Hey Kids,
Last you heard I was heading out of Blue River, that odd little town out of the '70s where there's a baby boom going full swing and Jimi Hendrix's guitar wafts across the lawns.
Powered up that day, big time. It wasn't easy but I had the juice. The road was steep, which was weird because it follows the North Thompson River down the mountains. The road seemed to go mostly up, and through some wild country, and in what I took to calling "uphill wind". It took forever to do the first 34K to Avola, where I had thought to stop, but as my journal the next morning explains, I had reason not to:
"Road seemed long. It took forever to do the first 34 K to Avola, which was an ugly little place with an ugly little man running the ugly little grocery-gas station. He seemed young but was cold, nasty, and the type of guy even Jesus would want to punch out! His store was full of overpriced candy. When I commented on it he asked; "What do you eat?" in a hostile tone. Then he asked if I was an American. I asked him the question right back, and he said; "Yeah, God Bless America."
I told him, even if he isn't really American, and just a wannabe, he certainly acts like the stereotypical Bushy. Hours later, when I was setting up camp in Birch Island, a woman came riding up and literally caught me with my pants down, as I was changing out of my spandex. Her name was Mitch, and when I told her about the Avola man she laughed. Mitch, who greets every cyclist who shows up in Birch Island, told me they all comment on the ugly little man in Avola. She also told me he had a restaurant at one point, but it didn't take long before he scared all his customers away!
The stretch after Avola went a little faster, but was a helluva climb. I stopped for a while at Wire Cache Provincial Park, where I dunked myself in the river, then headed out for Avenby, which I never quite reached. A woman came by in a car at one point, as I was resting at the turnoff into the town. She was headed into the town, so I stopped her and she did a scouting mission for me. I didn't really want to do the scouting myself because it meant going down a steep hill, one I did not relish climbing back up. She returned 10 minutes later with the news, no camp, no motel, and only a complicated back road to Birch Island. I thanked her, and she told me it was her pleasure. Then she gave me a chocolate bar and took off. Nice lady.
I'd left Blue River early, about 8:30 am. It was nearly 7 pm when the lady gave me the chocolate bar. It would be 8:15 by time I pulled into Birch Island and had my conversation with Mitch. I'd done 99K and was bushed. It was dark out by time I got around to cooking my dinner. When I left Alberta a week earlier it was light at 10, now it was dark by 8:30!
The next morning I wrote about the Birch Island Campground: "Its nice here, in a stand of willows, birch and pine on the edge of a village not far from the river, down from the highway. If they would keep the washrooms clean, it would be a great campground. Fourteen dollars to pitch a tent. Still high, but it isn't a bug hatchery, and its much cheaper than a lot of places."
I took a shower there, that's how I knew about the filthy washrooms. It was one of those showers you wear your flip flops in, and then throw away your flip flops afterwards. Unfortunately, I had no flip flops!
Fortunately, there have been no lasting ramifications.
Slept well that night. Doing 99 K on such roads bouyed my spirits. I wasn't sure I still could, with all the little issues I'd been having since Jasper.
One of those issues was my BoB tire, which, after numerous flats, had developed a slow leak, which I'd been paying close attention to, and pumping up twice a day. I have a decent pump, but a bad neck. Using the pump a couple times a day was agravating my neck. The agravated neck was resulting in spasms into my left hand. Spasms in your left hand can make riding a bike, loaded down, a problem. It was no fun!
Before I left Birch Island, the gaffer who ran the campground explained a back route that would keep me off the busy highway for a few K. It was along Norris Road, by the river, and was beautiful, with autumn's first colour painted all along the roadside, and the swift running river, a green emerald, rolling alongside. A while after I came off Norris Road onto the highway I was able to duck up Bain Road, which ran along the base of the hillside on the west side of the highway. This road brought me out near the Raft River Salmon Run. I stopped a while to check out the annual debacle, and was quite surprised by the size of the Salmon in the little river. Some of them had to be half a meter long or more!
Climbing a small hill I took the turnoff called Clearwater Village Road. Mistake! Sort of. It was a lovely road, all downhill, and wound up in the tiny village of Clearwater where the kids were all having recess at the local school. It was weird to see the kids at school. For me its still summer. Schools are quiet, potential camping spots. Now all of a sudden the school yards are full of kids. I said "mistake" because, after taking the steep glide down on the newly paved road, I now had to climb back up. It was a short hill, but it was about 13 per cent grade, which winded me somewhat.
I climbed the hill and went to the infocentre at the highway junction. There I spoke with the attendant who basically told me I was out of luck if I wanted to find alternative roads to the highway. According to her, there were none that were paved. I asked about using the wireless in the Infocentre. She wanted two dollars for every fifteen minutes of time I used my own technology! I declined to pay, went outside, opened up my computer, and used the wireless signal anyway.
After checking my email, I went looking for a grocery store, found it, turned off the road into it, and promptly got caught off guard by a girl driving a black camaro. I yelled. She ignored me. Then she pulled in and got out, in front of one of the stores in what was an ugly strip mall. I said to her, "make sure you kill someone before you get some common sense."
She'd basically came off the highway behind me, and cut right in front of me, because she couldn't wait the three seconds it would have taken me to clear the corner. When I said what I said, she replied: "Watch where you're going!" It didn't make sense, so I repeated myself. She just walked away, oblivious to, and not caring about, how close she'd come to running me over.
I shopped, spending $60 on food. Then I tried to get a few of the locals hanging about to tell me the easiest route to the North Thompson Provincial Park. None of them could. None of them even knew which local roads had hills and which didn't. I asked about six people, some of them with cars, and none of them could tell me the most direct route. It wasn't until I'd ridden five K, and almost got run over by a guy in a white pick up truck, who I think must have been related to the girl in the camaro. This guy couldn't wait for me to clear a corner and had to, not only cut me off, but spray me with loose stones as he booted up the hill I was climbing. About five K down the old Kamploops highway, I met up with a young woman who was taking a walk. She was able to direct me back the way I'd come, over a bridge, and back out onto the highway. It was a six K run to the park, but not nice. There was a hill, a bridge with broken glass at both ends, was narrow as Twiggy's thigh, and had really dangerous traffic. To boot, just as I reached the park road, it began to rain!
Some days I have all the luck!
North Thompson Provincial Park is a real nice place. I chose site #38, well back from the river, up against a hill, and away from the camp road. It rained hard when I arrived, lightened up enough for me to set camp, then rained again. I strung a tarp, bought some firewood, started a fire, and the sky cleared. I sat there for hours, looking up at the stars. I hadn't seen them in a while. The next day I took a little nature walk and found a lookout high above the river, that reminded me a lot of a bluff back in my childhood, the Grimsby Point. For a few hours I was a kid again scouting around the bluff, checking out the views, admiring the early autumn colour, and befriending a couple from Switzerland, Christaan and Lisbet. They were very sweet. They told me that 13 years ago they'd visited Canada, found North Thompson Provincial Park, and had been coming back every year since.
"Yes," said Christaan, "Switzerland is beautiful like this, but here you have no people, and it is even more beautiful. We love it."
Christaan and Lisbet gave me their card and told me to come stay with them if I ever go to Switzerland, so my list of Euro-places-to-crash, is rebuilding itself!
I stayed two nights at North Thompson, and ate about one quarter of the food I'd purchased in Clearwater. My BoB tire continued to go flat every 12 hours, and I continued to pump it up, afraid that if I actually took it apart I might somehow make the hole worse. After my recent failures at effectively fixing flats, I did not want to tempt fate. I was also acutely aware that my patch kit was out of rubber patches, and I had only flimsy band aid type patches left.
The two nights rest was just what the doctor, the physiotherapist, and the psychologist, ordered. By time it I was ready to go, I was in good spirits, my body was rested, and the weather was good. I set out for Barriere about 10 in the morning. It was a lovely ride, downhill, on wide clean shoulders, into the interesting little junction town of Little Fort. Then it got weird!
First, a hornet who was hanging around my juice bottle, decided to take a bite out of my thigh when I wasn't looking. Then, as I set out up the road and hit a narrow patch, a nutbar in an old square Winnibego decided I needed less that four inches of breathing room between myself and him at 80 K an hour. That rattled me, and I got mad!
Getting me mad can be a good thing, sometimes. Its particularly useful if I have a hard stretch of road ahead of me. I get all steamy and foaming at the mouth, and I'm a cursing and swearing, and having visions of catching up to the Winnibego and torturing its driver to death by bicycle mauling! The next thing I know I'm 50 K up the road and its seems like five minutes have gone by!
Cycling is great if you have anger issues. At least it is for me when I'm having anger issues. I just let out after the guy who ticks me off, and tho' I rarely ever catch them, by time I do, I've completely exhausted myself and am left with no will to fight. Its some of the best therapy I've ever experienced!
When I arrived in Barriere I was pulling through a parking lot, dismounted, walking the bike, when my sunglasses fell from their perch on my handlebars onto the ground. I stopped to pick them up, and was stooping down, while holding my bike up at the same time, when a woman came from behind, sped up, and came within a couple inches of my head as she drove by. She could not wait three seconds for me to pick up my sunglasses. Then she turned right, and parked in front of the local liquor store. I rode up as she got out of her car.
"Please tell me you didn't just risk my life so you could get to the liquor store three seconds quicker?" I begged her.
She responded with some nonsense about how I should get off her case because she had to get to work, and what was I doing stopping in a parking lot!
"Mam," I told her, "if I'd been going through a door and saw you coming, I would have held the door for you. If I'd been driving a car down the highway, and you stopped in front of me, I'd stop for you. I was in a parking lot. I dropped my glasses. You could have waited for me to pick them up."
Quickly realizing I was talking to a wall, I rode off, towards the local campground, DeeJays.
When I got to DeeJays, the proprietor, a woman of about 60 years, assured me she'd give me a good site, with trees and grass, near the river. I told her about my encounter in the liquor store parking lot, and she said she thought she knew who it was I messed with.
"Don't worry about it," she said, "that's her way."
Wish I'd have caught this woman's name, the proprietor of the campground, because her and I are cut from familiar cloth. She was a little rugged, a little sweet, very direct, and was able to seem like an old confidante in a matter of minutes. I did find out she runs the place with her brother, and her wayward, rather dark spirited, son, as a helper.
This was a nice campground, on grass, with good hot showers that cost a toonie. She let me use some power to recharge my computer, even though my twenty plus dollar fee did not cover power. What's more, after hearing me talk about the slow leak in my BoB tire, she put her son on the chore of finding me a new tire and tube. When I woke up the next morning there were two sixteen inch wheels, with tubes and tires ready to go, laying on the ground outside my tent. I wasn't able to use the actual wheels, which were too narrow for my BoB, but I did scoop one of the tires and the tube inside it. They were brand new, so I gave Randy, the proprietors son, who was dressed in a black trench coat with a dark wide brimmed hat, and was so dirty he looked like he'd been in a coal mine all his life, fifteen bucks for the tire and tube. I've had no BoB tire issues since!
Actually thought of staying an extra day there, but decided the $20 camp fee was too much, so I pushed on.
Now that was spooky. Barriere was one of the town hits hard during the bad fires a few years ago. The road I had to follow led up through the center of the burn, along the side of a narrow canyon. Both sides of the canyon had been scorched. All that remained on either side of the highway, for as far as the eye could see, was burned up pine forest. It was a tough climb, made tougher by the vision of scorched earth, and the images of smoke and fire that played in my mind. It was also a fairly tough uphill climb, before the road finally broke out of the canyon and began the descent into the open land at the base of the Thompson Valley.
At a place called McLure, I turned right, went a couple K down the road, and suddenly felt like I was back in Europe. I came to a landing on the river where a tiny twin hulled, cable driven, ferry was just landing on the other side. I stopped, waited, and the ferry, with its rather scruffy looking operator, came and got me, and a front end loader that was parked nearby.
It was only a three minute ride but it changed everything. I was no longer in green forest, but on dry kootch grasslands with big Ponderosa Pines everywhere. There was no more busy two lane highway, with big rigs and Winnibegos. I was alone, on a rolling up and down road and could once again hear my wheels roll beneath me. I could hear the sound of my spandex on my skin, and all the little rattling and rolling sounds that Wheels and BoB make when they are rolling. We'd been so long on busy highways I'd almost forgot what my bike, trailer and me, sound like when we are left alone. For the mostpart, over the up and down hills, out onto the flatlands of a native reserve, then down some steep turns into more flatland, and 40 K later, into the town of Kamloops, I was in bliss. It was lovely day, a beautiful ride until I got spit out on a four-lane artery leading into the back end of the city!
Coming off a dream road onto a four lane artery was a rude awakening, but I soon saw a sign that read "River Path", ducked in that direction, and found myself on a quiet riverside road heading for downtown Kamloops. I would stay on that route until I reached the South Thompson River, cross it on a bridge, circumvent the mouth of the North Thompson, then cross back over the South Thompson on a rickety red bridge. All this crisscrossing led to the Silver Sage Campground, where once again I would have to pay over $20 for a patch of grass to camp on.
It was a smelly patch of grass, and what space I had there was disrupted by a nearby drunken party. Later on, my peace and quiet would be demolished by the proprietor of the place, in a large SUV, towing trailer, coming around to empty garbage cans in the middle of the night, whilst shining his high beams on my tent and idling the SUV beside my picnic table. All the while I was in this riverside campground, I could hear the city across the way.
In the morning I would write in my journal: "This place is a poorly kept and barely managed filthy hole of a campground, right on the river across from the center of the city. The city is a loud, snorting, farting, grinding, squealing beast with sirens blaring and traffic groaning all night long. Unfortunately, I'm probably going to have to go right down in the core of it today."
I forwent that eventuality after crossing back over the rickety red bridge then turning right, where I found a bike path that took me under another river bridge, then out onto a path between the river and the highway, now Highway 1, the TransCanada. From there I made a bee line for the east side of the city and found a service road that followed the highway for some K. A while later I found a grocery store where I shopped, then proceeded, until I ran out of service roads, and was forced, for a short few K, back out on the highway. At the hamlet of Dallas I turned onto Dallas Drive, which took me all the way to the intersection of Highway 97 south. Oddly, there was no exit from Dallas Drive onto Highway 97. Dallas Drive just went on and on, paralleling the highway, until it ended in a cul de sac.
In the end, I had to bushwack my way onto the highway, cutting a path over kootch grass, stones, and all sorts of highway rubble. The other problem at this point was that Dallas Drive, also had no exit onto the Trans Canada. I was left with the option of either bushwacking my way onto one or the other. If I'd known in advance what Highway 97 had in store for me, I very likely would have taken Highway 1, but that's not what happened.
Where Highway 97, or is it 93, leaves the Trans Canada east of Kamloops, it climbs up into the Monte Creek Valley. Now, if I'd had a decent map, I could have taken a quieter road, Barnathrope or something like that, earlier. But I didn't have a decent map. If I'd had a topographic ma, I might have noticed that I was letting myself into some serious work, but I didn't have a topo map. I made my decision based on distance. According to the info I had, I could either go 21 K up Highway 97 to a campground, or 34 K along the Trans Canada. I opted for the closer campground, not realizing that 20 of the 21 K was a steep, eight to 11 per cent, hill. That short 21 K jaunt to the nearest campground took nearly four hours to ride!
What's worse, was the campground, set up on a steep hill above the highway, but not ten meters from it, and run by an odd European fellow who seemed oddly familiar to me. Turned out he was a slum lord I'd had in Nelson back in my university days, and he sort of recognized me.
"You're from Nelson aren't ya," he asked.
"Yeah, I've lived in those parts," I replied, still trying to figure out why the guy seemed familiar.
"I lived there before I lived here," he told me, then asked: "Do you know Christianson."
"No, don't believe I do," I told him.
Then I asked about the campground.
"Is it quiet here," I asked.
"Well, if you don't count the traffic it is," he replied.
"What about your customers?" I asked, noticing a few rigger rigs parked around, one near my camp.
"Oh, those guys," said the rather gruff man of about 75, "they come in late and go to sleep, then leave in the morning. They're very quiet, no need to worry about them making noise."
I felt a little reassured, after my experiences with riggers out on the prairie. I settled down, cooked dinner, and was about to call it a night when one of the riggers, the one parked closest to me, showed up. I decided to go use the showers when I saw what was happening, figuring by time I got out, the rigger would be sound asleep.
While I was in the shower the rigger apparently offered the proprietor a beer. When I came out of the shower they were sitting out in front of the riggers rig, get rightfully sloshed. For the next three hours they would get thoroughly smashed, but it wasn't the rigger who was a problem, it was the proprietor! As soon as that guy got a few beers in him he started talking like a sailor who's been too long at sea, and loud enough so he could be heard back in the old country.
No, I didn't have to worry about the riggers being loud, I had to worry about the drunken proprietor! One thing I know is you can't tell a guy to shut up when he owns the place!
It was pretty much midnight before the rigger shut down the proprietor, and the latter went stumbling off to his home across the road, on the lake.
The next morning I was up early wanting to get out of there, which I did fairly quickly. Meanwhile, the proprietor was also up, but very careful not to come near me. He knew he'd kept me up, and didn't want to face me. He went by and chatted with all the other campers who were up, but he steered clear of me, looking over sheepishly once in a while. Deep down inside, I guess he knew what I'd have to say.
Before I left that morning I promised myself an easy day. My legs had cramped a bit in the night. I knew I hadn't drank enough water and was a bit dehydrated. I also knew I'd turned up the gas on the way up the hill, and deserved an easy day.
It was not to be.
One can go as easy as one likes, but when the paved shoulder disappears abruptly, and turns into three inch think gravel, I don't care how easy going you're going, you're not going easy anymore.
Getting to Falkland was hell, and I would have stopped there, but there was no place to stop, except the over priced motel with the proprietor who looked at me as if to say: "There's no way a dirty little bugger like you is going to soil one of my nice clean rooms."
Lucky for me, the highway at Falkland has been freshly paved and it became bearable, although the traffic was not. It was constant, fast and not at all friendly. I diverted for an hour onto Smith Road, which paralelled the highway, but was steep in places. It spit me back out on the highway before long. By time I reached Salmon River Road, I was ready to get off the damned highway.
Stopping for an ice cream, I talked to a lady, at the corner store in Salmon River. She assured me that Salmon River Road, to Enderby, would be an easy pleasant ride. It was pleasant enough, but it was not easy. I climbed and climbed, up through the forest and onto the high plains above. It took a few hours to transverse the winding climbing road, taking all the right left turns, until I reached the Hullcar Hall, turned right, and then left, and sped down the Canyon Road into Enderby.
At the bottom on Canyon Road, where it meets the highway just south of Enderby, a guy in a pick-up came rushing down the hill behind me, pulled to stop beside me, then lurched ahead, alongside me, as I tried nosing out towards the highway. I stopped to let traffic clear, as did the fellow in the pick up. When the road cleared, and I started out across it, so did the pick-up, with one difference, he was burning rubber! I got a nose full of burnt rubber, and found myself in a black cloud!
It was too late. I was too bagged, and happy just to be in Enderby, the guy didn't get a reaction out of me. I just let him go, turned down the first road on my right, took a sharp left, and glided along the long secondary road into Enderby.
Now I've always liked Enderby. Its always been a bit of an oasis from the usual Okanagan strip malls and highways. Not so anymore. The urban sprawl has finally caught up to the place. As I pulled up to Cliff Ave. the main street, I was shocked to find a genuine hooker working the corner outside the Bank of Montreal.
"Wanna date," she asked as I rolled by.
"No thanks," I replied, a little shocked.
"Can I have a cigarette," she asked, a few minutes later, as I was locking up my bike.
"I only have enough for me," I replied, then went into the bank.
This was the first time I've been able to do any banking at my home bank since Edmonton. When I saw my bank balance, I almost cried. My saving are gone! I'm back to my month to month stipend, with just enough to pull through. I was sad for a moment, then started to flash on all the places I've been, what I've seen, what I've done. It was money well spent.
When I came out of the bank the hooker was gone. In her place was a native woman. Soon as she saw me she asked for a smoke.
"Sorry darlin'," I replied, "I can't afford your habits and mine. I only have enough for me."
Loadingup, I headed for the campground, which I remembered as being nice. This morning, I wrote in my journal: "Blue sky, warm in the sun, crows, nail guns, dumpster trucks, RVs, no peace and quiet. People walking by gawking at me like I'm a zoo animal. Don't know why I remember this place as nice."
I packed up and got the heck out of there.
Its been a tough day. My legs have not wanted to go at all. I took the Enderby Back Road out, avoiding the highway for serveral K, then I ducked onto Pleasant Valley Road in Armstrong, which also allowed me to avoid the highway for several more K. At the north side of Vernon, about 10 K out, I got on the other Pleasant Valley Road which brought me safely into the city. I had hoped to visit some old friends I usually visit when I pull through here, but I got an email from them this morning saying they were too busy for a visit. That made me sad for five minutes. I always think, what if its the last time we get to visit! Oh well, last time they told me they were too busy I went to the hostel, and wound up having a whole other adventure, so maybe that's a sign.
Late this afternoon, I was heading for a provincial park out on Okanagan Lake, but my legs ran out of steam when I saw a sign advertising a campground at Kin Beach, just a few K out of Vernon, near Okanagan Landing. I opted to come here. I paid for it, $25, but I have power and water, which is allowing me to write to you all, and to catch up on some work.
I realize this travelog may give some of you the sense that I'm not enjoying myself anymore. Its true, the road has been a little hard lately, but I am still finding some fun in it. There was a moment today where I got a little traffic caught up behind me, going up a hill. I turned on the juice and got out of the way. I heard someone in a passing car say, "look at that guy go, wow!"
It pleases me somehow, at my age especially, after all I've been through in life, and the way I was just a few years ago, that I can actually turn up the gas when I'm totally beat. Some days I feel like a blooming miracle. I was weak but now I'm freaking strong, and when its all said and done, I still got more to do and say. Truth is, although I may sound like I'm not having such a good time, I'm freaking amazing myself. It has been, and continues to be, a wonder of a wander.
All that aside, the way I'm feeling, I'll likely sit here for a day or two. My legs have taken a beating lately, and I've been running out of energy. I'm beat kids! This has been a long, long, long ride. I can't believe I've done the Jasper to Kamloops run, let alone the rest of it.
Meanwhile, I'm looking up at the Monashee Pass, and I'm wondering if there isn't someway I can just levitate myself and my gear over it. The thought of riding it, tonight, all day today, and most likely tomorrow too, is bedeviling. For sure, right now, I'm not up to it. I need some rest. I need to get my thighs in warm water.
I'm bagged. Every time I think of riding some more, I start thinking about semi trucks. I'm road burned good, and need some days away from it before I go again.
I'm also reluctant to go back to the Koots. If I go over the mountain it means I'm home. If I'm home, then the trip is done. At this point I don't know what on earth I'll do when this trip is done. I'll have to deal with my real life, and that my dears, scares the crap out of me!
People ask all the time, why I'm doing this. The truth is, I don't really know for sure, but one aspect of it is, I don't know what else to do! Tonight, here in the wind by the lake, I could just as well fold up and go to sleep for good, I'm so weary. But I don't think that's what is going to be. In a day or two I'm going to get my juice back, or I'm going to get angry, and those wheels are going to spin, the kilometers are going to evaporate, and all my fears and worries are going to be temporarily allayed. Somewhere down the road aways I'm going to find myself writing all of you, yet another travelog.
There is more to come, I just haven't got there yet.
Hope you're all well.
Will