Just got back from a trip to beautiful BC. After not getting a trip last year, this was highly anticipated and sorely needed. We had wanted to go through the states to get there but border closures prevented that, but we made the best of it.
Headed west, to Trail BC, then continued on to Hope.
The road out of Trail is spectacular, especially early in the morning.
Closer to Hope, we came very close to hitting a grizzly. A BMW car was flying past me on the 4 lane highway, just as it passed me, the bear darted across in front of it, basically jumped over its hood and landed right in our lane. The car had hidden it from view, so we hadn’t seen it come out of the ditch. Luckily, it was a fairly high speed road with lots of curves so I was covering my brake already. Almost launched the wife over my shoulders, missed it by maybe 10 feet at probably 60mph.
Spent the night in Hope, took an evening ride to Harrison for supper and see some of msb’s stomping ground again.
Then up the Coquihalla and over to Kelowna to visit my younger sister who I hadn’t seen in a couple years. And to go to our favourite smokehouse there.
Next day, went up to Shuswap Lake, my wife’s sister had a cabin rented there, so they insisted we stop for a visit. Google Maps took us down about 20 miles of gravel road to get there…but wasn’t bad. My mistake. Went for a nice day cruise on their pontoon boat and did some hiking. Some fires nearby made it pretty smokey. The next morning, we couldn’t see across the lake.
With the visiting done in the more populated areas, now was time for the roads I was looking forward to, Vernon to Kaslo. If you’ve never been, you must.
Headed south to Creston for the night, then over and up to Radium, past Banff. Didn’t stop in Banff…no desire for that tourist trap. Passed some more fires again.
Zigzagged our way home through Drumheller, avoiding the #1 highway as long as we could.
Somewhere around this time, I realized my new jacket I had bought this spring was changing colour from the UV rays…an unadvertised feature apparently. Grey jacket is turning pink. Sent an email to the website I ordered it from to express my displeasure, will see what they do about it. Some people might wear a pink jacket, but not I.
4500 km, 7 days, not a drop of rain. Got very hot most days so a light rain here and there would have been welcomed, but no storms, so that was good. Was so nice to get off the prairies and wear down the edges of the tires and peg feelers again.
