Monday June 26, 2006

Day 2: Hope
Distance: 88 km
Max speed: 75.2 km/hour
Temperature 38 degrees

We got up this morning really early (or really early for me) at 6:00am.
Turns out we are both slow (I will share some blame with Lewis) in getting ready, as we were one of the last groups to leave camp this morning.
As punishment for my slovenliness, I missed out on the hot oatmeal and was forced to eat cold slop (not really, but I wanted oatmeal.)

Off we went at about 7:30-ish, riding into a cool morning.
The route took us along country roads, and then onto what turned out to be more of a highway for a while, with monster trucks zooming by us-sucking us along in their wake for a couple of glorious seconds.

Since we knew the temperature was going to hit 38, we pushed the pace, and soon passed most of our group. This is not, I am sure, what Dale Carnegie would suggest in his classic book, ‘how to win friends and influence people’, but we didn’t want to dawdle and get caught in the upcoming intense heat (which did eventually catch us at about 10:30.)

Again, the scenery is just amazing, and almost doesn’t seem real; we passed by emerald green lakes that are nestled beside blue-ish-misty mountains.
Pancake-flat land is bracketed by these mountains, giving one a feeling of isolation, also probably owing to the fact that we’ve come across very few towns.
Of the few that we passed, a couple had shut down gas stations and stores-adding to the feeling of remoteness.

One town we did go through, Agassiz is so quaint; I was half-expecting a movie set crew to come and tear it down at any minute-it looked so much like a ‘western’ town, with all the store fronts reminiscent of all those cow-boy type towns.
We passed all kinds of interesting agriculture-hazelnuts! I don’t think I knew they grew on trees, but we passed an entire orchard, along with ‘Bob’s hazelnuts’ store or something like that.
Also markedly different is the lack of gentrification-no Starbucks, Second Cup, or even Tim’s-all the stores are still like the old days, ‘the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker’, all run by cousin Marg, or some other person whose family has likely been in the area since the beginning of time.

We had kept hearing from numerous people, including Bud, the organizer that the reason we go from west to east and not the other way around, is because of the prevailing winds. So far this theory is yet to be proven, as we’ve only been railed upon by the winds so far, slowing us down considerably near the end of our ride.
At one long stretch we happened upon a tractor who pulled in front of us; Lewis had the great idea of drafting off of it, so we jumped onto its tail and got a free ride for about 5 km.
We were traveling at about 30km/hour without hardly any effort; my heart rate was 116 beats/minute, and after it pulled away my heart rate jumped to 143 going at about the same speed-was great fun, and we were sad when he waved a friendly goodbye and turned into the next field.

The next bit of excitement was this fantastic descent into a valley; a winding road with a sharp drop took me up to a speed of 75 km/hour-what a rush!

Near the end of our ride the heat was draining and intense, slowing us down quite a bit. We pushed it hard, thinking that we’d be able to set up camp and relax; we pulled into our camp ground at 11:30 am (first one’s here!) with no truck in site.
It ended up rolling into camp at 2:00pm, so we weren’t too happy with having busted our asses to have to sit in the heat.
But all grief was quickly assuaged with beer (for Lewis) and a change of clothes for me.

We’re very near one of these emerald green lakes, where we went for a dip-just what the doctor ordered, the water cold and refreshing on our sun-seared skin.
Our camp site is very pretty, and has these carvings--we’re in ‘Hope’ the chain-saw carving capital of Canada-seriously, I didn’t know there was any competition for such a title, but sure enough there are plenty of wood carvings of the various wildlife in the area, adding to the natural charm of the place.

Now, I am starving and waiting for dinner….tomorrow is supposed to be a tough ride; big climbs, longer distance, and tough roads-bring it on....