DAY 7 78 KMS 466 M

DAY 8 46 KMS 650 M

Day 9 86 KMS. 1441 M

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TOTAL TO DATE: 674 KMS

Best seniors pick up line, overheard at A&W as we enjoyed The Great Canadian Breakfast: “Why don’t you come sit here with me, I need a hearing aid, but I can still hear a bit, so why don’t you join me?”

Final decision made on Kettle Valley – went south instead, found an amazing backroad, The Old Hedley Road, took 14 videos of sky or bike spokes before I got this that gives just a taste of this amazing road!

Day 7. Downhill with a tail wind on a great back road. Stopped in Keremeos at the charming Secret Garden Cafe, where we chatted with Toy and Toon from Thailand. Stop here if you ever travel through.

Stayed at Crowsnest Winery in Cawston for 4 star dinner with just the right amount of their own wine. We joined Cheryl and Blair from Similkameen Apiaries for conversation and “just one more”. Learned a tiny bit about the complicated business of beekeeping and pollinating. If Steve K and Dave S were there, we would still be talking about queens, pollination and other bee stuff. At the next table was Sue from my Thursday ski lesson in Fernie. Small world. Cheryl and Blair chased us down in their truck (not that hard to do) the next morning to deliver some of their finest honey! Okay, actually they left us a jar of honey at their farm so we could pick it up in the morning, but we couldn’t find the honey so we left a note. Okay, so we actually left the note in the neighbour’s yard after wandering around there looking for honey. Jay would love to blame this on Garmin, but this time he had a paper map.

Anyways, we loved our brief meet up and hope our paths will cross again soon. Love the honey. We’re eating it by the spoonful as suggested by Cheryl, Can’t believe we didn’t get a pic of you both.

Day 8 Short day to Osoyoos. The Similkaleen Valley is spectacular with river, orchards and mountains. Wondering if the Similkaleen River is navigable in a canoe following Mike and Terese’ wisely chosen path…

Day 9. Early start (for us) as we tackled the 29 km 1233 meter Anarchist Pass out of Osoyoos and enjoyed the well earned downhill into Rock Creek for lunch. A delicious and unexpected treat especially appreciated as it had become quite cold. There was light snow on the ground. Tried for Grand Forks but ended our day in the megalopolis of Greenwood. After climbing another 300 meters on the very sandy and very slow Kettle Valley Trail, it was apparent the Evening Star was home for the night. Friendly and helpful JP was delightful, and the room is clean – if you ever find yourself stuck in Greenwood with no vehicle to take you anywhere else, this is the premium option.

Our weather has been great, cold mornings and evenings, but we manage that by turning the thermostat up in our hotel rooms. We have had mostly tailwinds, until later each day when I am getting tired, then it switches to a head wind, and I quietly tuck in behind Jay to draft and grumble. We seem to have snow behind us and ahead of us, let’s hope it stays that way.

We have decided that this adventure has become our own Backroads Guided Cycle trip (except they would have driven us out of Greenwood) so we bought M&M peanuts today – the standard snack. As the lead Backroads Guide, I am thinking to ditch the tent, sleeping bags and stove for my hair straightener.