Monday, June 30, 2008

Day 9

Day 9
June 28th, 2008
Current Location: Creston

Like the last couple of days, Brett rode with me in the van again. It was a really hot day and I think that I’m starting to get a tan on my left arm. We ended up finding a random waterfall in the highway and we used it to cool off. Kelly and Vanessa went up a mountain that seemed to far worse than the Anarchist Mountain. The combination of the extreme heat and the fact that the mountain had a summit of 1774 metres made it hard on the bikers. We ended our day in Creston around 6:30pm. To my surprise we found a fairly decent campsite in town. I was expecting that we would have to sleep in the van tonight because I figured that all the campgrounds would have been booked due to the fact that it was a long weekend.

Day 8

Day 8
June 27th, 2008
Current Location: Fruitvale

For the most part I have nothing against birds but this morning I wanted to Opie Taylor them this morning (this is a reference to the Andy Griffith Show). They woke me and I think pretty much everyone in the campsite at 4:00am. Brett rode with me again in the van and like yesterday nothing really particularly interesting happened along the way. After reaching Fruitvale, we found a campground that was only charging $14 a night. The campground was a bit unkempt and was littered with mosquitoes but the owner was really nice. The sad thing about the site was that I think that at one point it was a really nice campground. It was large and spacious and had a really amazing view of the mountains.

Day 7

Day 7
June 26th, 2008
Current Location: Christine Lake

Today I had Brett driving with me in the van. Besides for that nothing really partially interesting happened along the way to Christine Lake. Brett ended up seeing a massage therapist in Grand Forks. While this may sound a little silly but I was a little disappointed that I didn’t see a giant oversized statue of a fork in the city. While to the best of knowledge such a monument doesn’t exist, I was secretly hoping that it did. If Medicine Hat can have the world’s largest tepee why can’t Grand Forks have the world’s largest fork? The city is known as Grand Forks not Sans Forks. Despite the lack of giant oversized forks, the city was very nice. I really liked its downtown. For a city with approximately 4,000 people, it had a really amazing downtown.

After getting through Grand Forks, we eventually reached Christine Lake. We ended up finding a really nice campsite right by the lake. While Kelly and I were trying to get a better axe to chop wood for the campfire, the owner of the site offered his assistance in making a fire. His way of assisting us involved drenching the wood with enough gasoline to power a small fleet of cars. I’m exaggerating a bit but he did soak the fire wood with a huge amount of gasoline. According to Kelly, the look on face when he threw the matches on the wood to start the fire was priceless.
Day 6
June 25th, 2008
Current Location: Rock Creek

This morning we left Osoyoos around 10:00am. I am glad to tell you all that there were no complications from the fall down the small hill from yesterday. Immediately after we were out of the city limits of Osoyoos, we were at the footsteps of Anarchist Mountain. Apparently this is a fairly well know mountain for bicyclists in B.C. The bicyclists and the local residence also refer to the mountain as “the Antichrist”. After finding out the nickname and reputation of the mountain I was a little nervous for the cyclists. I wasn’t particularly nervous for myself because I’m just have to put my foot on the peddle (although I did have to hit the acceleration peddle a tad harder up the mountain).


The mountain ended up not being as difficult as everyone was expecting. While still difficult all the bikers made it to the summit in one piece.


After biking (in my case driving) through Anarchist Mountain we reached a giant statue of the infamous Sasquatch. Seeing the statue was the highlight of the trip for me so far. For some weird reason, a bunch of Kokanee boxes were scattered around this magnificent monument. I guess it’s the place where the locals like to drink their Kokanee (and perhaps dress up like rangers). We ended up staying there for a couple of minutes taking pictures.


Following that the day began to get progressively worse and worse. A couple of KM’s after the statue Kelly ended up getting a flat tire. After replacing the tubes in the tire, he ended up getting another flat tire. Then we eventually realized that something was wrong with the tire itself. While trying to change the tube in the new tire, it blew up. After some minor setbacks Kelly’s tire was eventually fixed. Then came the really bad news. Brett’s knee began to act up on him. It got to the point where he could barely walk on it. We ended up having to call it a day after that. We somehow managed to find a small campsite in Rock Creek. Brett is going to rest his leg for a couple of days and ride with me. Hopefully he’ll get better soon.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Day 5

Day 5
June 24th, 2008
Current Location Osoyoos ( Oh-Soy-oos)

Today ,like every other day that we’ve had on the trip, we had some technical difficulties. When Vanessa was riding her bike through the highway, one of her tubes in her tire exploded. After Brett tried to change the tube in the tire it exploded on her again. Afterwards we went to a tire shop in Princeton to see if we could get it fixed. We ended up finding out that it had an unrepairable tear through the seams and that it was essentially destroyed. I ended up having travel to a small town called Oliver to find a replacement tire for her. Vanessa and Brett ended up having to ride the tandem bike again. After a day’s worth of biking we eventually reached Osoyoos. For the third night in a row we ended up staying in a camp ground. This was a massive campground (at least massive when compared to the two campgrounds that I’ve only been to in my life), with a hot tub, games room and more than 300+ lots. During the night when I was trying to navigate myself from the patio from our campsite I ended up falling down a small hill. It was really dark and everyone had their lights turned off.

Day 4

Day 4
June 23, 2008
Current Location: Princeton, B.C


After Brett got his bike fixed, we ended up traveling a quite a fair distance. We ended up reaching Princeton, B.C. For the second night in a row we stayed in a campground. The camp stove that we had bought in Chilliwack two days before began to try to burn us. There was some sort of defect that caused it to shoot out flames from its side and not through the actual burner. So Kelly and I ended up having to make rice for dinner. The only really weird thing about this was that we made it inside a bathroom using a rice cooker. At the time, the bathroom outlet was the only one that we could find.

Day 3

Day 3

June 22, 2008
Current Location: Hope, B.C

Yesterday we traveled from Chilliwack to Hope. We took primarily back roads to avoid driving on HWY 1. The trip out of Chilliwack was really nice. It was the first day that Brett and Vanessa were riding their own separate road bikes. Prior to that, they were sharing a massive tandem bike. This was so that Brett could rest his sore knee a bit more. Due to the sheer size of the tandem bike and Brett only using one leg to peddle, it resulted in a slower speed. After the two of them started to use their road bikes, we began to pick up the pace a bit. We ended up traveling a pretty decent distance considering the fact that we started around 1:30pm.

On our way out of Hope we had some technical difficulties that slowed us down a bit. This seems to be a recurring theme on the trip so far. Brett’s spokes and back time were somehow messed up and we ended up having to stay in Hope longer than we would have liked. We ended up staying in a really nice and rather cheep campground. It was the first time that I’ve ever gone camping in my life. We camped in front of a river. Overall it was a pretty fun experience, better than sleeping in front of a Wal-Mart.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Day 0-3

Day 0-3



On Thursday, we spent a good portion of the night driving from Lethbridge to Victoria. We started from around 6pm and we were in Victoria by 11am. It was the first time that I’ve ever really been to and driven in B.C. I’ve never seen so many trees in my life. After the drive we had lunch with some past alumni of the UofL. Following that we went to Mile 0 in Victoria and officially started the trip. On the first day we had a ridiculous amount of setbacks. Now that I think about it it’s kind of funny in regards to the sheer amount of bad luck that we had. Kelly went on a wrong ferry, I took a wrong turn and got lost on the highways of B.C and we stayed in the most sketchiest motel that I’ve ever been in my life (people were yelling about the nature of cats and their were cigarette burns in the bed sheets). Excluding all of that so far the trip had been pretty fun.


Yesterday we traveled from Surrey to Chilliwack. We took Highway 1 for a bit and then we used a bunch of back roads to get there. The back roads were really nice to drive through. For someone that was raised in Lethbridge, it was a freakishly large amount of greenery. After getting to Chilliwack we tried to find a campsite but we couldn’t find one that was a reasonable distance from the city that was still open so we ended up sleeping inside the van in front of a Wal-Mart. I was surprised to find out that it’s apparently a common practice for people to lodge in front of Wal-Mart’s with R.V’s. We all got a pretty good night’s sleep.

This morning while everyone else was still asleep in the van, I went for a walk around Chilliwack. The city has some really nice views of the mountains and I really enjoyed the fresh air. I've taken a whole bunch of pictures of B.C and of "Gnome Chomsky" .