Rolled out of Keremeos a few mornings back. Determined to start facing some hills. Luckily for me, the BC highway engineers routed the road over pretty much every hill in the valley.
Caught my first flat of the trip just outside Cawston and almost caught my second flat of the trip 5 minutes later when I chnaged my tube without seeing the microscopic nail that had pierced the first one. Rookie mistake but tube #2 seems to be holding up.
Had a decent, but easy climb up a hill to get into the Osoyoos valley, and an awesome, 10 km downhill with hardly any traffic, so I was able to bomb down the hill in the car lane at 60 km/hr (my early jitters about handling a heavy touring bike are gone).
I took an extended lunch break in Osoyoos, which is becoming the norm it seems, and had some coffee and cake before heading over to Robert's Gelato. I had heard via word of mouth that he gives free samples to bicycle tourists. Sure enough, he provided me a 'sample' larger than most double scoop cones I've paid good money for. I had a brief chat about my trip and signed his bike tourist logbook. Looked like there weren't that many of us on the road yet.
Haha not really though! Half an hour later I was grinding up Anarchist Mountain in the hot sun when I met Curtis at a viewpoint. Curtis is also cycling across Canada, leaving from Victoria. We have identical rear baggage and not only that, he is also from Winnipeg (no mutual friends on Facebook though, amazing).
We had a short talk and then headed up the hill, where I eventually got by him.
Shortly after the top of the mountain, I saw signage for a Mexican Cafe. It seemed like a bit of an odd place for one so I was skeptical. Swinging in, I found it to be an awesome little place, where the owner was super psyched about my trip. No free tacos but I did go for a very reasonably priced enchilada lunch.
After the hills and the enchiladas my legs were starting to lose power so I stopped into Johnstone Creek Campground for the night and found... my new friend Curtis.
He was debating going further for the day but I sweet talked him into splitting a campsite for the night.
Woke up the next day feeling pretty good, and parted ways with Curtis around 8 am. However, by about 10, I hit a major wall, I just felt super weak and couldn't get any power going. Not even a cafe stop in Greenwood could mend my ills. I struggled on to Grand Forks and took a long break there to charge my phone at the local visitor center, and left at about 2:30 pm. I had to fight a killer headwind all the way into Christina Lake and wasn't feeling much stronger at that point so I called up the Christina Pines Campground for an estimate on tent camping. 20$ for a campground with a pool and running water sounded very reasonable so I rolled in. The wonderful owner was a treat and even set me up in an empty RV lot so I could be right across from the bathrooms and charge my phone on the power outlet. Amazing!
As I was setting up my tent I felt the first drops from the storm I had been running ahead of from Grand Forks and thought "I better get set up before it really starts coming down". Sure enough, that was the cue it needed for the skies to open up and drench me. Seems like all my baggage is as waterproof as advertised though!
After a bathroom mirror assessment of my body fat level (roughly 0% bmi), I had a suspicion of where my poor cycling that day came from. I consumed a disgusting amount of calories and went to bed to prepare for my last big mountain day for a while.
Hmm looking through for pics to add and I'm realizing I only take pics of plants... might need to mix it up a bit.
Wow!! Such fun to read. I'm just heading out from Vancouver tomorrow!! Reading these blogs really helps ease the loneliness, thanks for sharing!!
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