We both had a hard time falling asleep last night because of the constant buzzing of the thousands of mosquitoes outside our tent. As we laid there, we could just see the shadows of them on the walls of our tent. Joe also heard noises out by the bikes and it turned out there was a little mouse or something out there. A while later the mouse ran near our tent and actually tried to scurry under our tent right next to me (which scared me a little). Eventually we were able to fall asleep. In the morning, we were slow getting up because we didn't want to go back out into the bugs again. When we finally got going we packed up we made some of our last few packets of oatmeal and ate our last bananas. The first 10-15 miles or the ride were pretty flat again so the miles went by fast. After that it got hilly again. It was kind of a weird morning weather wise. The sky was cloudy, but everything was so still and there was no breeze. After we started climbing up the never ending rolling hills, we both started to feel tired again. I think the real problem is that we are starting to get tired of going up a hill, going down and then going right back up again; over and over. As we were riding this morning, we saw a bunch of tents in different places along the road because there were people there mushroom picking. Apparently there is a mushroom that is highly valued in Europe and they only grow under certain conditions. This kept the ride a little more interesting. We stopped for lunch right around the 30 mile mark pretty close to the 700 km mark of highway 37. As we were riding along, I was happy to see the pull off had a litter barrel where we could lean our bikes, then out of no where, I notice Joey riding his bike down off the side of the road before there. He found a picnic table! We made the last of our mac and cheese and snacked on our last few cookies. The view was nice because we were right on a little lake (Blue Lake) and surprisingly there were hardly any bugs. We had a nice rest before continuing on. From there it was only about 15-20 more miles before we made the turn onto the Alaskan Highway! The terrain changed a little and instead of having big rolling hills, the hills got much steeper and more frequent. Luckily most of them were pretty short. As we were riding up the first really steep hill I suddenly got a really strange pain in my chest and neck that just wouldn't go away. After than I was having a hard time taking a deep breath without it hurting. I was hoping that it was just a temporary thing as we had no choice but to keep riding. We met another cyclist named Peter. He was from Australia and was riding from Anchorage to Vancouver. After talking with him for a while, we had a few more hills to climb before getting to the BC/YK border. I was so happy to see that there was a sign for the Yukon to take a picture by. The only problem is they put it on top of a hill so in order to get our traditional border picture, we had to push our bikes up the a pretty steep gravel hill. That might have been the toughest part of the day right there, especially since that funny pain was still there. We made a makeshift stand out of a tree branch and a rock to attach my camera too, and it actually worked really well. The road in the Yukon had lines on it, which was kind of weird because we have been riding for about 300 miles without them. It was only another 2 miles to reach the Junction with the Alaskan Highway. I was so excited that we were finally there and that we were done with the Cassiar. We filled up on water at the little convenience store and I ate the last two Fuggie-O cookies that I saved for when we got there. From the junction we only had about 14 miles until we reached Watson Lake. It was backtracking a little bit, but it was worth it for us to go there, one for Warm Showers and also because they had a grocery store. The hills continued. At one point the bugs were really bad while we were climbing. I was starting to feel really tired, my chest was still hurting every time I took a deep breath and I was getting a lot of bug bites. I was so frustrated that I just started to cry because I was tired of everything at that moment. But whenever you are down, somehow there is something to make you happy again. As I was going up the hill a cyclist was going down in the other direction. Not too far behind were 2 other cyclists; it was the 3 Spanish cyclists we had heard about. The one stopped at the top to talk to Joe but they didn't talk long because he didn't speak too much English. When we made it into town, our fist stop was the visitor center (that is where our host said to go first because he said they knew him there). The famous Sign Post Forest was all around the visitor center. There were over 70,000 signs all together and was a pretty amazing sight to see. We went inside and sure enough they knew our hosts. They were nice enough to give them a call for us, but unfortunately all they got was an answering machine. Since we haven't had any contact with them since Smithers we weren't positive they would be home, but they did say pretty much any time was good for them. We sent them our website with our tracking information so they had a way to know exactly where we were and pretty much when we would be there. Since we didn't get an answer, we waited at the visitor center for a while. I found out that the library wouldn't be open until Tuesday, so I was a little disappointed about that. They had a free 18 minute movie on the building of the Alaskan Highway that we enjoyed and then we walked around the sign forest for a while. We found a few signs that were close to home, like Lockport, NY and Victory, NY. It was pretty neat. Unfortunately we were never able to get a hold of our host, but the lady at the center said we should just swing by their house because they might be outside doing yard work. We stopped at the rec center in town before going over there just in case they had emailed us saying they would be away or something since this was the first time we had internet in a week or so. There was no email from them. When we got to their house, it was all dark, they were definitely not home. We were so disappointed to say the least. They had said that we were welcome anytime and they had the information needed to find out when we would be there. I don't know if it had something to do with us not being able to contact them again through the internet when we got closer or if they just forgot we were coming. Feeling pretty bummed we decided to just head to the grocery store to get something for dinner and a little long awaited ice cream. But as if we weren't already upset, when we pulled up there was a guy that told us they had just closed, only 5 minutes ago. We couldn't believe that the only grocery store within about 300 miles closed at 8pm on a Saturday. So our disappointment grew. At that point we were at a loss and didn't know what to do, so we just sat their for a while. That pain in my ches was still there and to add to that my stomach started to hurt, so I was just plain miserable. Eventually we decided to go to the gas station to see if they had any cookies or snacks to make us happier. We ended up getting a package of cookies and headed back over to the rec center (because they were open until 10!). We relaxed on the comfy couches, snacked on cookies for dinner, and used the free wifi for a bit. We rode back over to our host's house to see if they had gotten home yet, but still no luck. Luckily we were able to find a spot to camp down one of the trails in the woods. The bugs weren't horrible, but there we still quite a few of them. Its amazing how we were so excited this morning and so disappointed by the end of the day. The thing about Warm Showers is that it gives us a little bit of a break from touring and being in the bugs and kind of lets us step back into "normal life" for a little bit, hopefully we will be able to find a host in Whitehorse. Oh well, at least this town has a wonderful rec center available, that has definitely saved us! After playing some more games on the tablet, we went to bed early. Hopefully that will help the funny pain I have go away. We rode 64.33 miles today. Tomorrow we plan to take a day off.
We took our time getting ready again this morning since we made camp late again. It is so wonderful to have it be light out almost all the time because we don't have to worry about getting up at the crack of dawn like we will have to do when we are down south during the winter months. Since there were so many bugs again, we decided to just eat a banana each (joey ate his apple too) and ride down the road a little to find a more open spot to make our oatmeal. We only went about a mile and a half before there was a nice open space near the gate to someone's cottage on the lake. While I made breakfast, Joey fixed the broken spoke he had gotten yesterday. We were still hungry by the time we finished breakfast so we figured we would have an early lunch. After we had ridden about 5 miles, we met a cyclist named Joel. He is originally from Minnesota and is riding from Deadhorse, AK down to Montana A few years ago he did the continental divide route from Montana down to the Mexican border, so with this trip he is looking to expand on that. We talked with him for quite a while and he told us about what it was like riding on the Alaskan Highway. Once we parted ways, it didn't take us long before we reached a really nice rest area right by a river. Unfortunately we didn't know it was there otherwise we might have tried to camp there last night. But that would have been an over 80 mile day if we had. We took a nice long break there and since we were so hungry decided to have a really early lunch (even though we had only ridden about 9 miles total). We have never stopped this early for lunch, but we were both just having such a hard time getting going this morning. I felt like I just wasn't able to get going when we were riding. We made a full serving of rice for each of us and enjoyed the nice sunshine. While our food was cooking, we filled up all our empty water bottles with river water and used our Pristine drops (although the water was almost crystal clear). The bugs weren't nearly as bad there, so we were able to comfortably enjoy our meal without having to wear our bug nets, yay! The next 10 miles or so were still pretty slow, even though our bellies were happy. There was a slight head wind for a while, and I just felt like I didn't have any ooompfh when it came to climbing the hills. The good news is that it was another beautiful sunny day, just like summer should be. After we had talked to some of the cyclists we had met a couple weeks ago, they said that it rained everyday for about 2 weeks, I guess we got lucky to have some sunny days! We went through an area called Jade City that had a souvenir shop. There was free coffee, tea and hot cider along with a huge collection of figurines, jewelry and other items made from Jade that was mined right here in BC. Joe had a cup of coffee in hopes that the caffeine would help, where I opted for the hot cider. After that I was feeling a lot better and started to feel like I had some acceleration in my pedal strokes again. We had a little more climbing, but there was a nice 10 mile stretch that was mostly downhill. It was nice to get some miles in and still be able to rest a little while doing so. The last hill before we reached the town of Good Hope Lake was beautiful. The view of the lake was so pretty and the road was lined on both sides with so many pretty purple wild flowers. When we pulled into the little grocery store, there were quite a lot of people there and there were 3 or 4 puppy dogs walking around too! Since we still had about a third of a bag of cereal left, we figured that would be a good dinner. Joey went in and bout a 2L of milk and then found a nice picnic table near the store where we could eat. The lady who ran the store also let me use the kitchen sink to wash our bowls so I didn't have to wash using the water bottles. We had only ridden 37 miles by the time we were having dinner around 4:30. I don't think we have ever had a day where we stopped so many times so early on miles wise, but neither of us were feeling very strong with our riding today; our legs must be getting burned out. From Good Hope Lake, the majority of the ride was flat, downhill or a smaller hill here and there. That helped a lot because we were able to get a lot more miles in today than we thought we might end up with. At one point when we looked out in front of us we noticed that we didn't see any mountains in the distance, so we might be slowly working our way out of these mountains. I guess we will find out for sure tomorrow. There was a really nice stretch that was almost totally flat for about 10 miles, so we got moving really quick on that. The last rest area we would see on the Cassiar came when we reached 51.03 miles. We pulled over intending to just take a break, but decided that we would just call it a day and make camp there even though we knew it would make tomorrows ride a little longer than we originally planned. Hopefully tomorrows ride will be flatter yet since the terrain has slowly flattened out since yesterday. There was a really nice area with a picnic table that was kind of hidden from the rest of the rest area, so we thought that would be a perfect spot. There were a lot of mosquitoes again but not as bad as last night. It was only about 7pm so we had plenty of time to relax before going to bed. We spent a lot of time looking at the map and we are starting to feel like we are getting really close to AK now. The last few days the number of vehicles that we have seen with Alaskan licence plates has gone up a lot too. We are definitely getting excited! Tonight will be the last night in BC; we feel like we have been here forever (23 days total- a tie for first with Montana). The Yukon Border and the Alaskan Highway junction are only about 45 miles and Watson Lake is only another 12 miles or so past that. We are both so excited to get to our Host's house tomorrow. Joey contacted this host back in January because we knew he was the only Warm Shower's Host out here, but since then he is no longer on WS, but said he would still be willing to host us. It is going to be so great to have a shower, we both have dirt on us that just doesn't seem to go away, even with our baby wipes. I'm so ready to be clean! I'll also be spending some time updating blogs and pictures since it's been a week since we have had internet access. We heard that it normally takes cars 10 hours to drive the whole length of highway 37, so we were glad that we will have done it in 7 days (usually it takes us a full day to go the same distance a car goes in an hour). We played a few games on the tablet for a while before going to bed. I'm glad we had a chance to relax a little. Hopefully we will both be feeling strong tomorrow so we don't have a repeat of today.
It was so bright when I took my sleeping mask off this morning, another sunny day! Since Joe's phone died he didn't know what time it was so he woke me up to check what the tablet said for time. Turns out it was 5am, so we both went back to sleep for a few hours. We had our oatmeal and started down the road. The ride was either flat or had an upward incline for the first few miles. We passed a couple really pretty lakes before we started to do some more climbing (apparently we weren't completely to the top of the pass as we thought last night). Once we got to the top, the ride down into Dease lake was almost all downhill, about 11 miles of downhill to be precise! A few miles before we arrived in Dease Lake, we met a touring cyclist. We were thinking that we would make it the whole way down the Cassiar without seeing anyone touring, so we were pretty glad to see him. The funny thing is that he is originally from just around the corner from us in Corning, NY! He spent the winter up in Anchorage and is riding down to the southern states for the upcoming winter. He (Nick) said that he doesn't keep a permanent residence anywhere so that he has more freedom and money to travel, which makes sense. We shared a few pointers with each other from the terrain that we had already ridden through and then bid each other safe travels. As we approached town we got pretty excited because there were quite a few signs advertising the little businesses in town and as we got close there were even street lights! We headed straight for the grocery store, which was pretty good size for such a small little town. The prices were much more reasonable too. We bought a HUGE 1k bag of frosted flakes and a 2L of milk for lunch along with a few apples and bananas for the road. Surprisingly, there were a bunch of tables and chairs inside the store, so we were able to eat inside again! There was a deli in the store too that had Jojo's and french fries! After having as much cereal as I could eat (because you can only eat so many frosted flakes before they just don't taste all that good anymore) I got an order of Jojo's and french fries. The girl was nice enough to give me half and half on those since I couldn't make up my mind which to get. They were pure heaven; for some reason, french fries are always something that I crave while riding. There was a really nice guy that worked at the grocery store who we talked to for quite a bit. He had done some bicycle touring before so he understood a little about how our trip was. Again, our bellies were nice and full today, which we knew would help us for the rest of today's ride. The ride out of town had quite a long uphill. As we were riding, we were passed by an older gentleman out for an afternoon ride. A ways down the road he stopped and waited for us so he could talk to us for a while. His name was Gunte and he was originally from Germany, but has lived here in the Dease Lake area for quite a long time. He ended up riding with us for about 15 miles. It sure was nice company to have someone else riding with us for a while. He gave us some pointers on the road ahead and told us about a nice grassy area by a creek where we might be able to camp. After we said our goodbyes, we had another pretty long uphill to cross. We took a little break at a pull off about 3/4 of the way up. Joey worked on truing the wheel again since it was already out of true (this has become a daily routine now) and I relaxed. We each had one of our apples before finishing the climb. Joey had mentioned that he saw a couple moose as he was riding along, but both of them took off into the woods when they saw him coming, so he didn't get a real good look at them. As I was descending down the hill at 25-30mph I saw my first moose up close too, except for he decided to run right across the road in front of me instead of the other way into the woods! I hit the brakes as the moose was trying to get traction on the pavement. I'm pretty sure the moose was thinking the same thing I was: "Ahhhhh!" It was a little scary, but mainly because it happened so fast. I couldn't get over how enormous the moose really was; this one had huge antlers too! His hoofs on the road sounded kind of like a horse's but it was a lot deeper of a sound. For the rest of the descent I was in awe of what just happened. I was no longer jealous of all the moose Joey had gotten to see since, according to Joey " I almost got to hug my moose." Joey joked around asking if I got a picture and all I could think of was jamming on the brakes and going 'Ahhh,' I just laughed at the thought of even attempting to get a picture. About 20 minutes after my moose encounter, we saw another moose! This time it was really far from us in a little lake/swamp valley area off the side of the road. There were a couple other cars who had stopped to watch him too. I decided it was a good time for a cookie break since we had some entertainment while we ate. The moose was funny because he would stick his whole head underwater, probably eating seaweed off the bottom. After a while we continued on our way. A few more miles down the road Joey found out that same spoke that keeps breaking broke again. He has already had to true the wheel almost every day for the last 5 days or so. The wheel is just falling apart, and truing it is the only thing keeping it going. The last 150 miles or more has been a gravel seal coated road surface which had definitely been hard on the bikes and hasn't helped the wheel at all. Luckily the first few days on Highway 37 wasn't like that. Later on, we were pretty sure we found the place that Gunte had told us about, the only problem was that there were a few RVs there already, so apparently it really was a good spot to camp. We decided to continue on down the road so we could get some more miles anyways. After crossing the Dease River, we met another touring cyclist. It was day 2 of his journey (he started in Watson Lake) and he was heading down to Los Angeles, CA. We didn't talk to long with him because he looked pretty tired. As we continue on, the number of possible camp spots seemed to go down. There was either a swamp or a huge hill on either side of the road. So we ended up riding for about another 7 miles or so before finding a place that would work. We went down an old driveway that looked like it was used quite a while ago for logging purposes. Although we knew the mosquitoes would be bad, we were pretty tired and didn't want to ride any further. We got our tent all set up as fast as we could and then made some mac and cheese for dinner. I figured out that it was possible for me to eat with my arms and bowl inside my bug jacket, which made it a lot easier. In fact I don't think I would have wanted to even try to eat otherwise because there were just such a large number of mosquitoes it was crazy. We are so glad that we had a couple days break from the bugs being this bad. We still had quite a lot of climbing today, but I think that should decrease in the next couple of days, which would be really helpful for my sore knees. We rode 74.01 miles today and camped somewhere outside of Dease River Crossing.
We slept in a little today since we had a long day yesterday. The clouds were back in the sky this morning, so it was pretty chilly again. While Joey was cleaning up the tent, I made some oatmeal for breakfast. Just after we had finished breakfast, the manager of the park stopped in and she had a little ziplock bag in her hands. She brought us some homemade chocolate covered granola with coconut and berries cookie bars! We were so surprised and excited. A little while later she asked Joey if it took us a long time to boil water (which it doesn't). She ended up giving us 4 brown eggs so we could have hard boiled eggs for some protein too! I continue to be amazed at the generosity of strangers. First she lets cyclists camp in the park for free and then she brings us cookie bars and eggs, what a wonderful start to our day! So, we made the hard boiled eggs and then filled up our water bottles at the water pump before hitting the road. Unfortunately the beautiful sunshine we had all day yesterday was gone. The first 25 miles had a lot of small really steep rolling hills that kind of wore us out from the get go. I had a couple close calls with semi trucks this morning that left me a bit shaken up for a while. The road had gotten quite narrow and curvy which didn't help. Two trucks in a row (within about 30 seconds of each other) blared their horns at me (or maybe at the oncoming traffic) right as they were about to pass. I had to stop and get way off into the grass so they didn't hit me, but they still came pretty close. I thought I was going to fall in the ditch as they flew by. For as little traffic as there has been on this road it was bad timing that for both trucks there were big RV's barrelling around the corner in the opposite direction. The road was barely big enough room when it was curvy for opposing vehicles to pass let alone a cyclist too. Luckily this hasn't been too much of an issue on this road so far because they have typically given us plenty of room (and the road was a lot wider). After about 20 miles, we stopped to have a cookie break (and plus we were too anxious to eat the homemade cookie bars to wait any longer). They were so good! For a good portion of the morning we rode along next to a lake with the mountains right beside it so it was very picturesque. I though about how people back in the states were celebrating the 4th of July and all I could think about was picnic food and how yummy that would be. At one point during this mornings ride, I saw Joey stopped in the road in a place he normally won't stop to wait for me. A black bear was walking down the side of the road right towards him, except the bear didn't even notice he was there right away. When he did notice, he slowly walked away into the woods; apparently he wasn't too impressed that Joey was talking pictures of him. We arrived in the first town that we've seen in over 200 miles. It seemed strange to see houses out here in the middle of the woods, but there was a school and small grocer store/ gas station/ post office too. Although we knew the prices for food would be out of this world, we had no choice but to buy some. The only thing good about going down this road in a car is that there is a chance that you could avoid the high prices of food because you have the ability to carry a huge stock of it with you and it would only take you around 7 or 8 hours to go from one end of Highway 37 to the other. We decided to get a box of cereal and a 2L of milk for lunch since we know that is one of our most filling meals. Just for a box of cereal and the milk it was over $13. We also bought a huge can of raviolis to have for dinner tonight and another package of cookies so that we wouldn't have to ration them anymore. We didn't re-stock on anything else because we knew there was another grocery store coming up in about 60 miles or so. The one thing that is nice is that we got the harder part of the Cassiar done first. For the first 2 and a half days, there was virtually no services on this road, but now things are getting closer together and there are actually 2 little towns! Also, the bugs have progressively gotten better the further we have gone. This morning, even though we didn't have the wind we did yesterday, the bugs were bearable even without our bug nets. We sat on the porch of the little grocery store while we ate our cereal and watched the free range horses walk around, sometimes right in the middle of the road. It was pretty entertaining to watch the traffic react to the horses standing in the road like that. Right when we left Iskut we started climbing. It took u a long time to get to the top of the hill and we had gone probably 5 miles up. From there we had a pretty long gradual downhill before hitting a steep 8% grade downhill into the river valley. As we were going down, the road turned to gravel and there was a sharp switchback that was a bit tricky on that kind of surface. Somewhere during that descent my tripometer hit the 5,000 mile mark! When we made it to the bridge to cross the river we knew we had a lot more climbing ahead of us. The Canadian couple that we met when we first got on this road told us about this part and said that it would be too much of a ride to do the whole thing at once. The lady at the campground also said the same thing while adding that it takes a car about a half hour to get to the top. This made me a little nervous for this climb, and I had been dreading it all day as a result. After I had started climbing for a little bit, I remembered that I had my MP3 player. I thought that might help take my mind off my tired knees and the tough climb. Even though I have been carrying it since we left home, I haven't really used it at all ( I did however listen to my little radio when I got signal and there weren't too many cars for me to be able to hear it). When I ride at home I use it all the time, but I think because everything is always new when you are touring I didn't really need it. But whatever the case, it worked like a charm. It was almost weird to be listening to music since I hadn't in such a long time (I haven't been able to get radio signal in quite a while). I was so used to being out here in the middle of no where and having it be silent, except for the cars of course. The hill didn't seem nearly as hard or as scary anymore, in fact, it was almost fun to boogie up the hill to the music. About half way up we had a little cookie break before continuing on. It took us a little over an hour to get to the top. From there, it was another 30 miles to the next town, Dease Lake. Joey made a funny earlier in the day saying that that town got its name when the settlers came and said (with a funny accent) "Dease (This) Lake is so beautiful, I shall call it Dease Lake." I of course thought that was hilarious, but that might just be me. As I jammed to music, the last few miles or our ride went pretty quick. I kind of zoned out and got thinking about life events and all the things that happened that brought me to this place and moment of riding my bike in the middle of no where on the way to achieving a major goal. It is kind of amazing to ride down highway 37 and look out into the woods and mountains and see how vast it really is. The thought of knowing that there aren't any people out there is pretty neat too. We stopped at the first pull out that came along (near Tee's Creak). We were pretty happy to see that there was a bear proof garbage can that we could use to put our food in so we didn't have to hang it. The trees have gotten a lot smaller and the amount of pine trees has really increased, so it might be really hard to find a good place to hang it anyway. Whoever invented the garbage cans with the "back door" to store stuff was a genius. While I heated up the ravilolis, Joey worked on trueing his wheel again since it had already came out of true. In doing so, he found a crack in the frame, which is probably why it keeps coming out of true. How is it that our luck has been so bad with this wheel; it has less than 1500 miles on it for goodness sake. So while we were eating our dinner and snacking on cookies, we tried to think of a plan B since the wheel probably won't make it all the way to Tok in AK. The tentative plan we came up with is to possibly take a detour and ride to Skagway, AK and have the warrenty replacement wheel from the original wheel mailed there (so we don't have to pay a ton of taxes on it to be mailed into CA). We can't make any official plans until we get to Watson Lake and figure some things out. When we got to the pull out we weren't 100% sure we would be camping there, but after all of that we decided to call it a day. I washed the dishes in the creek while Joey looked for a good spot to set up the tent. We got our food all put away in the bear proof "litter barrel" and got all set up behind some bushes to hide away. Since it is light for almost 20 hours a day we kind of have to try to hide a little more than we would have to if it got dark. Even if there were fireworks here for the 4th of July, we wouldn't be able to see them anyway. I'm starting to see the "light at the end of the Cassiar." We rode 56.24 miles today. It was nice to have a little bit of a lighter day since we did a lot of climbing.
We woke up nice and early so that we could go to the breakfast buffet at the lodge. For the first time in about a week or so I woke up and my legs weren't feeling sore (probably thanks to the hot tub). `I was however really sleepy because it was hard to sleep last night because it was so cold. Once we had the tent all packed away, we walked over for breakfast. We're both still pretty amazed that there was an all you can eat buffet out in the middle of no where! It was more than we would normally pay for a buffet (first of all because it was in CA and secondly since this was a touristy place way far away from anything), but our bodies needed the nourishment so we wouldn't be so tired, and we knew it would be worth it in the end. The buffet was amazing, especially since we were so hungry from trying to ration our food. There was toast, pancakes with real blueberries, sausage, bacon, home fries, quiche, cereal, yogurt, peaches, and juice. We were in heaven! (Thanks Momma Adams for the donation!) It took us over an hour to be completely full. The waitress said something that I thought was pretty funny: "Aren't you guys full yet!?" I guess she didn't realize that she was talking to super hungry cyclists. When we were "finally full" we filled up all our empty water bottles and then took a break in the lobby for a little while. There were two cute doggies walking around the lodge too, so that made us happy. I was also surprised to find out that wireless internet was available, for the "low" cost of $20! Yikes, I don't know anyone who would need internet that badly to pay that much for it! Guess that's what happens when there is a 4 star resort in the middle of the wilderness. The sun was shining and there were hardly any clouds in the sky, it looked like it was going to be perfect cycling weather. For the first 30 miles or so we had a pretty strong headwind, but we were lucky that the terrain had flattened out a bit from yesterday. The miles did seem to go by faster today too, which I was really glad for. The scenery keeps getting better and better the further we go down highway 37. Today the road meandered right next to a creek for a while and the mountains all around were so pretty. We stopped for lunch at 30 miles. I wasn't super hungry like I normally am by that time, in fact I almost wanted to skip lunch, but Joey was hungry and didn't think it would be good for us to skip it. There was what looked like some kind of company that had a huge parking lot and a cluster of trailers that looked like were where the employees lived. We found a nice spot to make some rice there. For the first time since we got on the Cassiar, we ate bug free!! The area we were in was pretty open and the wind was strong enough to keep them away. It was incredible, especially after the wonderful morning we had. For the remainder of our ride today, we had the wind to our advantage. The road flattened out even more for a while. I was feeling great for the first time in a while. As we rode we had a few big hills to climb. I surprised myself and caught up and beat Joey to the top of 7 hills (in a row) today, which pretty much never happens (so you know that buffet did well for me!). We had one stretch of downhill that was so amazing; for almost 6 miles we coasted at a speed between 20 and 35 (probably higher for Joey). However, like every great downhill, there is usually an uphill, and we definitely had one. It was really steep in the beginning and was a hill that went on for quite a while. The gnats started to find us as we were climbing too, which didn't make it any easier. They were swarming all around us and biting too. What a pain it was because it made it hard to keep the bike going straight because we needed one hand to swat at the bugs. I beat Joey up the first main part of the hill and I'm pretty sure we tied for the second part of it (but Joey said he won, I think he was sad that I had beat him up so many hills today). After that huge hill, the rest of the ride was either flat, downhill or only slight inclines; it was so nice. I almost think the wind is more of a factor in how we feel than the amount of food we have eaten . We were feeling pretty good this morning but once that wind was with us we felt great. Sometimes that wind can be so wonderful, other times it can just kill ya. The Canadian couple that we met a few days ago told us about a provincial park that was free for cyclists, so that was our goal today even though it was a little longer than we originally wanted to go. When we had less than 10 miles left we saw a bear, just when I was beginning to think we weren't going to see any today. For the first time today we stopped for a cookie break around 60 miles. We've done pretty well rationing our cookies, but now that we know there is a grocery store in less than 100 miles, we didn't have to worry about running out so much. Eventually we made it to the park where the campground was. We were skeptical that it really was free for cyclists because it was a provincial park and usually those always cost way more than they are worth. We found a site and made some Ramen Noodles (by that time we were starving!). Afterwards, Joey rode around to try to see if he could find the park manager to see if it really was free for cyclists. I was mentally preparing myself to ride a few more miles today since I figured it wouldn't be free and we would have to leave. When Joey got back he said "pack your bags" and all I was thinking was that I was ready to be done for the day, but then he finished his sentence and said "we're moving to a better site." So, it turns out, the campground was free for cyclists. We couldn't have been happier, it truely was a perfect end to a really good day. The manager suggested we go to site #20 (our magic number, so it had to be good). It turned out to be perfect; the bathrooms and garbage were really close and the view of the lake was spectacular. We got the tent all set up, made a second dinner of oatmeal, because that is the one thing we definitely have enough of, and enjoyed the beautiful view. What a spectacular day. We rode 74.98 miles today.
It was a pretty slow start to our day today since it was raining again. It must have rained most of the night because there were a couple small puddles in the bottom of our tent, but since we have our sleeping mats we were nice and dry. Neither of us wanted to get out of our sleeping bag so we just laid there listening to the rain on our tent. Eventually we got up and had some oatmeal for breakfast. I was happy that only one mosquito managed to get into my bowl this time. There is a certain process to eating so we ourselves don't get eaten alive. I have to unzip my bug net just enough to get a bite in and then close it again as fast as we can. Since Joey's jacket has a separate hood he just pulls his arms and bowl right inside his jacket to eat. As annoying as it is to have a huge swarm of mosquitoes around you, it is sometimes funny to watch each try other eat like that. By the time we were on the road it was about quarter after 10 and the rain had stopped. There were patches of blue sky so it was looking hopeful that the rest of the day would be pretty nice. Even though we were on the road, it was still slow going in the beginning. Ninety percent of the first 12 miles was uphill. As we were climbing, the sun came out in full force, which was nice since its been so cloudy, but we were all bundled up and getting overheated as a result; I had to stop to take off my gloves and coat because I felt like I was melting. At the top, we had our fist cookie break even though it was early in the day. We decided to try to ration our cookies (because we definitely needed those to keep us going) we would only have one each when we took a break. We had a nice long gradual descent for about 5 miles. About half way down it started to rain again, but it was kind of a weird rain because it was pretty strong but the drops were tiny, almost like a mist. Right at the bottom of the descent was a steel deck bridge over the Nass River. We stopped at the rest area just past there for lunch, even though we had only done 19 miles (it is always easier to make lunch when there is a picnic table!). We had some ramen noodles, which we realized we hadn't had in a really long time. The bugs were still bad, so it was the same old eating routine. I had never even taken my bug jacket/hood off since we left camp; I figured it would be easier to just leave it on because they sometimes bother us as we are climbing. After lunch, we continued on. The terrain had changed to rolling hills and the miles were dragging. It seemed like it took us forever to reach the 40 mile mark. I was super tired by the time we had about 15 miles left to our destination. We kept saying only a few more miles, but once we went down a hill, there was always another one staring us in the face that we had to climb. The surface of the road also changed from a nice smooth asphalt to a bumpy gravel type surface which didn't make the riding any easier. It made the bikes vibrate quite a bit, but the good news is that it made our bear bells work pretty well. We did see one bear towards the end of our ride; he peaked his head out of the weeds, saw us coming and ran away. We finally made it to our destination for the night, Bell 2. When we came around the corner there was a bunch of buildings in the middle of the trees. It was a 4 star resort in the middle of no where. The Canadian couple that we met a couple days ago said there was a campground here with a hot tub and a sauna, but we didn't expect a full resort. It was worth it for us to get a tent site because it was only $21 and included everything: shower, sauna, hot tub and the site. We were so excited to be indoors out of the bugs and about the hot tub! There was a restaurant that offered a buffet, but it was $22 a person, so we decided it would be better to wait until breakfast when the buffet would be cheaper (and it would help us get a good start to our day). Once we found our site and got our tent up, we made some mac and cheese for dinner. Once it was cookied, we went and ate it inside the building where the sauna was so we could eat without having to wear our bug nets. It was absolute heaven! I guess I always took for granted being able to eat indoors where there was no bugs, but not anymore. Right after dinner we went straight for the hot tub. After the last couple days this place was an absolute paradise! We sat in the hot tub for a long time just enjoying the relaxation. It sure did feel great on our muscles. After, we had an awesome shower and then went to the main lodge to relax for a while. We decided to each get a homemade chocolate cookie and enjoyed some complimentary tea too. Upstairs in the lodge was a lounge with the worlds most comfortable couches and a huge screen TV with satellite! What an amazing end to a tough day of riding. This was such a treat! We rode 57.55 miles today.
Last night, Joey heard a bird eating the bugs off our tent. He woke up at 5am because of the light and then heard a bunch of sticks breaking in the woods... it was a bear. According to Joey "our food was under attack, but since we read the 'Wild Camping for Dummies' Book, we knew what to do." (not really =D ). We shouted from inside our tent and made a bunch of nose. That scared the bear off a little, but he must have really wanted our cookies, can't quite blame him, so it wasn't too long before he came back. We did the same thing again, and Joey ventured outside the tent with the bear mace in hand to see if our food was still in the tree. He didn't see the bear, but we could definitely hear him since they sound like elephants walking through the woods. Luckily, after Joey walked around for a bit outside, the bear left and didn't come back. Since it was so early, and there was no way that I was getting out of my sleeping bag yet, we went back to sleep for a couple more hours. We woke up around 8:30 ready to fight the bugs all day again. We got everything all packed up inside the tent, got our bug nets on and ventured out into the war-zone. We were glad to see our food was all safe and sound still hanging in the tree. It was nice that there was a makeshift table where we were camping (apparently other people had camped there before too) where we could heat up our water for our oatmeal. One of the crappy things about being in an area with SO many bugs is that as you are trying to eat, they always think it's a swell idea to fly into your food. By the time I had finished my oatmeal, I had pulled at least 5 bugs out of it, yuck! We left our bug nets on for a few minutes so that we could get out to the road where there were hopefully less mosquitoes. Luckily, it was pretty cold out so that might have helped keep the amount of mosquitoes down a bit. Within the first 5 miles of our ride, we saw a bear! He was standing right on the side of the road and was really cute! It was a black bear with a brown nose- he looked just like a big fluffy teddy bear! We kept our distance as usual and watched as a motor home and a car stopped to look at it too. Surprisingly, most of the ride today was relatively flat. There were the occasional hills here and there, but we were moving along pretty good. By the time we had ridden 15 miles we were already ready for a cookie break. We stopped around 19 miles and had just enough time to get a few cookies out before the mosquitoes noticed we were there. We ate them while we were riding to avoid getting eaten alive. Luckily as long as we keep moving, the bugs don't really bother us too much (maybe a little when we are going slow up hills). Shortly after our break, Joey noticed that his rear wheel was out of true again.. another broken spoke. We couldn't believe it. The old wheel that completely fell apart after 8,000 miles only broke 1 spoke. The new wheel has already broken 3 and only has a little over 1,000 miles on it. It is so very disappointing. We figured we would stop around 30miles for lunch and were happy to see that there was a pull off not too far after we started looking for a place to stop. Unfortunately there was no garbage can or vault toilet, but it was still nice to be off the side of the road. Joe worked on fixing his spoke and I got lunch ready. While we were sitting there a nice guy and his son pulled up to take a quick break too. He asked if we needed any help or anything like water, etc. We were fine, but it sure was nice to have someone make sure that we were. Once the wheel was back in working order, we ate our baked beans and snacked on some cookies. Again, the bug nets saved us. Just as we are finishing up or break, it started to sprinkle again. The blue skies that were peaking through this morning had disappeared and it was back to being cloudy. The next 25 miles went by pretty fast. I noticed that I don't remember all of the different parts of the ride today like I normally do. I think that because there are just lots and lots of trees for miles and miles that it all begins to look the same after a while. About 10 miles before we reached Meziadin Junction we came across a bunch of buildings. It almost looked like a ghost town because there was no one around and there were huge logs across the roads going in. We of course decided to walk around to try to figure out what it really was. Most of the buildings were locked, but there was one building that wasn't. We peaked inside and it looked like a dorm house where a lot of people lived. There were about 5 bedrooms and a big dining table. The electricity was still on, but the refrigerator and stove were all off and pulled away from the wall a little. It looked like someone was coming back since there were a bunch of appliances and furniture inside. There were 3 calendars inside that all were on March 2012, so we think that no one has lived there since then. Although we weren't 100% sure what this was, we think that it might have had something to do with a logging company. After our little adventure, we continued on and found a rest area with a vault toilet just down the road (we weren't expecting that because it wasn't on our map and we haven't seen anything like that in quite a while). We crossed a really neat 1 lane wooden bridge before we had a bit of climbing to do. Right before one of the hills, Joey stopped and it was time for a cookie break. We were both feeling super tired all of a sudden and we though that it was because we hadn't eaten enough. Tomorrow we will have to take more breaks and maybe have a second lunch in the afternoon. Not to much farther down the road, we stopped at Meziadin Provincial Park to have dinner. They had a nice picnic shelter there right near the water. The bugs were still bad, but there was a water pump where we could get clean drinking water, so we were happy about that. The park was also a campground, but we didn't want to pay 16 bucks just to set up our tent when we could ride down the road a little ways and camp for free. So, once we were finished with our mac and cheese that is exactly what we did. We came to the intersection where the turnoff to go to Stewart was. If we decided to go that way, we could be at the Alaskan border in about 45 miles, except from there we wouldn't be able to go much further unless we took a ferry or something because there are no roads past there. We had a pretty big hill to climb after that junction. As we were looking for a spot to make camp we saw another bear, except this one wasn't going to hurt us because he had been hit by a car, which made me really sad. We found an old driveway that we went down a little ways and made camp. When we went to hang the food, it was probably the best job we had done yet. We are definitely improving on that! It is always so nice to get in the tent since it is our only escape during the day from the mosquitoes. We sat in the tent just relaxing for a little bit and not really wanting to do anything, just taking in the fact that we didn't have bugs swarming around our heads. I was surprised that we didn't see any more bears today. We thought for sure that since we had seen one right away this morning we would be seeing them all over the place. As we were sitting in our tent, it began to rain again. We definitely are more tired than yesterday so we went to bed nice and early. We rode 68.02 miles today.
What a wonderful nights sleep again last night! We got all packed up, said good morning to the puppies and found a wonderful breakfast of "pizza omelet," as Hazel called it, toasted homemade rolls with jelly, clementines, and milk. The omelet was so good and was full of all sorts of goodies like mushrooms, peppers, onions, sausage, cheese, celery, and obviously eggs. The rolls with the homemade berry jelly were super delicious too! After our bellies were nice and full, we checked our email real quick since Hazel had wireless internet, and then got ready to go. We had such a great time and were so thankful to have been inside last night, to have had a shower and to get to do our laundry one last time before we started up the Cassiar. It was another cloudy day, but it looked as though the sun was trying to come out. After saying our goodbyes, we were on the road a little after 10. The first 28 miles to get to the junction of 16 and the start of the Cassiar Hwy went by really fast. We met a couple touring cyclists again today. They were both from France, but were on different trips. They had met a few days ago and decided to ride together for a while. The one guy Simon, was just starting his tour (riding from Anchorage down to South America). The other guy, Bertrand was at the end of his tour (he had ridden from France across Asia into AK and will finish his tour in Vancouver). A short while later, we met a guy who lived in a First Nation Village named Paul. We talked with him for a while before continuing on. I was really excited to see the sign that read "North to Alaska" as we approached the turn at the start of the Stewart Cassiar Highway. As usual we took some pictures and then went into the little convenience store to see what they had. We decided since the prices were pretty normal for that kind of place we would get a meals worth of mac and cheese and some more cookies just so we would have a better chance of not running out of food on the journey to the Alaskan Highway, which was only 724 km away! As we were riding a couple miles down the road to eat at a campground, Joey found some wild strawberries on the side of the road; they sure were tasty! At the campground that was up the road, we asked if we could use a picnic table to make lunch and they were fine with that. We met a Canadian couple who are also in the process of riding from Anchorage to South America. The two French guys that we met earlier said that they were taking a rest day in Kitwanga and that we might see them there. It turns out that they also met and rode with one of the cyclists we met when we were just outside of McBride. That cyclists, Pat, had explained to us how he had ridden with a Canadian Couple for a little bit in the Yukon when it was really windy. It is pretty neat that a lot of the cyclists who are riding in this area have met each other and that we get to meet them too, it's almost like we have a little community of touring cyclist where everyone "knows" each other. We made some mac and cheese, snacked on our cookies and some clementines that Hazel gave us for the road. To my surprise there was wi-fi at the campground we were having lunch at, so I was able to send the updated blog too. There was a free campground somewhere in Kitwanga that all 4 of the cyclists we met had told us about, but it was too early in the day and we hadn't done quite enough miles to make it worth staying there. So, we continued on down the Cassiar. What a beautiful ride it was! First of all, the number of cars dropped dramatically. Instead of having cars pass us in each direction every 30 seconds or so, we were down to having one car pass every 15 minutes or so. It was wonderful to have it so quiet and peaceful. There were also a ton of wildflowers dotting the side of the road. Flowers of every color from red to purple, and for the first time in a while, there was hardly any litter on the side of the road- such a pretty sight. There were patches of blue sky and sunshine along with a few dark grey clouds. We would ride for a while in the sunshine (I saw my shadow for the first time in such a long time!) and then there would be a light rain for a little bit. This cycle continued for the rest of today's ride. Our original plan was to camp at the first rest area on the map since it looked like it was a good distance away. Unfortunately, the Canadian couple mentioned that that particular rest area was flooded, and indeed it was. It ended up not being a big deal though because the rest area was a lot closer than we thought. We were just under the 50 mile mark and wanted to go further today anyway. We saw about 4-5 bears along the side of the road as we were riding, most of which ran away when they heard us coming. Since we don't want to eat near our tent/campsite we stopped for dinner around our 60 mile mark right near the 50km signpost on the highway. We made some rice and snacked on some cookies and the rest of our clementines. Again, our bug nets were definitely needed, which we figured would be a common thing along the Cassiar. While we were eating we saw a rainbow and just as we were finishing cleaning the dishes it started to rain again. We rode a few more miles down the road before seeing a pull off near the 55km post, where we could tuck ourselves away for the night. The bugs were even worse back where we were setting our tent up since there were more trees around. Unfortunately since we weren't camped at a rest area, there weren't any bear proof garbage containers where we could put our food, so we had to hang it. The first attempt didn't go so well. Right after we got the food all tide up and began hoisting it up there, the branch it was on snapped and everything came crashing down. Luckily our second attempt was successful. Once we had the food all hung and our tent up, we got inside as quickly as we could. It sure was nice to have a place we could go to get out of the bugs. We rode 63.33 miles today and still feel great. I think the two wonderful nights sleep that we got along with having a little better food for a couple days gave us enough fuel to not feel completely drained at the end of the day. Hopefully we keep feeling good for the next few days so we don't have a repeat of what happened in Banff and Jasper National Parks. Although I anticipated feeling a bit scared while on this part of the trip (because of the bears), I find that it is much easier to go to sleep than I thought. Since it stays light out for so long, I can see what is going on outside if I hear a noise, which for some reason makes it less scary. Although we have had trouble falling asleep because of the light, we are getting used to it and the eye mask helps. I think we are both starting to enjoy it being light out so long since we don't have to rush during the day or rush to set up camp before it got dark.
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