When we left the cabin where Greg and Lea were staying, we agreed to meet there again at 8 for breakfast. Unfortunately our alarm didn't go off, so we didn't wake up til a little after 8. Once we were all packed up, we headed over to their cabin and found out they had slept in a little too, so all was good. Greg had made some oatmeal, because that is what they have for breakfast too, and made enough for all four of us! It was really nice to be able to enjoy breakfast with them and was a lot of fun watching Ranja play. As we were talking, we found out that they got married in August too, on the 20th!! What a coincidence that was! We discussed our routes and found out that after they head to Jasper and the park area, they are heading to Vancouver. Since they have to ride a lot less distance everyday, they will be to Vancouver around the same time we will! So we plan to meet up with them there and ride with them for a while down the coast. We're really excited because it would be really fun to get to share the adventure with them (they have a website too: family-pedaleros.blogspot.com where they have some great pictures!). After breakfast, we said our goodbyes with plans to see each other again in Vancouver. It was cloudy and looked like it was going to rain again today. The ride into Smithers was pretty quick as it was only about 12km. We met a couple (Brian and Hillary) from Ontario, CA riding from Calgary down the West Coast. They weren't 100% positive on their final destination, they just know they have until October before they are finished. Just before town, we met a kid named Jason who was riding into town. We rode and chit chatted with him the rest of the way to town until we got to the grocery store to make sure we had enough food for a while. From there, we went to the bike shop to pick up a few more spokes to have on hand since we knew they gave us the right size. Our plan was to stop at the library to upload some pictures, but it was closed, so we just went to McDonald's to fill up on water. Since we were already getting hungry, or at least we thought we were, we stopped at a Dairy Queen because they had picnic tables out front. We made some more bologna sandwiches since we had almost a whole loaf of bread and a package of bologna left. Once our bellies were full we headed out of town. We met a lady from Germany riding from Alaska (she took the ferry to Prince Rupert). She didn't have a plan as to where she was riding, and no real final destination. It didn't take it too long to get to the next town, which was Moricetown. We took a break there on the front porch of a building that was closed. Joe had a couple more sandwiches to use up what was left and I worked on my blog. Surprisingly there was internet there, so we were able to check out Greg and Lea's website a little better. The next 25 miles or so went by pretty quick. There were some hills here and there and the rain was off and on. Our planned stop for the night was New Hazelton. Just before town, Joe stopped and said "look behind you." Apparently there was a bear that walked across the road behind me as I was flying downhill. The bear must have been moving too quick, because I didn't get to see him. Once we got there, we rode around for a little bit before finding a nice park that had a shelter with picnic tables. We made dinner under there glad to be out of the rain. As we were finishing dinner, the sun came out for a little bit and there were patches of blue sky, which was much appreciated since all we have seen lately are grey cloudy skies. A nice lady (who's name we found out later was Hazel) that was on here evening walk with her puppy dog stopped to talk to us for a while and inquired about our trip. She continued on and then a while later on her way back through the park stopped again. After talking with us for a while she offered for us to stay in her extra bedroom! We were so excited and gladly accepted the offer. So, we packed up our stuff from having dinner and headed down the road to her house. There was a nice place to lock up our bikes in the shed so we didn't have to worry about them. We each had a wonderful shower and had fun playing with her puppies: Misty and Daisy. While we watched TV, Hazel made each of us a really tasty fruit smoothie. What another amazing day. We were so happy to sleep in a bed because we know we will be camping for probably a week straight at least while we are making our way up the Stewart Cassiar Highway. Tonight we stayed in a town that is at the same latitude as the most southern point of Alaska. We rode 55.72 miles today.
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We woke up to the sound of rain again, but were happy that we were under the overhang and that everything would be dry. While we were packing up, a guy in a truck (possibly the priest) drove up and asked if we spent the night there. He had no problem whatsoever with it and after asking where we were riding from, knew somehow that we were going to Alaska. I guess no one would want to ride their bike out here for any other reason than that. Once we were packed, we headed to Subway as quick as we could because we had to pee so bad. Just before we got there I hit a huge hole that I didn't see beforehand and my right rear pannier completely fell off which hadn't happened before. That slowed us down a little on our mission to get to the washroom but nothing was broken so it wasn't a problem. Since it was raining, we headed over to the picnic table that had a pavilion so we would be nice and dry. It was nice knowing that we had a short day of riding ahead of us. The ride out of town was uphill for quite a while, but luckily it wasn't too steep. As we were climbing, Joey noticed that there was a huge crack in the bottom of his right cycling shoe. This is the same thing that happened to his old shoes after about 20,000 miles. So hopefully they will last to Alaska or to Washington where we can have his extra pair at home mailed to us. When we reached the top of Hungry Hill, we were at an elevation of 2,769 feet, which isn't that high, but it sure was a pretty view. We took a cookie break at the rest area and got back on the road just as it started to rain again. The rest of the ride to our destination was almost entirely downhill. It rained off and on all day, but nothing too bad. When we found the trailer park that our host ran (which was pretty easy because there was a sign out front that said "cyclists welcome" and a bike hanging off the sign too!) we couldn't be happier. John, our host, was there to greet us when we pulled in. He showed us the cyclist cabin which had a full size bed and a set of bunk beds. On the side there was a stand to put your bike on if you needed to do any work. Once we were all settled we each had a nice hot shower and enjoyed relaxing for a while since we were there pretty early in the day. Not too long after we had been there, I heard voices outside, and it was another cyclist! His name was Dave and he was riding from Oregon to Prince Rupert where he is going to take a ferry up to Alaska. We were pretty excited to have someone else touring there too. A while later, John gave us a ride into town to the bike shop and the grocery store. The bike shop was wonderful and got us the right size spoke that we needed to fix the wheel. They also gave us the plastic pedal pieces that convert our SPD pedals for regular shoes, which might come in handy if Joe's cycling shoes get to the point where they are unusable. We stopped at the grocery store and we got some stuff to make sandwiches and more cookies. On our way back, we saw a couple riding with loaded bikes as well as a trailer. We pulled over to see if they had a place to stay for the night. So, about 15 minutes later, our group of 3 cyclists at the trailer park grew to 5 and a half. Their names were Greg, Lea and their little one year old Ronja. They are from Germany and are riding from Anchorage heading south as far as their bikes and Ronja will let them (hoping to go all the way to Argentina I think). We let them get settled, headed to our own cabin and made some sandwiches. Joe also successfully trued his wheel using just his break pads since we didn't have a truing stand and was pretty excited that he did. Later on we had a fantastic evening. Everyone went to the cabin where Lea, Greg and Ronja were staying (because it was quite a bit bigger and had furnishings. It was so much fun sharing stories and hearing about their trips. We asked a lot of questions about how it was traveling with a baby too. They ride about 2 hours in the morning and about an hour and a half in the afternoon and then spend a good amount of the day letting Ronja play. I was surprised to hear that she does pretty well sitting in the trailer, and looked quite cozy in there when they arrived earlier. Whenever she gets fussy, they have a backpack seat and a little helmet for her. They said she really likes that too. A little while later, John and wife Cheryl came back to visit with us. They even brought treats- homemade strawberry rhubarb cake (that was still warm right out of the oven!), vanilla ice cream, beer, and apple cider. It was such a wonderful treat! Before we knew it, it was 10pm (its so hard to know when it gets that late because it is still so light out). Time flies when you are having fun! Today turned out to be an absolutely wonderful day, even though we rode in the rain again. We had a nice relaxing day of only 30.08 miles.
Both of us had a hard time getting a good nights sleep because the rest area was right next to train tracks. A few trains went by in the middle of the night, and since we were so close we could feel the ground vibrate and it sounded as if the train was going to run right through our tent. Morning came all too soon again. Joe woke up at 5 and had thought it was more like 7:30 because of how bright it was. He went back to sleep for a while, but woke up a few hours later with a bad head ache, probably from a combination of the light and the trains all night. Luckily, I felt fine and was only sleepy. So, since Joey didn't feel good, I put the tent away and made our breakfast while he rested on the picnic table. Even though he had a head ache, he said he was feeling a little nauseous too and had a hard time finishing his oatmeal. He took a couple aspirin which seemed to help once they kicked in a little while later. I'm glad he started feeling better because I was really worried that he was getting sick which would have been horrible. It was still cold and cloudy when we woke up and there was a light rain for a good portion of the time we were getting ready to ride. To our surprise, it was only about 9 miles to Burns Lake from the rest area we had camped at. After riding on some rolling hills into town, our first objection was to find the bike shop. When we got there, we found out they are only open 2 and 1/2 hours a day, days a week (and they didn't open until 3:30!). Since it didn't make sense to wait around all day for them to open when we didn't even know if they would have what we were looking for, we decided to just find a grocery store and get some cereal and milk for a second breakfast/ lunch. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the prices in the grocery store were reasonable in comparison to a lot of the other grocery stores we had seen in BC. Being that the prices were good, I got some more cookies and some bananas along with our cereal and milk. Our next mission was to find a picnic table. There was a wonderful visitor center in town that had a nice table outside along with free wi-fi. I will be honest, I didn't expect to find wi-fi until we made it to Smithers. Again, between the two of us, we polished off a while box of cereal and a 2L carton of milk. That is one of our favorite meals simply because we always get filled up and don't have to worry about being hungry for quite a while. The next 30 miles were very hilly and I was already pretty tired from not sleeping well, so they were pretty tough and slow going. We made it to the 2nd rest area outside of Burns Lake and I was ready to be done for the day even though it was only 4pm. I felt very sluggish and my whole body just wanted to curl up and go to sleep. The thought of riding another 20 miles to the next town was not pleasant and seemed like a really long ways. After taking a little rest and having a banana and some cookies for a snack, we ended up getting back on the bikes and riding again. Joe really wanted to have a nice light day tomorrow so he was pushing to get to the next town. The thought of a light day is always wonderful, so reluctantly I agreed and we were off. Luckily for me, the remainder of the ride to the next town was almost totally flat, with the exception of one hill right before town. I couldn't believe it! Having a nice flat ride gave me a second wind and the next 18 miles didn't seem like it was that far anymore. The wind had died down a bit so we were moving along pretty good. I even resorted to practicing my whistling because the riding was easier and I wasn't out of breath from climbing any hills. It was very enjoyable. When we made it to Houston, we stopped at Subway to re-fill on water. Again we thought about getting subs, but it just wasn't worth it for how much it was. We started riding around a bit to look for churches that might work for setting our tent up at. There was a museum in town that had an old church and one room school house that we stopped to take a look at. While there, we met a nice couple and their children who were out on a walk. They gave us some pointers on where to find churches in town along with a little peace of mind because they said it was a pretty laid back town so we shouldn't have any problems with putting our tent up anywhere. We stopped at the grocery store across the street and picked up some cheddar sausage to go with our mac and cheese and then headed to the picnic tables in the park next to the visitor center. There was a nice pavilion, which was great because there was again a nice light rain, and even a place to charge our phones while we ate. After we got our dishes done, we rode over to where the churches were, and there were about 4 within the same block. The Catholic church had a wonderful overhang by their front door that we decided to set up under in case it started to rain harder. Another day where the bugs weren't too bad because it was cold. Tomorrow should be a nice light day since we have a place to stay through Warm Shower's tomorrow. Our mileage totaled 60.36 today.
Both of us slept really well last night and woke up feeling well rested. I was a little slow getting up because I knew we had a lot of miles to do today. When we looked out the window, it looked a little cloudy and cold, unlike our beautiful sunny day yesterday. Once we were all packed up, we went to the kitchen where Deidre was in the process of making scones. We had some scrambled eggs while we waited and some more tea. The scones were delicious, especially since they just came out of the oven and there was homemade strawberry jelly to put on them. I also had a banana. We got a pretty early start today compared to when we have been getting on the road lately. We said our goodbyes to Deidre and then headed down the road. We knew there was a sporting goods/ bike shop in town, so we stopped there. Joe's wheel already looked a bit out of true, so he was going to see how much it would be to get it re-trued. Unfortunately the mechanic doesn't come in until Thursday, so they weren't any help with that. But we did manage to get another set of tire levers (plastic ones this time!). Just as we were leaving the shop, it started to rain. Since it was already really cold (and we had another head wind), this didn't make it any better. About 3 miles into the ride, I had to stop to put my pants on because my legs were almost numb. Luckily the rain didn't last all day. After we had ridden about 10 miles or so it stopped and was just cold and windy. I was glad that the ride still remained relatively flat. One thing that I have noticed in BC is that a LOT of people pass. Not only do they pass often, most don't take into account the fact that we are riding on the side of the road. They wouldn't pass if there was a car coming in the other direction, but think it's fine to pass when we are there. Granted we are on the side of the road and there is room, it is REALLY scary to see two cars screaming down the road towards you! The people in the cars don't seem to be able to think about it from the perspective of a bike. The scariest one today was while I was crossing a bridge (where the shoulder is a lot smaller) and a huge work truck decided it would try to pass a semi/transport truck. I was a bit shaken after that one, that's for sure. Ever since we've gotten into CA we've seen people pass when we are right there 5 or more times a day. At least we haven't gotten "honked" at all the time like we do when we are in the States. Shortly after it stopped raining, we saw a sign that said there was a Subway "25 minutes" (more like 2-3 hours for us) down the road. We got a little excited and thought that we might have Subway for lunch since we hadn't had it since we were in CO. We passed through a small town called Fort Fraser where we stopped at a gas station and enjoyed some of the homemade cookies that Deidre had given us to tide us over until lunch. An hour or so later, we made it to Fraser Lake, where the Subway was. When we went inside, we filled our water bottles and then saw the price of subs- they were a lot more than they were in the states (which we thought they might be since everything in CA is really expensive). As much as we wanted subs, we opted to save our money and just make some rice. There was a nice visitor center in town that had a couple picnic tables outside. While I was making lunch, Joe took a look at his back wheel to see if he would be able to true it a little. Turns out in doing so, he found another broken spoke. This is getting a bit ridiculous all of the problems we keep having with his rear wheel. Joe took out one of the extra spokes that he had gotten back in Jasper and prepared to fix it. While trying to fix it, he found out the spoke was too long- the guy at the bike shop gave him the wrong length spoke! So, since he couldn't fix the spoke he put the tire back on and said we would just have to hope for the best. There was a sporting goods store in town, so we stopped there to see if they by any chance had a spoke. Unfortunately they weren't a shop that fixed bikes, just sod gear. On the other hand, we found out that there was a bike shop in Burns Lake (which we would be at tomorrow morning). That was a bit of a relief because we figured that we would have to wait until Smithers to find a bike shop. The remainder of today's ride was pretty smooth. Since we left Vanderhoof this morning, the scenery has increasingly gotten better. Yesterday's ride was kind of boring in comparison. Since the beginning of the trip, if I happened to see a coin on the ground I would pick it up (ya know the whole "find a penny pick it up.." thing). Usually I find a penny or a nickel and sometimes a quarter once in a while, but today proved to be different. At one point as I was riding, I saw a penny on the ground, then a dime right near it, and then as i was going along, I found 10 more pennies, all within about 15 feet. Later in the day I also found another penny, a dime and then a few more miles down the road a Luney! I thought that it was pretty funny that I found $1.32 in one day! After we had ridden 53 miles total, we stopped at a rest area to have a cookie break. At that point I was pretty tired, my butt hurt from being in the saddle and I was ready to be done. Our original goal was to make it to Burns Lake today, which was still a little over 30 miles away still, but the wind made that not possible for us. We plugged along for another 21 miles to then next rest area where we planned to stop for the night It was a very long 21 miles for me and I was moving pretty slow since I was tired. As I counted the miles down, it seemed like it would just take us forever to get there. It got a little hillier and the wind was still pretty strong; I was definitely ready to be done riding for today. Somehow, we made it to the rest area. I was so happy to see the "rest Area 400m" sign! We made some spaghetti-o's for dinner snacked on some more cookies and looked at the river and RR tracks which were right near the rest area. While I washed dishes, Joey put up the tent and then we got all of our food put in the bear box( back of the bear proof garbage bins). It was really cold and windy, which we were glad for because it meant there were no mosquitoes. We relaxed in the tent for a while and listened to the radio. We were surprised to find music because normally we only get one station: CBC radio that is mostly just talk shows. But, we picked up 98.1CHFI, which was a "normal" radio station that played "popular" music. The strange thing was that all it talked about was Toronto, Niagara Falls Canada, etc. and said "Toronto's Favorite Station." Needless to say, we were quite confused as to how we were getting that station. We rode 74.79 miles today. Despite it being a lot flatter, it still took us forever because of that darn wind.
We made some more pancakes for breakfast and then got everything all packed up and ready to go. Unfortunately Megumi had already gone to work, so we didn't get to say goodbye to her. I spent some time playing with the kitties again before we had to leave. My favorite kitty was Berry, since he looked just like Munchkin did and was super cuddly. I was definitely going to miss all the kitties. Since there was lots of cake left, I put some in a couple zip lock bags because I knew we would really enjoy that after riding for a while. By the time we were on the road it was about 9:30. We said our goodbyes to David and the puppies and headed out of town. It was a little slow going in the beginning of the ride because we had a couple big hills to climb and we stopped at Walmart to get a couple things before heading out into "the wilderness." It seemed like it took forever to get the first 25 miles done, but after that the miles started to go quicker. Sometime pretty early in the ride, we met Marcel who was riding from Alaska down to South America. After chit chatting for a few we also learned that he is from Holland. It is so neat riding and meeting other people touring because about 80% of the time it seems that they are from a different country. We had a bit of a head wind today which slowed us down quite a bit. Eventually we stopped for lunch around the 34 mile mark. We decided that since we would be going to a Warm Shower's host and that she already said she would make us dinner that we would just eat the rest of the cake for lunch. It filled us up enough to go the remaining 30 miles or so to get to Vanderhoof. I was really glad I had a chance to make some cake, especially since it was such a wonderful treat after riding for a while! The remainder of the ride was a lot less hilly, in fact, in comparison to the terrain we had been riding on for the last few hundred miles, the road pretty much flattened out. There was still the wind, so we weren't able to take full advantage of the straight road, but we managed ok. The last few miles of the ride were a bit harder because I started to get pretty tired. Luckily, we were able to find our host's house relatively easy, especially since we knew she was moving soon and that there was a for sale sign out front. When we got there, we found a note on the door that said she had gone cycling and would be back at 7. It was perfect timing because we had enough time to each take a shower and get settled a bit. Her home was a beautiful log cabin right on the edge of a river (the view was SO pretty!) Since she would be moving soon, she had virtually no furniture or belongings left in the house. We got our sleeping bags all set up on the floor and were glad that we had a place indoors to sleep. Deidre, our host, made a wonderful dinner of potatoes, meatloaf and a homegrown salad (she had a fantastic garden). After dinner she even gave us each an ice cream bar which was of course wonderful. She made some roobios tea which I really enjoyed. By the time we were all finished with dinner it was already a little after 9. I had hoped that Gram and Mom would be able to Oovoo us sometime this evening, but wasn't sure if we could get it to work for them. To my delight, with the help of Uncle Larry, they made magic happen and I got to "see" everyone! It was so nice to be able to see everyone's face since I hadn't seen them since we left. Our chat wasn't very long because it was already after 1am back at home, but now that they know how to work Oovoo, it will be pretty easy to do again in the future. We both went to bed pretty early since we knew we would have a pretty long day of riding tomorrow. We rode 64.22 miles today.
David made us a wonderful breakfast of eggs, pancakes, bacon, and home fries which started our day off great! For most of the morning we relaxed and watched a few more episodes of Breaking Bad (we're officially hooked on that show!), spent some time playing with the kitties and puppies, and enjoyed being inside. Joe worked on his bike for a while and I chatted with Grammy on the computer. Later on in the afternoon we walked to the grocery store again to pick up some stuff to make dinner (and get more ice cream!). I also bought cake mix and frosting so I could make a cake. We watched a few more episodes and talked to Kelly on Oovoo before we made some pasta and salad for dinner. Later on I made a cake and then we went to bed. We really enjoyed our 2 days off and had fun being "couch potatoes" for a while. Tomorrow we will be back on the road again.
We had a wonderful nights sleep and got to sleep in a little. We made some pancakes for breakfast and then watched a few more episodes of Breaking Bad. I guess it was a good day for a rest because it was rainy this morning. We plan to stay a full day tomorrow and will head out Monday morning. For lunch we made another frozen pizza and then walked to the library. It is really nice that our host's house is so central to everything that we might need. After our short walk to the library, I spent some time uploading pictures while Joe looked into seeing if it would be possible to move our cruise up one week (we are more ahead of schedule still than we thought we would be when we booked for the 15th of Sept.) The library in Prince George was wonderful and I was surprised that even for a guest log in they gave us 120 minutes each on the computer! Most of the libraries I have been to give you a half hour-an hour. Since it was the weekend and we wanted to go out to a buffet, the only place that was available was at a Chinese buffet (which was more than fine with me!). So, since it was the 20th again not to long ago, we got to go out to eat courtesy of Grammy. From the library we walked to China Cup, which again, was really close to our host's house, and had a wonderful meal. There were some things that were different from the Chinese buffets in the states (they didn't have chicken and broccoli or beef and broccoli =( ) but the food was amazing. They had the best sweet and sour chicken I have ever had along with a bunch of other favorites. There was a huge table full of fruit and amazing desserts (I had 2 pieces of cake, pudding and ice cream w/ chocolate and caramel). We left with very full, happy tummies. When we got back to the house, we Oovoo-ed some family back home for a while and then watched more of Breaking Bad before heading to bed. It rained again in the evening so we were glad that we weren't in our tent. What a wonderful rest day.
We slept in a bit since we knew we would have a light day of riding today. Just as we were waking up, we heard a diesel truck pull into the rest area. When we looked outside, it was the guys coming to cut the grass/ weed whack. So we got our tent put away as quickly as we could so we wouldn't be in their way. We made a little oatmeal for breakfast and then headed towards Prince George! The ride was a little hilly in the beginning but seemed to flatten out a bit as we got closer to PG. Another sunny beautiful day (and the wind was with us again!). It didn't take us too long to get to PG and we were glad that we waited so we would have a relaxing day today. We didn't see any wildlife today, but I did forget to mention that yesterday we saw a wolf or coyote (not positive which it was). Once we got within 2-3 miles from our destination, we came around a bend and there it was- a city in the middle of the woods (or at least that's what it looked like from where we were). Luckily the traffic didn't really pick up as one would expect when going into a city. It was very enjoyable. We crossed the Fraser River again as we approached PG. Since we had a WS host set up we decided to find McDonald's so we could look up his address. This was the first McDonald's that we had seen in over 700 miles (Missoula, MT). Joey got a soda while I got onto the internet. It turns out that the McDonald's that we were at was only about 2 blocks from our host's house, I don't know how we got so lucky! Since we would be getting there in the afternoon before our host was home from work, he emailed us the info needed to get into his home. We hopped back on our bikes and in about 2 minutes were at our host's house. It was nice to know that we were definitely at the right house because there was a black dog (Maple) and a yellow dog (Donna) barking at us through the window. They also had 4 kitties, one of which was a tortis-shell just like Munchkin was! That made me a little sad because it made me miss her, but I was super happy that there were kitties to play with! It was really nice to be able to go inside and get settled even though our host wasn't there yet. We found "our area" downstairs and it is like a separate guest space with a couch/living room area, extra bedroom and a bathroom close by. It is wonderful! I took a nice hot shower and then did some laundry, which we desperately needed. Afterwards we walked to the grocery store, which was pretty close. Our plan was to go to a buffet for our "anniversary lunch" from Grammy, but we were too excited that we were in PG to realize that it was Friday and there wouldn't be any more lunch buffet's until Monday (unless we went to a Chinese Buffet). We were a little frustrated that we weren't thinking ahead very well, but figured we would figure something out. Since we have been wanting ice cream (and it is EXTREMELY expensive at the small grocery stores in the towns we have seen so far in CA--double the price of it at home) we got some of that, more cookies, pancake mix and syrup for breakfast, pork chops and corn to go with the 2 potatoes we had left from Missoula, and a couple frozen pizza's for lunch. Once we got back to the house, we put our pizza in the oven since we were pretty hungry. A few minutes later, David (our host) got home! While we enjoyed our pizza we talked with him for a while. It turns out that he is a music teacher at a french immersion school, so we got to hear a little about how that that worked. In Canada, they also have a thing called a differed salary that enables them to take a year off. David explained that he has been doing that and that this year he will be taking a long bike tour and then going with his wife, Megumi to visit Japan later on in the year. It is so neat that they can do that here in CA; I'm pretty sure we can't do that in the US and it's too bad! A little while later, Megumi got home from work and then right after they were on the way to a work party. They both had told us about the show "Breaking Bad" and how good it was. They have a really nice large screen TV and Netflix, so we decided that we would watch the first episode to see what it was like. It is about a Chemistry teacher that gets involved with cooking Crystal Meth after he finds out he is dying from lung cancer. Somehow, we got hooked on the show and ended up watching a total of 7 episodes by the end of the night! Somewhere in the middle of that, we made our pork chops, corn and potatoes for dinner and snacked on some more ice cream. We were still watching the show when David and Megumi got back home. I couldn't believe how much TV we watched, but I guess it's acceptable since we hadn't watched TV since we were in MT. What a fantastic, relaxing day we had! We only rode 23.30 miles today.
When we woke up this morning, the sun had heated up our tent so we were both really warm. Once we got all packed up we prepared to go back out into the mosquitoes. Luckily there was a little more of a breeze this morning than last night so they weren't quite as bad. We made some oatmeal for breakfast and then got on the road as quick as we cold. The rest area that we were planning on stopping at last night was really nice and even had flushing toilets! It would have been nice to camp there, but where we stopped was just fine. We stopped at that rest area for a little while and tried out our Pristine water purification drops for the first time since we could use some more water. I got the solution ready and we tripled the amount of drops to make sure that we killed everything (just in case there was cryptosporidium in the water). We had heard that if there were beaver dams anywhere in the area the chance of bacteria/viruses would be higher. We filled up our water bottles in the river and then once the solution was ready we added them to the water. After they had been sitting for about a half hour, we tried the water and it seemed like it worked just fine. Once we got on the road the first few miles seemed to go pretty quick. There was a slight tail wind that helped us along, but died down later in the day. We took a couple cookie breaks at the top of hills before we were all out of cookies again. The road continued to go up and down all day as it has been for the past few days. We had ridden a little over 35 miles before we stopped for lunch. During the ride this afternoon, Joe saw 2 bears! The first one he heard before he saw. He heard what sounded, as he put it, "like an elephant tromping through the woods, and then all of a sudden this little bear head popped up in the middle of the weeds." The second one was standing in the grassy area on the side of thee road and bolted as fast as he could back into the woods once he saw Joey. Unfortunately by the time I got there both bears were gone so I didn't get to see them. In the past 2 days we have seen 6 bears! There was a little cafe/gas station/ RV park that we didn't know existed until we saw the sign for it. We were pleasantly surprised. I was craving some french fries and was hoping the cafe would have those. Unfortunately when we got there the cafe was closed. BUT, there were a couple other touring cyclists sitting on the porch enjoying some sandwiches. The owner of the cafe was also there and although they were closed today, she offered us some leftover soup from an event they had this morning. Soup sounded really good so we said we would have some. Surprisingly the owner served the soup to us and it wasn't hot, more room temperature (but she did put 2 really amazing peanut butter cookies on the tray for us!). She charged us 5 bucks each, which was more than we would normally pay for something like that because we didn't get much food and were still hungry afterwards. But looking on the bright side, we didn't have to cook! Anyways, we had a fun time talking with the other cyclists. One of them was originally from near Green Bay, WI and the other was from Alabama. They started riding in Victoria and took a ferry up to Prince Rupert. They are riding across Canada. Their touring is a tiny bit different because they are trying to have a shower/laundry/internet every night, which sounds almost impossible to us (definitely not in our budget). Once we were all finished with our lunch, we bid our goodbyes and wished the other cyclists good luck and safe travels. Our original goal today was a rest area that is about 25-30 miles from Prince George. We thought about pushing it and making it all the way there, but we figured it would be more enjoyable to just have a nice short day tomorrow. So, we got to the rest area right next to the Willow River and made some rice for dinner. We seasoned it with some ramen noodle seasoning along with a crushed red pepper spice packet. The bugs weren't too bad when we got there, but by the time it got to be after 7 they got worse. After dinner we set up our tent and then relaxed the remainder of the evening in there so we could be out of the bugs. We played some 2 player games on the tablet for a while since it was still kind of early (and we didn't have to worry at all about battery life because we would get to charge it tomorrow in PG). Now that we are close enough to Prince George, we can get a little radio signal (there is only one station), so we listened for a couple hours before going to sleep early. We road 55.65 miles today and are excited to get to Prince George tomorrow, especially since we have a Warm Shower's all set up!
It was fun trying to fall asleep because the geese, the peacock, and the dog were all squawking or barking off and on. Once we laughed for a while about all of them making noise, we were able to tune them out and fall asleep. We slept in a little this morning since we had such a great night's sleep. Both of us felt well rested and energized. When we went in the house, Bonnie was already busy making breakfast; the first thing that Joey said when he opened the door was that it smelled like Denny's. Eva and Paul had just finished eating. Bonnie was making some really tasty pancakes and also made us some scrambled eggs. It is always so wonderful to have something that we can't easily cook on the road. When we were all finished we had nice full happy bellies. Curt catches and tags hummingbirds every summer, so we got to see how that process worked a little this morning. Bonnie was telling us that a couple of the birds that he had tagged in other years were seen in Texas and Alabama! We got everything all packed up and said our goodbyes to Curt and Bonnie. By that time it was already a little after 11. Even though we had a late start to the day, we had a wonderful morning. The climb back to the main road that we were dreading didn't end up being as bad as we thought it was going to be. For the first morning in a while it was sunny and didn't rain. To our surprise, the wind was actually with us too! The only problem we had this morning was that the black flies liked to swarm around us as we rode. Luckily they weren't biting, but were definitely annoying that's for sure. After we had been riding for about 15 miles, we met Mikael who is originally from Denmark. He flew into Vancouver and is hoping to ride down to Mexico along the Continental Divide route (but he is skeptical that it might be too hard). Either way, we had a fun time talking with him and hearing about other tours that he had done. After a few more miles or so we made it to the town of McBride where we stopped at the IGA to pick up some groceries. We were both craving some fruit, so we got some grapes and a few apples (and some more cookies for the road). Although we hadn't done a ton of miles, we decided to have lunch in town. We bought some cereal and milk because that always fills us up and keeps us full for a pretty long time. There was a nice town park with a shelter and picnic tables where we enjoyed our cereal. Again, we ate the whole box and drank the full 2L of milk. We stopped at the visitor center real quick before heading out of town. Not too far out of town, we met Pat, from Aspen Colorado. He was riding from Alaska back to CO. The one good thing about Canada is that because there aren't may people or towns, there are only one or two roads. So, we get to see every touring cyclist because there isn't really an alternative route. There have been a few touring cyclists that we have met who either didn't know what Warm Shower's was or hadn't signed up yet. They don't know what their missing. It adds so much to a tour just because of the fact that you get to meet so many great people that you probably wouldn't have met otherwise. The ride today was a lot of ups and downs. The black fly problem seemed to dissipate and after a while I don't think there were any flying around us at all. We took a couple quick breaks to snack on some grapes once we got to the top of some of the bigger hills. Towards dinner time, we started to see bears along the side of the road. We saw 3 total (Joe saw 4), all black bears. Our goal was to make it as far as we could today since it was such a beautiful day and we were feeling energized. The cereal and grapes kept us full almost all day. We planned to camp at a rest area that was shown on our map, but just a few miles before that there was an old diner (near Dome Creek) that had been closed down. We thought that would work perfectly. Once we got our bikes parked for the night, the first thing we did was put on our bug nets because the mosquitoes were horrible again. It was definitely a good thing that we got those nets because I don't know what we would have done without them. The amount of mosquitoes reminded us of a night in NH on our first tour; we didn't eat dinner that night because at that time we were cooking over a campfire. Despite the amount of mosquitoes, Joe got the tent all put up while I made dinner. It was almost impossible to eat our dinner though because we had to open our mosquito nets to get the food in. Mosquitoes were everywhere so our solution was to walk around the huge parking lot in front of the old diner while we ate. It seemed to work well enough to only have a few mosquitoes near us at a time. When we sat still they would just swarm around us. Somehow we were able to eat all of our dinner, get our dishes washed, and get the food hung. We got into our tent as quickly as possible in hopes that they wouldn't follow us in. There are so many mosquitos that we could hear the all buzzing outside. The bugs and mosquitos are going to be bad the whole way to Alaska, so we may have to plan for some different, no cook, meals. I don't think we are going to want to stay outside to try to cook and clean every night if it is this bad. If it weren't for the bears, we could eat in our tent, but that is not even a realistic option. The tough part of the tour has definitely begun. Aside from the bugs, today was a wonderful day! We rode 74.47 miles today.
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