We broke camp this morning, packed the bikes, and rode a long and hard kilometre into town for breakfast at Hoss & Jill’s Bistro and it did not disappoint. I was so happy to have a really good latte after a week of less than stellar coffee (except for that really good one in Metaline Falls a few days ago). We popped into the gas station for fuel and to check the tire pressure….stellar… 42lbs after a day of riding and a night of cool temperatures. The repair job is holding.
I’m a little annoyed that I forgot to take a photo of the campsite with the tent set up, but the explosion on the picnic table will have to be sufficient. That and “Wall-E the Headless Ninja Rider” (Google Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner for my inspiration…).
And then we were off, for a ride to Princeton, probably in the most inefficient route possible…
A few km down the road and I pulled off into a rest stop because….shit…it was cold!! We both pulled out additional layers…Kirk put on a rain liner under his jacket….me…a neon yellow rain overshell because…shit it was cold!
The spot we stopped was called Osprey Lookout….and as we donned our additional gear…out of the mists appeared…two osprey!! They dipped and swerved through the mists and it was kinda cool.
Like really cool…which is why we donned the additional gear.
And the… a few more kilometres on….we were well and fully enveloped in increasingly thick fog. Shit…gear down…..gear down again….can’t see shit! Ten minutes on and I pull off and we both wipe our visors …because…can’t see shit!
Those of you out there driving in fog…when you see a motorcyclist…don’t be a dick. You have windshield wipers…we don’t!
The more I ride, the less of a jerk I am as a driver, because I realize more and more what riders deal with on the road.
So, again….when you drive your car/truck…be kind and courteous to motorcycle riders because they are dealing with a lot that you aren’t in your comfortable, climate controlled, windshield-wiper equipped, four wheel, flat tired vehicle.
So yeah, we can go faster in the corners….let us have that! OK?
Because in hot/cold/wet/whatever weather….we are exposed and dealing with it and just trying to stay alive…how about helping us with that?
Part way through the foggy section I pulled over and Kirk announced “I cannot’a see!!” (That was for you Marne!)
We both wiped down our visors with some napkins we’d stuffed in a corner, took a breather, and then carried on to try and make the Needles ferry in time.
I was booking down that highway as fast as reasonable in the hopes of catching the cable ferry, and as we closed in I caught up to a motorhome…which took a bit to get past….and the closer we got to the landing…the more I knew we weren’t;t going to make it.
Missed it by THAT much. Which is to say, by about four minutes.
Oh well….at least there was one vehicle ahead of us in the sad lane. It sucks to be the first to miss a boat, but missing it when you are second, somehow doesn’t feel as bad because you are second loser?
We rode past the first car and did a U-turn, heading back to the gas station to get fuel. It took us a few minutes to figure out the pumps and basically be just had to read the directions….about the time we got it all figured out a woman came out from some random dark corner and asked if we needed help with the pumps. I said “No, we just needed to finally read the instructions” and she laughed.
Her overweight Labrador game bouncing towards us for a scratch and almost knocked me over in the process.
After refilling the bikes and loving up said dog, we rode back down to the landing and got in line behind the motorhome we’d passed earlier. A young couple in a car two back came up and chatted. He said “Man…we live in the area and I saw you two on the bikes and thought ‘we’re gonna make the ferry’…then we came around the corner and saw the motorhome and thought ‘nope, we’re not going to make the boat‘…” It was funny! He made a comment about the operator running on an unusually punctual timeline. It wasn’t that big a deal though…it’s only a half hour and it did afford us she time to fill the bikes. There had been a sign just before the terminal that said “Last fuel for 110km”.
Off the ferry and on the road towards Lumby/Veron. A few kilometres on and there was a sign for fuel. So much for “next fuel 110km!!
We pulled into a rest stop and Kirk headed for the washroom. Another rider was nearby and readying to leave. He was on a Ural with a sidecar and I called out to him and started a conversation (anyone who knows me knows this is an unusual thing!)He was heading back to Edmonton after a week on the road. I asked him questions about his ride..how does it handle…and so on. He was a really nice guy and we had a great chat. When I asked him about how it handled he gave me quit ether description. I quote….“I tell people it’s like making love to a woman while she has a seizure….you aren’t quite sure what’s going to happen next…” He also said something along the lines of “You have to really work hard to get over 50″ and “This is a great example of the Ural delay factor…in which people keep coming to ask you questions and you get delayed” There was a lot more, but it was a fun stop.
He also gave us a heads up that there were cattle all over the place on the road ahead for us.
Other than cows all over the place, the road from Needles to Lumby is fabulous! Twisty, pretty good pavement, and a pretty bit of scenery.
We stopped in Vernon for fuel and then it was on towards highway 5A. We had been thinking about what to do for lunch and I took a quick look around Falkland to see if there was anywhere to get a half-decent meal. I looked up from my phone and said “I know where we are going!” Kirk asked if it was a secret and I said “Yes”.
About 45 minutes later we arrived here:
From Route 97 Diner, we continued North and slipped through the edge of Kamloops and then headed South again, through a hot, dry, shade-less landscape. There was really nowhere to stop that wasn’t in baking heat, until we finally found a tree that was at the side of the road and gave a little pocket of shade in which to hide for a few minutes, take off the helmets, have a drink of water, wave at a few riders, before heading on.
Sidebar…we saw more riders on the stretch off road from Needles to Vernon than we saw the entire week we were on the road!! What is it about this road that is so attractive? When we popped out near Kamloops…I immediately took the wrong exit…and also immediately knew it. I’ve driven between Cache Creek and Kamloops and Salmon Arm so many times in my life that I instantly knew the sand cliffs were not he wrong side of the road…and the river was beneath them…and that meant that I was heading towards Salmon Arm, which was NOT the right direction. A quick pull off the highway and a tree with some shade for a regroup, and then we were back on the road in the right direction.
From there it was a nice ride down into Princeton, along Highway 5A, which neither of us can believe that we’ve ever driven laet alone ridden! What a lovely stretch of pavement!
Princeton was a means to an end, a place to spend a night after what we knew was going to be a long day, made longer by fires closing roads that sent us on detours before we ever got going. Unfortunately I chose poorly when it came to the hotel…and it was well above the town, making a walk out of the question. So we rode back down and found an amazing place for dinner…Copper Pit…a BBQ restaurant that was probably the best dinner we’d had in 8 days. A really awesome end to a pretty great 500km day on the road.
