Biker Bodie is too old to cross Canada

Biker Bodie is too old to cross Canada
Question is, are we?

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Laydown In Logan Lake

Thursday morning. Yes,,, more sunshine. Another free motel breakfast. Two ladies riding Harleys from Alberta held the floor with their conversation with an elderly couple. A popular topic was the explanation of 'chicken strips. These are the unworn portions of tread on the edge of a rear tire that do not get worn from leaning into corners. The wider the strip the more chicken the rider. Once loaded up Jill lead over to the gas station. We left Princeton via hwy. 5A to Merrit. I had been on this road a couple years ago with a group from our bike club. That time we were going by Logan Lake too.
5A is a very enjoyable road to ride. Lots of windy bits but can be travelled at a nice speed. Numerous lakes are picturesquely placed along the highway. There are a lot of nice cabins and recreation properties around these lakes. One lake in particular was a gorgeous rich green color and there were two bright new red kayaks being paddled on it. The contrast of colors was spellbinding. The highway began to go up into higher terrain, not mountainous though. Low hills rolled off on both sides of us. Just before Merrit we came to the junction of 97C that leads right into Merrit and through to Logan Lake. We took a coffee break at an unusual restaurant called Red Top. A familiar name but the similarity ended there. It is a circular shaped building with windows all round. A Korean couple was busy setting up for the day. All of the hand written menus at the buffet and counter were written in Korean with English under. Our stop was only for coffee so I couldn't say how the food was.
From Merrit Jill lead the way to Logan Lake. This part was an extremely nice ride too. Lots of rangeland bordered the road. The ravages of the pine beetle is very obvious along the hillsides and quite starling to see the damage done. Near the large mining truck at the info centre of Logan Lake Jill let me go by as she wasn't sure of the exact way to cousin Norm and Marne's house. We somehow managed to arrive quietly and get to the front door before Norm exuberantly realized that we were there. We were immediately welcomed in and embroiled in conversation. Shortly Marne arrived home and met us with her ever warm smile. We were informed that Norm had all meals planned out and that we should just relax. And relax we did. We were treated absolutely royally. Beautifully BBQed dinners each came with a lesson. We learned how to use a steam cleaning kind of way of cleaning grills with denim and water. Of course the bbq is preheated to 700 degrees. And how to bake potatoes with a tube of copper. Here a length of copper is sharpened at one end. Nice to do on a lathe. Marked at the opposite end to identify the sharp one and polished clean. Two such implements were fabricated by Norm and given to us. The method is to simply push the pipe through the centre of the potato, poke out the core, butter and spice the potato, wrap in foil and grill. It takes about half as long to cook the potato and the centre is cooked every bit a well as the outside. Our hosts treated us tenderly and we really got chilled out.
Saturday brought us one step closer to home. We had heard that rain was expected by Wednesday so we would like to get home Tuesday. But we shall see. Now the forecast is for showers Tuesday.
We were on Hwy. 97C to Merrit by 10:00 after a great send off from Norm and Marne. The one hour time saving prompted us to consider taking the Coquohalla for scenery we hadn't seen yet. Another invigorating ride through the rangelands brought us to Merrit where we topped our tanks. At the gas station there were several other riders heading for one of the highways from town. One Harley, two sport bikes and a girl on a Honda Fury. Only the second one I have seen on the trip. I asked her opinion about the bike and she said it really was nice and went like stink. The Coqu. (or Hwy 5) sure does move the traffic along. Jill took the lead for the portion to Hope and set off in a blaze. I think she had daughters and grand daughters in her eyes. We did make good time although we took a stop at the rest area just after the toll booth that is no longer there. Arriving at the Home Cafe in Hope at noon you would just know there would be a line up at the door.
After lunch we were now off to a cluster of traffic that we would previously try to avoid. The ride in from Hope went quite smoothly though. Even the portion when Jill and I got separated by quite a distance in different lanes at the Port Mann Bridge. We got back together by Willingdon.
Jill had spoken to Kate earlier and was told there was a bed for us at her new home in Squamish. So we made our way through the North Shore and onto the new Squamish highway. It is a beautiful thing to drive. Thanks to very clear directions we rolled up to Kate's easily. Her house is a very nice two storey home with a great yard. Two of Kate's friends were there helping cut down the overgrown blackberries. The yard shows greater potential the more it is cleaned up. There are some pretty interesting finds too. Not the least of which is a small little cast iron wood burning camp stove. There is a healthy plum tree in the front yard, a cherry tree growing over the side fence and a magnificent arbor centering the back yard. The arbor is covered with grapes. I really like the open kitchen and living room. I will leave it for Jill to better describe the house. At the end of the workday Kate cooked us up a fabulous meal with lamb chops and a beet salad like only Kate can make it. With all the trimmings we were soon all stuffed. Sara had stayed for dinner and was going to a nearby pub with Kate to see an AC/DC cover band. We were invited to join them but chose discretion and opted to stay home and watch the dogs. Jill is now re-united with Bodie. I guess I won't be the only one sleeping in Jill's bed tonight.

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