Day 14 - Nakusp BC Interior (381 km)

Kind of an eventful day. Started out with breakfast at 0950 at the Coldwater Hotel Restaurant in Merritt. I invariably order pancakes or french toast in a restaurant since I know restaurant cooks won't pick the goobs out of eggs. 3 HUGE pancakes (I ate one) and table syrup. It doesn't come anywhere near Tom's waffles with real maple syrup and Mary's BIG lattes! I'm looking forward to their combined breakfast effort when we stop there on our way home this weekend. However.... Monday is a workday so I may be out of luck. Another CFR - FJR rider from Vancouver met us at the Coldwater just as we were leaving at 1050h. It was sunny / cloudy and 16 degrees as we headed out Hwys 5a and 19 to Kelowna. The temperature dropped to 11 or 12 as crossed a mountain range but was in the high 20s as we did the 'stop & start' dance at every intersection in Kelowna. We had stopped for a nice long break at the Timmy's in Westbank which is just before Kelowna. Very beautiful along Lake Okanagan but I was surprised that it doesn't look like an area conducive to growing anything. Luckily, grapes don't want overly fertile soil. We rode by at least one vineyard.

The leg of the journey after Westbank was 2.5 hours on Highway 6 from Lumby to the Needles-Fauquier ferry that crosses Lower Arrow Lake. This highway is coded 'DH2' by Desination Highways BC which means it's deemed to be 2nd from the top on a list of 85 southern BC roads rated by motorcycling enthusiasts. From the ferry ride, it was about 55 km to Nakusp.

Much of the scenery today, including that along Highway 6, reminded me of NB. Actually, probably moreso than any other ride I've done on this trip. The pastureland, the forests, the condtion of the roads (although, in fairness, this road is in much better shape than ours) - we could have been riding the old road to Saint John through Gagetown or on the Kingston Peninsula - or any number of NB back roads. Except for the vastness of the pastures and forests, and that mountain-thing British Columbia has going on ;-). Highway 6 (or DH2) has the Monashee Mountain range and there's no NB road that can lay claim to crossing a mountain range! And there's the road signage prevalent on BC highways: something to the effect of "high mountains area: unexpected weather extremes" ; "brake check" for "vehicles over 5500kg (or 22,000 kg) licensed gross vehicle weight"; "runaway lane - 1000m"; "chain-up area" and so on. The one thing we have in common are the 'forest rat' signs - which is the diagram of a leaping deer. I saw a forest rat yesterday on the Coq but didn't see any today - although there must have been 2 dozen or more signs. Barb and Pam saw a big guy quite far down a bank off the side of the road but I missed him. Guys who came into Nakusp before us this afternoon apparently scared them all off since they had seen 7 or 8 of them - on the road. We were moving along at a pretty good clip but Barb & Tom waited for me a couple of times as I fell behind - not anxious to potentially avail myself of BC's healthcare system because of a mishap with a deer.

I got lots of doggy fixes today: a little shepherd (or shepherd mix) who lives at the Best Western in Merritt, a golden retriever at the Timmy's drive-through, a shitzue riding in a carrier behind a woman on a Harley in Fauquier where we had lunch, a dachshund here at the Kuskanax Lodge. Naturally, the goldie was the friendliest and most anxious to be mucked with :-). I'm missing my Girls!!

I feel as though I've been away for a month instead of only 2 weeks. I have my little reminders of home: a photo of John & me on J's sailboattaken in the clear plastic map pocket of my tankbag, Janet's Tilley socks (which I just washed out), a beautiful "wishing you the best" card from Candace in my tankbag, my cosmetics samples from Catherine A, and my orange cosmetics travel bag from Grace AR - it's working out perfectly! And, of course, there are the blog comments and odd e-mail that I eagerly anticipate everyday. I replied to a comment yesterday indicating that because I'm 'blogging', I won't be boring people with stories when I get home. It was pointed out to me that I was being silly and of course I'll still be able to bore people when I get home ;-) Jude - by the way, the CFR t-shirts are uber cool. If you'd like, I'll check to see if there are extras; I could bring one back for you.

Jim is flying back out to Calgary tomorrow mornng (Friday) with wife, Pat, and newly graduated (as of tonight!) daughter, Julia. Pat will visit with her brother in Edmonton and Julia will ride to Nakusp with Jim. At least, that's the last plan I heard.

Slow news day. Tomorrow's agenda TBD.