Foggy Notions: Part 2 of Memorial Weekend Ride

Well readers, after the way the last entry went I am sure you were wondering if the trip was fun at all. Oh yes - yes it was.

Perhaps it would help to see a map of were we went. The bluish line is tracing our route - the yellow line is the US - Canada border.

After leaving the peaceful valley where we took pictures of the cows we headed into the mountains. Here is a map of the route from a different angle - again our tracks are the bluish ones going east and north from Hope.

The ominous clouds brought more rain, but it didn't matter because we were going through some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. Lush Northwest rain forests, steep mountainsides, and even (when we got to the top of one of the passes) snow.

We were over the largest pass and headed down the other side of the mountain range when we spotted a group of people gathered on the side of the road. We stopped to investigate. The road at this point followed a river and on the hillside bank on the other side of the river was a bear. A BIG black bear. He was beautiful! He was happily munching the tender new grass on the hillside an occasionally looking over at the humans on the other side of the river. We didn't seem to bother him at all. He was much healthier than the bears I had seen in Colorado. We took pictures, but the camera was on the wrong setting so they all turned out completely white - figures.

We continued on to the eastern slopes and the weather finally cleared up. The sun actually made an appearance! My wrists were still wet because the electric jacket cuffs are elasticised cloth, so I remained cold, but happy. We spotted a strange sign that I wish we had taken a picture of - it was a LARGE sheep standing next to an overturned car. I believe there was a warning written under it about running into mountian goats, but I was so focused on the strange image I didn't read the text. We were in mountain goat (ram) country. We didn't see any, but we did see a deer.

The further east we went the dryer the climate became. It started to look more like Colorado with scrub brush, dry pines, and fertile river valleys. We were originally going to Kelowna, but decided to stop in Penticton instead.

Panticton is a strange town. it is a tourist destination from the 60's complete with Family Resorts, cheap motels and fake beaches along the lake. It had a really weird feel to it. We stayed at the Super 8 motel because they had a hot tub and boy did we enjoy it after the long ride.

Monday we got up early and headed out - eastward again and then south back into the US and along the Columbia River for quite a ways. This was wine and fruit growing country.