Day 20 – Wednesday August 25, 2010
Kilometres: 398
Time: 7 hours, including stops
Weather:
Merritt: Not a cloud in the sky, 30 C at 9:30
Osoyoos: Sunny, 40 C at 1:30
Vernon: Sunny, 36 C at 5:15
Why do I have so much trouble getting started in the morning these days? I just couldn’t get myself together. It took forever to pack up and eat breakfast. I didn’t get on the road until 9:30, which was late for what I had planned for the day. Last night I decided to get up early (ha!) and add a few extra kilometres to my route by going down to Osoyoos. Originally, I was going to turn off Highway 3 at Keremeos and cut the corner off to save a bit to time. I didn’t think I’d ever come back to this part of the province JUST to see Osoyoos, so I may as well go there.
Heading out of Merritt, I took Highway 5A, which is a fun road to ride. Again, I was surrounded by desert, and not a car or truck would pass me for minutes on end. When a few cars did come up behind me, I just pulled over and let them pass. I wanted to play with road.
This new way of riding (Lee Parks’ method of leaning and pushing) really makes riding a totally engaging sport. I’m working with the bike and not against it. This is just so much more fun than how I used to ride. I think I’m going to get quickly bored riding the straight regional roads and concession roads of Southern Ontario.
Anyway, Highway 5A is a really fun road with all the twists and turns you could ask for. It doesn’t have the paving variations like the road from Lillooet to Pembertson does, but is still a fun road and I’d happily ride it again.
I filled up the tank and ate a quick sandwich in Princeton and then headed southeast on Highway 3, which is the Crownest Highway that took me the Crowsnest Pass last week. If I had more time, I would have stopped in Hedley as they offer a gold mine tour, but it looks like the tourists have to repel down the shaft. I’d love to give that a try. Hmm, does that mean I have yet another reason to ride out this way again?
About 5 kilometres before I rode into Keremeos, the wind really picked up. For the first time since riding in the Prairies, I had to fight for control of the bike. There were a few twists in the road, and after coming out of one turn in the distance was a treed mountain with clouds around it. But the clouds didn’t look quite right. As I rode closer, I realized the clouds were rising from the trees. One cloud had a bit of an orange haze. These weren’t clouds. These were forest fires. This was soon confirmed when I saw a helicopter drop fire retardant into the smoke.
I pulled into a wildlife-viewing turnout to get a better look at the fires. At the turnout, I met a BC Fires information officer who told me the fire was started by lightning on July 28 and eventually grew to cover 530 hectares. The mountains are so steep in the area that it is impossible for fire crews to get to them. At one point they had five helicopters battling the fire. She went on to say that the fire seems to go out, but it still burns underground and will spring back to life as spot fires days later. This is what I was seeing.
I couldn’t but think of the poor animals living in the forest who were trying to get away from the smoke and fires. It’s unfortunate that there is nothing to be done to help them. We just have to let nature take care of itself.
The further south I went (surprise!) the hotter it became. This area is a desert, with similar vegetation to what I saw in Kamloops and Lillooet. I was starting to equate the BC deserts with really fun roads. I’ll have to find more of these roads.
The ride down to Osoyoos was hot, had twisty roads, and brown vegetation. I’d heard that Osoyoos was one of the warmest places in Canada and that the town (city?) tried to model itself after Spanish towns with a similar climate. Unfortunately, the turnout to view the town was on the opposite side of the road and not accessible to vehicles going south. I would have loved to have taken a picture, but it was impossible.
The town looked beautiful as I descended the mountain highway. A clear blue lake was the centre of activity. Boats of all description were cutting through the waves. Windsurfers were enjoying the sun and wind as they skimmed along the surface. Surrounding the lake was the town, and many were white stucco houses with reddish-brown clay tile roofs. It did have a bit of a Spanish feel, but there were other “normal” building in the area so the effect wasn’t complete.
I stopped in the Visitor Centre to cool down (I very rarely seek out air conditioning) and to find out a bit more about the town. The average winter low is 0 C and the summer average is in the high 30s C. I found the average number of sunshine hours, but I think it may be misleading, as it doesn’t offer a comparison to other towns/cities at that latitude. However, it is probably above normal for Canada otherwise they wouldn’t have listed that statistic.
Osoyoos has only two industries: tourism and agriculture. It is surrounded by futile farmland, and as the southern most town in the Okanagan Valley, there is an abundance of fresh fruit and veggies. Fruit stands are all along the highway leading out of Osoyoos and all the way up to Vernon. You can buy 20 pounds of peaches for anywhere between $7 and $11.
I didn’t think much of the ride north through Penticton, Kelowna and Vernon. It was a bit twisty, but once you’ve ridden one highway, you’ve ridden them all. It was the usual: Cars going at least 20 over the speed limit and trucks breathing down my tailpipe. Fortunately, it was two lanes in both directions, so they were able to pass me with out getting too irate at me doing only 10 over the limit.
The one thing I did like about the road was the changes in elevation. It was just fun going up and down. My ears seemed to pop every couple of minutes. For example, here’s a pictures of Penticton from a turn out. It seemed like only two minutes later (ok, closer to five minutes) that I was down there driving beside the beech.
The water in Lake Okanagan is very rough, and it was very winding on the highway as well. White caps were the norm, but people were still out swimming in the lake and enjoying the sun.
I really didn’t like Kelowna simply because I arrived in town at 4:30, which must be their rush hour. I hit almost every light and was starting to overheat and get a bit ticked off at the timing of the lights. In an effort to cool down, I stopped into the local Dairy Queen to taste test a hot fudge sundae. This is my first DQ treat since the Qu’applle Valley, so I’m rather proud of myself for holding out this long.
But you just can’t take the Toronto person out of me, even in a small city. When I pulled in, I did the normal “check out everyone in parking lot to make sure it’s safe” look around. I noticed a guy smoking a stoggie who was either eying me, the bike, or both. I made sure to take everything inside with me that wasn’t locked down. I placed my order and while they made the sundae, I walked to the window and, sure enough he was giving my bike a once over. I went back to the counter, picked up my order and then sat by the window to keep an eye on the bike, but the dude had walked away. By the time I’d nearly finished my ice cream, I saw him ride away on his own motorcycle. I guess you just can’t take the big city mentality out of me that quickly.
It was a fairly quick ride to Vernon from Kelowna. It was all highway riding. The motel was just off the main street (the highway) and had a Safeway Foods across the road. As I had a microwave in the motel room, I did a quick shopping trip and settled into the motel for the evening.
