grand Slam Breakfast is introduced, it has been a very popular breakfast at Denny’s. I ordered the ultimate Grand Slam — the Extreme Grand Slam Breakfast. This consist of bacon, hash browns, sausages and a choice of eggs. The price, $8.59

The Grand Slam also comes with pancakes, soft and fluffy. Made to perfection. Yummy.

Well, as long as there is hash browns, Arkensen will order that. So, he got the Sausage Slam Breakfast with sunny-side up eggs, sausages, and of course hash browns. Looks like a lot of food for a 12 year old, don’t you think? Anyway, Suanne who did not have an order for her own taxed everyone else’s plates. The Sausage Slam Breakfast costs $8.59.

Nanzaro ordered Jr French Toastix which costs $3.69. Wow, a piece of toast and a sausage for $3.69? Way over priced if you ask me.

The total bill came up to $34, including tips. We enjoyed the breakfast, no doubt about it. The restaurant was cozy and the service was great. Well, $34 is not something we would normally want to spend on breakfasts.

This year is what is known as a dominant-year of the salmon spawning run in the Adams River. During the dominant-year, there are substantial returns of Salmon to their spawning grounds which runs into millions. The dominant-year happens every four years (2002, 2006, 2010 …) occurring in October. Every year, the Salute to the Salmon Festival runs for about 3 weeks.

We stayed in Kamloops overnight. Kamloops is the largest town near Adams River. The first stop when we got there was the Visitor Centre, where we picked up the brochures and information about Adams River and Kamloops. Outside the Visitor Centre was a sculpture of the Sockeye Salmon.

The Adams River salmon consists primarily of the Sockeye species. When we got there, we see a lot of birds feasting on the dead salmon. You see, Salmon are born in fresh water, migrates to the sea and after four years, they return to the very same stream to spawn and die.

The Adams River Salmon Run is best viewed from the Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park. This park is created to preserve this world famous salmon run. There were a lot of trails running along the streams, ideal for viewing the salmon from a near distance.

We went early to the park and already the crowd was beginning to build. Almost everyone is armed with a camera.

Although this is a dominant run year, the number of salmon returning was quite disappointing. The numbers were great but they were no near the anticipated numbers. Researchers cited the reasons being the river water temperature this year were higher and water level lower resulting in fewer salmon surviving the journey. We are concerned about the changing climate around us … this could be a sign that over years, the salmon will never return to the abundant levels it used to have.

We have seen photos of dominant run years where people are virtually walking on a sea of salmon.

By the time the salmon returns to the spawning grounds, their body have changed to a red body with a green hooked head. They are at the last moments of their life. They will pair up female and male. The female will lay up to 4000 eggs and the male will shower the eggs with milt and then cover up the eggs with gravel.

The salmon at this stage cannot be eaten.

They then will just die. Needless to say, the whole place smells of rotting fish. No one seems to mind.

The lifecycle starts all over again. In spring the following year, the salmon will hatch and begin their migration to the sea.

There Salmon Festival was well organized. There were a lot of information and demonstration. Below is the roe from the female salmon.

It is a pretty amazing event to witness and great to bring kids to.

We made an overnight trip to Kamloops last month to see the Salmon Run. We wanted to start as early as possible so that we can be in Kamloops in early afternoon.

There were limited places available for breakfast at that early hour. I think it was about seven in the morning. The morning was uncharacteristically foggy in Richmond. Kind of eerie driving down No 3 Rd, I must say.

OK, of late we have been crazy over HK style cafes because of the delicious and plentiful food for under $10. Nanzaro and Arkensen, for some reason, dislikes HK style cafes, in particular Kam Do which Suanne and I loves. Anyway, it was my choice this week — we went to Kam Do for breakfast since we had never tried their breakfast menu.

We had blogged about Kam Do twice (here and here) before.

The table setting is downright simple and efficient. The cutleries came in a basket and left for us to set it up.

I ordered from the Big Bowl Breakfast menu ($6.85). On hindsight I should not have ordered this as this is too much food for me. It came with a bowl of spaghetti and BBQ pork in clear soup.

Nanzaro ordered from the Good Morning Breakfast Special menu ($5.25). He selected the Rice Noodles and Pork Meat in Soup as the main dish.

Nanzaro also get another selection with his Rice Noodles. He chose Pan fried Eggs with Luncheon Meat.

I selected Sauteed Pork Chop with Egg. How is this and the Spaghetti for just over $6? Oh, it also came with Milk Tea too. There are not many places who can offer meals like this for this kind of money.

Suanne ordered from Breakfast Combination Menu ($5.85). For that she had the Chicken & Mushroom Omelette and a couple of Smoked Jumbo Sausages.

That was a heavy breakfast for us. The total bill came up to only $21 (including tips). We’ll blog about the Salmon Run tomorrow.