We woke up nice and early so we could go out to eat for breakfast. We figured that since we hadn't gone out to eat for breakfast yet on the trip, we would do so before going into Canada where it would be more expensive. There was a great little cafe in town where we each got french toast, sausage, and eggs. While we were there we saw another one of the racers that was riding in the Great Divide race. After talking to him we found out that he is originally from Canandaguia, NY (he saw Joey's Geneva Bicycle shorts)! After our very tasty breakfast, we stopped at the post office to mail home the plates we had found thus far before riding into CA. Today was a gorgeous day, the sun was shining and the sky was blue. Compared to the 45-55 degree weather yesterday, the 75 degree weather was amazing! During the 10 mile ride to the border, we saw about 6-7 more racers. One of the guys was from Italy, one from Canada, and another from England. The leader of the race thus far is a guy from New Zealand. The Race the Great Divide had become a pretty popular thing, especially since there are people coming from all over the world to do it. Before we reached the border, we each called home one last time before Alaska. The border crossing wasn't as smooth as the other 2x we have crossed. The border crossing guy was a little bit of a jerk to us. He asked us the general questions, but got mad that all Joe had was a drivers license (but he didn't look at it all the way to see that it was an enhanced license- we had to tell him that). He also asked what we had for funding, and we told him. He made a big deal and said that we weren't giving him truthful answers. I don't know what his problem was, everything we said was the truth. Then we got "robbed" by the border guy. He took our dog spray =( . I guess because it was a small handy bottle perfect size for when you are being chased by a dog, it was considered to be a concealed weapon. But--- it was totally ok for us to keep our big bottle of bear mace, even though that can inflict maximum damage. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me! The lady said that if our dog spray was in a big bottle like the bear mace it would have been ok. I asked her what I was supposed to do if I got chased by a dog, just to see what she would say, and she said to use the bear mace because it had the same concentration of stuff as the dog spray. There is no way that can be the case because the dog spray doesn't even stop a dog sometimes, if the bear mace has the same concentration as that, it's definitely not going to stop a 600 lb bear. Based on what we read about bear mace before the trip, I feel like it would probably kill a dog or at least seriously injure them. We could be wrong, but I sure hope not. We did a fair amount of climbing during the first part of today's ride. We stopped for lunch in the small town of Baynes Lake where we got a package of really good Fuggie-O cookies and had some beans for lunch. The couple that owned the general store there were really nice and we ended up talking with them for a little bit. The next town was only about 10 miles away, and the ride there was wonderful. There were almost no cars on the road and it was really peaceful. I am excited for the serenity that the Yukon will offer that's for sure. When we arrived at that town, we stopped for a cookie break and to fill up some water bottles at the gas station. Our ride continued to be a little hilly. A few miles out of town we met, Truly. He is a Canadian who is riding across Canada from West to East. He said he had about 1,000km down and about 6,000km more to go. After chit-chatting for a few minutes we headed our separate ways. After another 15 miles we took another cookie break at a rest stop. By the time we got to our planned destination, Fort Steele, it was almost 8. There wasn't much to the town, just an old historic village that was pretty much like a museum, and a camping resort. It had a really nice campground, but it was a little more than we wanted to spend to set up our tent. We decided to just get some potato chips to snack on while we were cooking dinner and then ride a little further down the road to find a place to camp. The resort had Wi-Fi, but in order to get the password, you either had to be a registered camper, or pay 6 bucks to get it. Man, Canada is expensive; most places in the US it was either free, or at least only a dollar or two to use. While we were finishing dinner, there was a cute kitty that was walking around. I called it, and to my surprise it came running over for attention. Oh how I love kitties! Once we had cleaned up from dinner, we got back on the road. Luckily the sun doesn't go down until after 10, so it wasn't a problem at all to ride a little further. However, we didn't have to go too far before finding a nice rest area with picnic tables, and a vault toilet that we decided would work great. We asked a guy who was sitting in his truck if he thought we would have a problem camping here and he said that he was pretty sure they just ask that you limit your use of the rest area to 10 hours, so we figured we would be fine. We got the tent all set up and Joe got our food all hung in the tree. Aside from the border crossing being a pain this time, today was a great day. Hopefully it will be as sunny and warm tomorrow. We rode 76.01 miles today.
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