Lemonade Tour 2014

In January, I took a new job. I left a company I was with for 12 years for something new - a chance to be a part of something really interesting. It was a high risk, high reward sort of gig.

Long story short, there were a log of things wrong with the situation, and I wasn't happy. But I was willing to work through what was an unwinnable scenario because, you know, winning...

The company is going through a difficult time, and can't seem to settle on what it needs to do to move forward. And I ended up getting caught in the crossfire. On a Monday everything was fine. On the Tuesday, things weren't fine. And on Thursday, I was being handed a fair package from HR. Terminated without cause - meaning I did nothing wrong.

Although I'm still processing, I feel like this is a good thing. Sometimes life gives you lemons. *&^% happens.

I'll be ok, the settlement was fair, my reputation won't be compromised and my skillset is in demand.

So what does a guy do when he's handed lemons? He rides to the Yukon to make lemonade.

I have the bike, I have the gear, I have the equipment. I'm ok financially. I have family support for this. Like a lot of other riders, the North has been on my list for quite some time. Like a lot of other riders, the time it takes to ride out all that way is the stumbling block.

Suddenly, I find myself with the time, and when am I going to get this opportunity again? Not only do I have the time, but I don't have to be back by a certain time. I have time and flexibility.

Spotwalla stuff (will be active July 7th)

Spotwalla link: https://spotwalla.com/embed.php?id=...0&height=600&scale=on&zoom=default&refresh=no

Some other Spotwalla link: https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=a6ef53b962f84c5c7

Here's the mount, a 2013 BMW R1200GSW, whatever. Just like all the other Beemers with adventure pretentions...



Riding (reluctantly) with me is Chris the Gnome. Chris has a backstory...

20 years ago, in 1993/94, some friends and I liberated a 300 lb 3.5 foot tall solid concrete garden gnome from a house around the corner from me.

With much glee, this gnome was relocated by several of us from Toronto to London, ON, at the house of a dear friend of mine who can remain as anonymous as the rest of us thieves. I'm sure the gnome is still there.

This story was told to my children, now ages 9 and 11, who decided to judge me for my ancient crimes.

Please meet "Chris The Gnome", a present from my kids, and my new motorcycle travel companion. He will travel with me on motorcycle trips and figure prominently into my pictures for however long he lasts, like my personal albatross, until such a point as balance is restored.

My children have an awesome sense of humour and karma. But seriously, packing around a garden gnome for this trip just seems ridiculous. Maybe Chris will meet some awful fate somewhere along the road.

This is where Chris is living, in my top case.


He's living in a padded zippered case, and I suspect that at times he'l be more comfortable than I am.

Tomorrow we leave. As close to 5 am as I can get, crossing the border at Detroit and aiming to get as far past Chicago as I can.

Hopefully I'll be able to get around Chicago before evening rush hour begins. I lived and worked in Chitown for 18 months a number of years ago, and the traffic is very much like Toronto's - epicly awful.

Beyond Chicago, my itinerary has been carefully plotted out on Google Maps. I have reservations at camp sites or motels for every single day I'm on the road. It was a steep learning curve, but I plotted 3 routes into my GPS for every day. The first will get me to breakfast, the second to lunch and the third to my final destination. I know exactly where I'm going every day I'm on the road. This gives me confidence and allows me to feel like I'm in control.

Ok, so maybe not. My itinerary actually looks more like this:
Day 1: Get past Chicago.
Days 2 through 30ish. I dunno.

I have tires waiting for me in Whitehorse - Colin at Yukon Honda has been very helpful, and there's a set of TKC-80's waiting for me on the way up, and when I'm done with the north and on my way back down, he's got another set of touring rubber (I dunno what kind) that I'm sure will more or less get me to just about home or so.

I'd like to check out the Alaska Ferry system, maybe from Haines to Prince Rupert.

Or whatever.

Wahoo!
Best of luck for a dream trip.
Looking forward to following along

I'm in....I like lemonade.

My plan on Day 1 was simple - get from Toronto past Chicago before Chi-town rush hour traffic in the early evening.

The plan was to be up by 4:30 am and on the road by 5 am. I woke up to thunderstorms, so I did what every intrepid adventurer would do.

I rolled over and went back to bed. &^%$ that noise. I'm not on a schedule.

When I finally dragged my ass out of bed, the bike was packed from the night before, and off I went. The ride from Toronto to Chicago was one that I had done a number of times before, having lived in Chicago for work for 18 months, and riding back and forth on the weekend. I know it takes about 10 hours, and it's boring as a bad simile.

At the border at Sarnia, with 5 cars in front of me, for some reason the border shut down. Every line stopped moving, people got out of their cars, and I waited. When the border re-opened again about 30 mins later, I noticed that lots of people were getting re-directed inside. Myself included, where I had to explain away a long-ago youthful indescretion. The bike got a cursory search, the border guard wasn't a dick and away I went.

And I was thinking as I rode away that it's easy to take the border crossing for granted. But we're guests in one anothers' countries, there only with permission. And so questions asked, answered and satisified, we move on.

Lunch was a salad from Wal-Mart. A great tip from a friend of mine who rides big miles too was to hit a Wal-Mart in the am, use zip-lock bags filled with ice in a soft cooler-style lunch bag to keep it cold, and transfer the salad to a large zip-lock bag. Salad is ready to go whenever you're ready - cheap, cheerful and saves big time. Also, on a trip as long as this, I'm trying to watch what I eat for the most part. Eating like crap when I'm on the road for a week is fun, doing it for a month is a bad idea.

I'm not sure where I'm going to stay that night - I have a friend who lives in La Salle, but he's away on his own adventure, so I'm left to make it up on my own. I find a camp site between Joliet and Ottawa along I80. Got a good camp site for $25, shoot the bull with a couple of guys who wished they were doing the trip too (looking over their shoulders at their brood) and I make camp.







A couple of beers from the gas station in town, and I'm in business.

The thing was that a huge storm rolled through that night, and with all due respect to the guys who post in the tarp thread, you tarp campers can go straight to hell. With all my love, sincerely,screw that noise. :)

The storm took my tarp and turned it into a whirling whip of carnage and doom. I woke up in the middle of the night and knew that bad things were happening, when I heard a lull, I got up and tried to straighten things up. Like a rookie, I had left a lot of my stuff under the tarp, and my dry bag with all my clothes in it open. The only saving grace is that the tarp fell onto my helmet and boots, keeping them mostly dry.

In the morning, my camp site looked like a bomb went off - no pics because shut up, that's why, and I was just focussed on cleaning up and leaving. I was cursing myself - again, a rookie mistake that won't happen again. Everything goes into the tent from now on.

Nothing really to write about on Day 2. I80, all day long.

Self-portrait



In a little town in Iowa, I decided to unburden myself of some weight - some clothes, some do-dads and the two tarp poles I was carrying (tarp campers, please see my earlier remarks about kindly going to hell). 10 lbs of crap cost me $80 to mail and it'll arrive sometime in October. Maybe. I didn't pay for insurance or tracking.



For those of you who have never ridden across the midwest, this is what it looks like.



There's corn, there's soy, there's flat and there's straight. Thank goodness for the reasonably high speed limits.

I stopped at the World's Largest Truck Stop. Chris the Gnome got a shot in quickly before too many people stared. Folks didn't seem to have much of a sense of humour in these parts...



Hauling Chris the Gnome can only be described as a pain in my ass. Literally an albatross around my neck. I thought it was going to be funny, you know, taking pictures of a garden gnome on an adventure, but so far it just seems weird and hella inconvenient for me.



I'm thinking of tomorrow, and I have a choice to make - North or South Dakota? North Dakota is new for me, but South Dakota has so much fun stuff. Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Devil's Tower, 16A, Badlands...

The day ended at Prairie Rose National Park. Nice enough place, had it pretty much to myself. You'll notice the distinct lack of a stupid tarp.

Pro Tip - Things I would not do without on this trip (so far)

Zip Lock bags - little zip loc bags with zippers hold ice in my soft cooler, which keeps food and drink cool.

A soft cooler, filled with ice (in bags so when it melts it doesn't make a mess, which it will anyway) holds the lunch that I buy in the mid-morning, and then cools my beer so at the end of my hot as balls day (seriously, I heard they closed roads in Yellowstone because the asphalt was melting. A combination of the volcanic activity below (geysers?) and the stupid hot above) I have something cold to drink.

Wal Mart - yeah, it's evil, but they have pre made salads that are a perfect cheap lunch, and on a trip this long while I'd love to eat whatever the heck I want to, making sure that I eat vegetables of some sort is a good idea.

McDonald's - yeah, it's evil, but here are all the boxes it checks.

1. Free wifi.
2. Decent coffee (all things considered)
3. Clean bathrooms
4. An ice dispenser in the soda machine.
5. Employees who give not one f&ck.

I find I'm in a McDonald's once a day, sometimes twice. I'm not carrying maps, so I need the internet, especially in the states where I don't have a roaming plan, to see where I'm going to go. Since I'm camping, I need to know if there's a camp site around where I'm going to be around 6 pm.

A microfibre cloth in my tank bag - I don't have a large windscreen, so I get air on my helmet, which means I get a pretty serious protein buildup. Gas station squeegies are fine for the gross water, but to avoid scratches, the microfibre cleans up real good.

USB power on the bike - I can charge two battery packs in my tank bag while I ride, so that overnight I can charge
- my Sena
- my iPhone (mostly for music)
- my iPad (mostly for writing and maps)
- my DeLorme InReach satellite tracker

I get the feeling that Chris the gnome is living on borrowed time. Have a heart, please don't abandon your mate.
Cheers,
Mark

I'm hoping Chris the Gnome makes it all the way there and back!

#5 on the McDonalds list.. hahah!

Hey Omar! I see you're in the Yukon!! Nice! Wish I was there with you!
Have fun on those dirt/gravel/mud roads once you mount your new tires!
Be sure to hit the Laird Hot Springs while you're in the area.
Enjoy the Ride!!

Sup brotha,

Its Lyle from that camping spot in South Dakota. I finally had a moment to look up your report. Im presently in Sault Ste. Marie MI just about to jump over the border into your territory. Im gonna do a Wawa, Chapleau, Thessalon loop then drop back down into the states.

just thought i'd drop you a line and let you know im watching/reading. Ride on soldier!

-Lyle

Hey boss, too bad I missed you on the way out. If I end up coming home through the US, I'll give you a shout and maybe we can have a drink.

Sounds good - hope your ride is going as well as mine is!

I had intended on doing real-time posts, but screw that noise. It's too much work.

I'm currently writing this from my second stint in Dawson City.

I've been keeping a journal - old school paper and pen - and that's been my priority. If I have it in my journal, it won't crash, the batteries won't die and the screen won't break. So....let me just scroll back a bit...

July 9. Day 3, or something.

My decision for the day was North or South Dakota. I have been to South previously, which means it's old ground. But I hear that North is all oil and gas, driving up the price of rooms and also there's nothing there (with apologies to any North Dakotans).

I decided on the whirlwind tour of South Dakota. Why? Because Chris the Gnome hadn't been to those places before.

Now before I go on, it was pointed out to me how *&^%ing crazy that sounds. I understand. But in the back of my head I was like "I'm hauling around the world's worst travel companion, how can I not have some pics taken in interesting spots?"

Before I got too far, I hit another Wal-Mart for a salad for lunch. This system is actually working out pretty well - thanks to advrider inmate theshnizzle for the tip.

So at a gas station I see two bikes - a sport bike and a naked bike. Enter Kris and Maria



What I love about this trip is that every time I start thinking I'm hardcore, I meet someone who puts me to shame.

Kris and Maria are out for a 5000+ km ride, on a sport bike and naked bike, with just the clothes on their backs, a change of clothes, and raingear. No jackets. No boots. No AGATT. Just fuckit lets ride. Sunburnt, no destination in mind, man they were young, dumb and full of cum, and I mean that in the most complimentary way.

We shot the breeze for a while, and then since we were headed in the same direction rode together for a while. Their plan for the day? Party in Sturgis.

I was thinking more of heading to the Badlands, but as we were riding I was weighing joining them and tying one on with young'un who could be my kids, or sticking with my plan.





I decide, in the end, to stick to MY ride. While I'd love to join them, I'm acutely aware of the 20 year difference between us, and I really did want to ride the dirt in Badlands NP.



So off to the Badlands I go. I took some video, I think this is it, but frankly I'm drunk in a bar in Dawson City right now, so this might be it, it might not.











Huh. Looks like video linking to smugmug doesn't work. I'm having difficulty uploading to youtube. I could delete all the busted links, but screw it I'm drunk and this feels more organic.

I've been through Badlands NP a couple of times before, and there are two main ways through it - the paved road (240) and Sage Creek Road, which is dirt. I had never done Sage Creek because my travelling companions are all dirt-averse. They'd say they're pro-pavement. And to be fair, we all live in the Greater Toronto Area, where like all mega-cities there isn't much dirt to practice on.

But this time, I was alone, and the Primitive Camp Site (their words, not mine) in BNP was only accessible via Sage Creek, so off I went.

I know there are folks who are either giggling or rolling their eyes, but there's a first for everyone, and this was my first real foray, after a decade of riding and hundreds of thousands of kms of touring, onto dirt, so it was kind of a big deal for me.



Yeah, I know. Perfectly groomed hardpack. WTF is this guy moaning about?



So my first impressions of the R1200GSW on dirt, with street tires?

Inspiring. Seriously, I found myself with so much confidence in short order, as soon as I realized the bike was doing all the work. It felt balanced, didn't skitter, and whatever black magic the BMW engineers did with the brakes, well, it was worth it. I got familiar with what the ABS felt like, but was I was impressed with was how much speed got scrubbed off BEFORE the ABS kicked in. I can see the Bavarian engineering team huddled around a boiling cauldron, adding eye of newt and hair of Sochiro. I'm sure there's a single word in German for "Well done, team, you exceeded expectations" and I'll bet it sounds like Poland being invaded.

Well, the "primitive" camp site was an unfair label. It was a beautiful site, with sites on both sides of a ring road that ran around a meadow in a sheltered depression. The only thing primitive was that there was no water, which I had plenty of.

Camp:


As I was getting dinner together:



another rider rolled up on an older GS (1100, I think). Lyle rolls up and asks if he can share the site - absolutely!

Lyle and I shoot the breeze, and it's great to hear his story. He's riding from Mountain View CA to Boston, and planning a sojourn through my neck of the woods in Ontario. I tell him not to get too excited about the roads back home, and give him some routes to get him around the epic traffic in Southern Ontario. He's a good guy, and it's nice to really connect with someone. It's only been a couple of days, but I'm finding the company really welcome.

At 6 am, the alarm goes off and I'm up. It rained overnight, but has mostly dried.



Breaking camp is always easier with 2 people, and we're done in no time.





I decide to join Lyle for breakfast at Wall Drug, and this is where my day started to go wrong.



Not because of the company, but because I started compromising my trip. I've been through South Dakota before, and rehashing that trip wasn't really on my agenda. My day ended up being a frantic re-hash of that trip. Crazy Horse, Mount Rushmore, Iron Mountain Road (16A) and I even contemplated Sturgis.

And why? So I could take pictures of Chris the Gnome.







(just a little dirt nap in a parking lot. I told the people that rushed out to help me that BMW designed the bike to fall over like that)



Again, don't get me wrong, these places should be on everyone's list. Mount Rushmore is impressive, 16A is a beautiful road (when it's not clogged with a parade) and Crazy Horse is ... indescribable.



But as the day dragged on, I realized that on this trip, at this time, in this way, I wanted to be doing none of these things. What I wanted to do was to make time, to get myself closer to my ultimate destination, still so very far away. I was rushed getting from one place to another, tired from the heat and unhappy.

So &^%$ you, Chris.

Lunch in Culver's, a holdover from when I worked in Chicago and would do weekend riding trips in to Wisconsin. There's something magical about their frozen custard, I think they add ground up leprechauns and rainbows to them or something.

With a storm on the horizon, I stopped at a Radio Shack to buy and install a cigarette lighter plug on the BMW. The R1200GS comes with a BMW-style plug that's exactly the same as a Powerlet outlet, and while I had bought a converter to go from BMW to cigarette outlet, that outlet didn't provide the watts to power the air pump I was using to inflate my air mattress. Every time I tried it, it would trip a breaker and shut down. My planned fix was to use a cigarette plug attached to alligator clips that I would connect directly to the battery, which had worked so far. However, getting to the battery required removing a side cover, which isn't a big deal every now and then, but being familiar with Murphy's Law, I knew that I was going to lose the screw, or crack the panel, or some other such nonsense.

So with parts from the Radio Shack, in the parking lot with a huge storm blowing in, I did my wrenching.



Lunch, however, ended up putting me to sleep, and I had to stop early in Gillette, WY at a hotel. It cost more than I wanted to spend, but I recognized the signs that I had to stop. I had stopped thinking, and that's when mistakes happen.

Wifi in the restaurant let me take care of pictures and Facebook, and a crash into bed.

My plan today was to ride from Gillette, WY through Beartooth pass again. I rode this ride the last time I was out this direction, and this road is on lots of people's buckets lists for a reason. It's spectacular. For all my grumbling yesterday about not really riding my ride, I can't really be this close to such an amazing road and not hit it.




I was going to take 14 and 14A across Bighorn National Park, but a local at a gas station told me about a dirt road he recommended I take instead. Said it was all graded and then pulled a map out of his truck. It seemed pretty straightforward to me, so for some reason I didn't bother to pay that close attention to his directions, figuring that it seemed so obvious that I'd have a tough time missing it.

And here's where GPS's don't work as well as a good paper map. Trying to find the road on the GPS was next to impossible. Because it was such a small road, I had to zoom way in, and then scrolling around the screen was impossible. I'd get to a fork in the road, follow one of the forks and have no idea if it was the right one. Going back was difficult sometimes, and it was just overall a pain in the ass. I told myself I was just going to use my common sense and stay on the well-graded road that had the right bearing, more or less.

At the start of the road, I was held up by a flagman who was waiting for a logging truck to come down the road - it wasn't safe for traffic to be going up, and as the truck passed us finally, I was grateful for the holdup. I couldn't imagine coming around a corner in the dirt to find one of those in my lane.

But as I was maneuvering the bike in the line, I found myself on an incline, in loose dirt, on street tires. I had quite a bit of difficulty just getting up this little incline from a standing start, and it got me feeling a bit nervous about getting in over my head in the dirt in a remote section. Street tires, very little experience on my part, a heavy, overloaded bike...



In the end, however, it was fine. I wasn't sure about a couple of forks in the road, but I tried to keep pointed in the right direction and follow the more well-used road. And there was some traffic coming in the other direction, which gave me confidence that they must be coming from SOMEWHERE...





2 things....

1. I had my Wal-Mart salad in a meadow in the middle of the park. This meadow just opened up in front of me, with big boulders on the side perfect for resting. It was both serene and surreal, and one of those moments where I knew I had to stop. This was my stop...



This was my view:







2. As I came bombing around a corner a bit later, I was overwhelmed with the smell of lilac. It was like running into a wall - BAM - so thick I could taste it, and it didn't take long to see where it was coming from.







Every once in a while, the GPS hands out a little gem like this one:



Sure enough....



In the end, the suggestion was a great one, getting me off the beaten path, giving me a road that I had never done before, and restoring a bit of the sense of adventure....

In the afternoon, Beartooth Pass was beckoning...



Click for crappy video:



Beartooth was as amazing as I had remembered it, but there was some serious weather off in the distance

click for crappy video




That put a bit of a damper on things for me, but it was what it was... it didn't make the road any less amazing.



There was still plenty of snow



In places, the cut through the snow was well over my head









In the end, the weather didn't end up bothering me too much. After Beartooth, it was west again.

I found my thoughts drifting today. What if I don't get another job? What if the reason that it didn't work out was because I had failed somehow? Would I be able to provide?

These were exactly the thoughts that I was trying to stave off with this trip. I didn't want to beat myself up too much, to internalize too much guilt. But I knew in my heart of hearts that I needed the distraction of this trip to be able to buy myself some time. Without that, I'd be in a bad place...

The day ended in Laurel, Montana. The main employment in this town was a refinery, and as such, all of the mom and pop motels were taken up by tradespeople who were basically living there full time for weeks or even months at a time while they came in from far out of town to work at the plant. The place I ended up at, the Russell Inn, was sketchy. The room, for $55, was maybe 8x8 and looked like a murder scene. In fact, it wasn't so much 'whether' there had been a murder there, but rather how many. I could have sworn I took pictures, because I like to show off the classy places I stay, but I can't seem to find any.

In places like this, where the guests are basically residents, there's a different vibe. Instead of everyone being travellers, it can sometimes feel like you're intruding on their home. I really don't like staying in places like this, but tonight I had little choice. I was going to camp at the campground by the river, but it was closed to camping. Day use only. I considered stealth camping, but decided against it. So Bates Motel it is.

There were some characters outside the room, at first glance redneck types. Southern accents are dripping all over the place. They knew each other, from working at the refinery, and were bbqing and drinking beer. I'm an introvert, so I was really zoned in on the residential vibe, really feeling out of place, but I decided to get over it. I pulled up a chair outside my room, and I'm very glad I did.

So here's my deal - I'm a born and bred Canadian, visibly mixed race, with a very middle eastern name that reminds folks of terrorists. It's caused me problems when travelling, both in the US and in Western Canada, and so I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder. When I introduce myself to people, I watch their reaction to my name. Sometimes it sticks in their throats - as they repeat it back to me I can tell it tastes bad. Racism, overt or not, sucks. And I don't need another barfight (I'm looking at you, Brooks Alberta 2005).

I know that mostly people are cool. And I want to be the kind of person that gives the world the benefit of the doubt - after all, how can I expect people not to stereotype or judge me if I'm doing the same to them.

Mostly, people are cool. And so are these guys. They introduce themselves, and my name washes over them like it ain't no thing and I'm reminded that sometimes it's better not to drag experiences forward.

These two guys are from Oklahoma and Louisiana, respectively, and they're skilled tradesmen. They offer me a beer, and we settle into a conversation. They follow the work and Louisiana hasn't been home in 2 years. Oklahoma has been home only 2 weeks this year. They're both married with families, and this is how they like it. They work long, hard hours and are focussed on making as much money as they can - they're talking 70 - 90 hour weeks with crazy overtime. Again, it's just how they like it.

The night ends early for me - a good night to them and my head is filled with things to think about.

So hot today. As hot as 38C on the bike, and I've busted out my cooling vest today.

This trip is starting to feel like it revolves around McDonald's, but in fairness, I get a lot accomplished in a visit.

Ice
Coffee
Free Wifi (important in the US because roaming costs so much)
Clean bathroom
Food-like product.

With the exception of food (though I do have a soft spot for Egg McMuffins) it's a 2x/day thing - once for breakfast and then again in the mid-afternoon when I need a coffee. Since I'm not carrying a lot of paper maps with me and using the GPS to plan the trip on the fly kinda sucks, the wifi and the iPad are key for planning out my day.

All interstate today - necessary, I suppose. There was tons I would have liked to have stopped for, but I have the north on my mind. Bozemon MT seems like a town I could spend some time in. Hipster college town, I suppose. Glacier NP got a pass this trip as well - I suspect I'm going to regret that...

For all your used cow needs...



Click for crappy video:



At any rate, I landed in a campground (later edit: I think it was the Lake Roosevelt National Park Recreation area, though truth be told I'm not sure).

The camp isn't busy by any stretch, but most of the sites right next to the water were taken. I find one that isn't, next to a family that's car camping.



I got the feeling right away that they were grumpy that the empty site next to them was taken - there wasn't much privacy between the sites. And as I made camp and enjoyed the late afternoon light, I took stock of my neighbours. I'm not a hardcore camper by any stretch, but it seemed like these guys brought everything but the house with them. A portable DVD player blared a Louis CK comedy route over dinner... *shrug* different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

What I found odd is that they weren't interested in me. I know how egotistical that sounds, but I like meeting new people, and the chitchat that happens all over the place is something I really enjoy. That stuff often turns into the highlight of the trip, and more often than not I get the heads up on local information that I wouldn't have otherwise - like that road through Bighorn NP.

When I've camped before, someone always wanders over to make conversation - it's a pretty social scene. And so here I am, 20 feet away from them and they're not even making eye contact. So be it - on with my swimming shorts and it's a short scramble down the little cliff to the water's edge to enjoy a beer and a cigar, and in for a dunk in lieu of a shower.







A quick and dirty dinner for me tonight - my friends, that is the best chicken chili ever to come out of a can that I had with me at the time.



And in a little bit, I'm humbled again. The family has made a big ol' dinner, and over walks the father with a plate for me. Still doesn't say much, but it's made me realize that again I've been quick to judge. Despite having already eaten dinner, the second plate disappears in very short order. Afterwards, I catch his eye and repeat my thanks. Still not terribly conversational, but it's all good.

As the sun set, I try and get some shots of the colours on the river

So I'm writing this ride report in retrospect, and for this day of the ride my notes are super light. Here's the totality of my entry:

___
July 13
Was up early, decided not to fight it. Was at the border in Carlisle WA at 7:45 am, border opened at 8 am.
Easy Peasy

Some nice roundabout roads back up to the interstate to Spokane.

So hot. Saw 39.5C. I was cheering for 40C.

Landed in Wildwood Campground.
___

That's it. That's all. I have other memories and some pictures from the day, but it goes to show how frazzled the heat left me. I wore the cooling vest again today, but it can only do so much good. So without great handwritten notes to lean on, let's see what story my pictures tell.

I was up early - a couple of time zone shifts has left me asleep and awake early, so I decided to make the most of the day. I was at the border crossing 15 minutes before it opened





I do remember the roads being underwhelming. After all of the majesty of the badlands and the Rockies, the roads I rode on this day blending into each other. Riding in a broad valley, with forest on both sides, it's easy to lose perspective on things. The vast forest just because a sea of green in the background.

The roads were nice - looking at them on the map there seems to be a number of roads I could have chosen that all looked amazing. It must be great to be a rider in an area like this. But it was so hot that all I wanted to do was make time. I was grateful for the Camelbak I was riding with. Ice and water goes in at every opportunity, and I'm making sure to take in water all the time in little sips.

I have no real plan now but north. I have the GPS set to Dawson City and I'm just making whatever time I can.

I stopped for some relief in a Tim Horton's (hooray for being back in Canada) in Kelowna, and for the first time in a long time had to deal with city traffic again. At the Timmies, with the wifi and the iPad, I set about trying to figure out where I'm going to live tonight. Spaces between towns is increasing, and I don't have the luxury that I had in the US of being able to find a mom and pop motel wherever. I need to do some more planning, or I'm going to end up stealth camping, which I don't really care for. I'm also aware that I'm in bear country, and that adds a whole other dimension to camping.

So the Wildwood Campground looks good to me.

As I rolled up to the campsite office, another lady in an RV was also checking in. She told me that I had passed her earlier in the day, and then again in the afternoon (I guess they drove straight through lunch). She gave me a good-natured "be careful, motorcycles are dangerous" speech that I'm familiar with from matronly types, and I assured her that I was.

The guy running the site was a character who snuck me the wifi password without charging me the $5 he was supposed to and I set up camp. As I was doing so he came over to shoot the breeze.



I told him about what I was doing and what I was aiming for, and he started talking about "up North". I stopped him because it seemed to me that it was ridiculous that he didn't consider where he was to be "North". But he didn't. The moose up North, he said, were like dinosaurs compared to the little moose (meese?) he had around the camp. Step right over a fence, they would.

We talked about the forest fires that were burning in the area - plenty - and I started hoping that there would be no road closures along the way. He had a story about some guys that had rode into Yellowknife recently (where all the fires were), only to have the only road out of town closed because of the fire. They ended up being stuck there for a bit and chartering planes to get them back home. I suppose they would have come back for their bikes at some point, but I can't imagine being separated...

The campground was really nice. Chris was back among his people. The beer bottle is classy, Chris...



The campsite is the best I've been to so far, with a lounge for folks to hang out in when bad weather strikes, big clean washrooms.

Across the street is a store, and so I load up on the essentials:



Mexican beer this far north? Sure! That collapsable bucket made for a great ice bucket. I also got to try out my favourite farkle



Yup. Works as advertised.