Day 13
May 27th 2004
"This is Stupid". That's the phrase they taught us during our Flight Surgeon course. We are meant to use it when something is going wrong in the cockpit of the plane, either questionable actions by the pilot or co-pilot or just something that isn't quite working the way it should. The purpose of this is to snap everybody out of their frame of mind and give a reality check.
"This is Stupid" is also what was going through my mind about 2 hours into today's ride. It started raining just as I was leaving Vancouver city limits and it was still coming down hard. It was also cold. There was also a lot of traffic. There was also a lot of construction. Why didn't I just spend a few more days in the deserts of California and Nevada instead ? It was warm there, it was dry there. This is Stupid.
Then everything changed. Well, not everything, it was still raining, but by some miracle, the traffic thinned out not too far past Whistler and suddenly I had the road almost to myself. The road was quite fun, with nice sweepers and nice elevation gains, some switchbacks and presumably nice scenery. It was quite cloudy but I could make out some mountains all over the place. I was starting to have fun here. There's something to be said about a road that manages to be fun despite rain. If I had to chose between nice weather or light traffic, I'd choose light traffic on these kinds of roads. Yep, This was fun and refreshing after those 2 miserable hours I'd just past. Fun and refreshing that is, until the road ended.
I'd just passed a very small village, then nothing. Just a Dead End sign. I turned around looking for the road I'd obviously missed but found none. I found a local and asked him where is the road that goes to Lillooet and he kinda looked at me funny. He said the turnoff for Lillooet was about half an hour ago. Crap.
I had turned off the detail maps on the GPS previously because there was a bug in the routing where it was telling me it would take me 1 800 km to get to Smithers. I had it on the basemap instead, which did the correct routing but lacked some smaller road detail. I knew I just had to stay on Highway 99 until Cache Creek, so I was just following the 'Main Road'. I usually tell everyone that you have to try real hard to get lost when you have a GPS. I guess I was trying real hard.
Backtrack time. According to the GPS log file, that backtracking cost me 80 km and 1 hour in today's ride. Today was already a pretty big day, over 1 100 km before this mistake, with quite a lot of secondary, twisty highway. D'Oh !
In retrospect, I'm not that mad that I did that detour. It was really a nice road.
This picture was taken on that road. The rain had let up for a few moments, and I decided to take a pic in case this was my only non-rainy moment of the day.
It's been almost 2 weeks since I've left home and I've seen quite a few things. It's taking more and more to impress me. I can wholeheartedly say that I was impressed today. Last spring Hélène and I rode cross-Canada through Roger's Pass and I remember thinking that it wasn't that great compared to some of the passes that we had seen in the USA. Today showed me what I had been hoping to see last year. What I'm talking about is elevated passes, no guardrails, precipices, beautiful scenery etc. Don't believe me, look at pictures
Usual disclaimer applies, photos do not do it justice. Canada can keep up with the best of 'em. Yay !
As you can see by the pictures, it stopped raining steadily around 10:30 or so. From then on it was just showers. I can live with showers, as I've come to realize that it's asking for way too much to be hoping for nice weather on this trip. Oh well, let's not fret over things we can't control now... At least I'm fortunate enough to have a good suit.
On one stretch of highway, I came upon a large black bear on the side of the road. As I approached, he sensed me coming and bolted heavily into the woods. This is only like the second time in my life that I see a bear out in the wild. I also think I saw an Elk. It was either that or a very large deer. I didn't get a great look at it as I was zipping by trying to make up for lost time.
This is about an hour away from my destination, Smithers. When I decided to stop to take this picture, it was sunny where I was and the sunlight was playing in a very cool way with the rain clouds just ahead. By the time I got stopped and got the camera out, the 'moment' had passed. Oh well...
This is Smithers. It's at the same latitude as the southern tip of Alaska, and this is the furthest North I've ever been. Funny thing about the name, there's another place not too far from here that's called "Burns Lake". For you really dense people, it's a Simpson's thing...
Anyways, made it here just before 7:00 PM. As I was entering the hotel parking lot, there was a small group of BMW bikes already there. They told me they were here for "A big motorcycle gathering in Hyder" this weekend. I had no idea that Hyder Seek was this weekend. It's a Long Distance Riding event, every year a bunch meet in Hyder for a "Ride to Eat". It's designed for those who are either starting or finishing a 49/10 tour (that's 49 states in 10 days). It's really going to be Saturday, so I'm going to miss it, but there might be a few bikers there tomorrow, so I'll ride around and see if I can meet someone I "know".
Well, that's it for today's report. Glad I could get it posted.
Day Stats:
Total Distance: 1 256 km
Total Time: 12 h 54 min
Overall Average 94.9 km / h