Another morning we woke up to the sound of rain, luckily it was a pretty light rain. We laid in our sleeping bags for a while before finally deciding to get up. By the time we had our sleeping bags and tent all packed up it had stopped raining. We got our food out of the bear box and got everything packed up. Since the bugs were pretty heavy in the campground, we decided to head to the picnic tables by the visitor center to make breakfast. The area was much more open and there was a bit of a breeze to help keep them away. We made some oatmeal and by the time we were finished eating, a group of mosquitoes had found us, but it still wasn't as bad as in the campground. It was nice to have a sink to wash out the bowls in too! Shortly after leaving Mount Robson (unfortunately we weren't able to see the actual mountain, which was the tallest in the Canadian Rockies, because it was so cloudy), we saw a couple touring cyclists heading our way! Right before exiting the park, Will Samson-Doel and Harrison Jones came riding over to say hello. They are from Toronto and have already ridden from there to St. Catherine's. From there, they flew to Vancouver and were on their way across CA back to Toronto. We didn't think that we were going to see any touring cyclists for a while, but it was definitely a nice surprise. About 10 miles later, we made the turn off to head towards Prince George. We climbed up a hill that we though was never going to end. Again, it had gotten pretty windy at that point. At the top, we ate the last of our cookies, in the rain. For the rest of today's ride (which wasn't a normal full day's ride because we planned to go to a Warm Shower's Host and take a lighter day today) it rained off and on. It would pour and then a little while later be nice and sunny. After 21 miles, we stopped at a rest area and since I was hungry we made some rice for lunch. We had another large hill to climb and only about 15 miles or so to get to Dunster, where our host lived. For a little while we thought that we might have missed their road, but then when we got to the top of a hill we saw the sign for the town. Unfortunately we had to go down a pretty long steep hill to get to the valley, which won't be very fun tomorrow morning. Since it has been harder for us to contact Warm Shower's hosts in CA we weren't 100% sure they would be able to host us. They are retired and live on a 180 acre farm on the edge of the Fraser River, so we figured they would at least be home. After the first e-mail we sent back in Radium, they said they would be able to take us and to send them an e-mail when we got to Jasper, which we did. We didn't have internet again until we got to their house, so we didn't know if they had e-mailed back or not. When we found their driveway (which was REALLY long, we weren't positive we had the right house even though there were only 3 houses that we had seen on their road). As we were entering the farm, there was a cute dog lounging by the side of the driveway in the sunshine. He kind of lifted his head, but just laid it back down after we had passed. Later we found out his name was Dakota and that he spent a good portion of yesterday chasing a bear. When we got to the house, Curt came out and we were relieved that we had the right place. Curt showed us around the farm a little bit and showed us where we would be sleeping, which was in a wagon! It was so neat because the wagon had a mattress in it and looked just like something similar to what they used on the Oregon Trail. It was really nice and we were both pretty excited that we would get to sleep in there. Total, they had 3 wagons that were used as guest houses. One of the other wagons was already being used by another couple. They were here at the farm through a program called Work Exchange (workx.com). What the program involves is people working for 4 hours a day in exchange for room and board. It sounds like a wonderful way to travel, see the world, and meet new people. Gina who is from Germany and her boyfriend Paul who is from New Zealand will be here working and exploring the area for about 2 weeks. Curt also told us about an ice cream social that they put on every year in the beginning of July, too bad we weren't here for that because it sounds like it is a lot of fun. For a little while we talked with Bonnie while enjoying a can of pop. She told us about some of the other touring cyclists who had come through (apparently they host quite a bit!). To our surprise, Lorenzo, the guy touring for 15 years, stayed here too (that's the 2nd Host we have stayed with that also hosted him!). It looks like he is moving pretty slow, so we may just catch up to him at some point! Joe and I each got to take a nice shower just in time to enjoy a wonderful dinner that Bonnie made. We had salad, red potatoes, corn, rolls, meat, rice, and chocolate cake for dessert! It was so yummy and we really enjoyed hearing a little about how things were in New Zealand and Germany. What a great day; for the first time in a few days I felt like I had almost full energy and didn't feel sleepy (but Joey said he was still pretty tired), which could be because we only road 34.01 miles (but it was the perfect day to take it easy and rest up a bit).
|
|