Rough draft of the first few days.

Day 1:
Am quite amazed at how much work it takes to go on vacation. Last minute prep, trying to remember all of the things that normally depend upon you and pass them on to someone else. Got back home around 6pm to start the final pack and was not able to get on the road until 7pm.
I was alarmed at how loud my bike was on the highway. Was wondering if they did something weird to it when I took it into the shop. It wasn’t until about Everett till I realized that I was not wearing headphones for the first time in forever on the bike. What I also started noticing was that my left mirror kept getting out of alignment. Each time I pushed it back into place it got looser and looser. L:ooks like I did not tighten that bolt enough after getting on the ram mount. It is a little disconcerting to ride on I-5 without a left mirror. Kept favoring the far left lane. Started thinking about a bird that is doing its best to hide a broken wing from predators.
Found out about Burlington that Elise had decided to stop near Hope, BC. Which is about 100 miles short of where she thought she would stop the first night. Score! I will get to sleep at a normal time.
Pushed Monica across the border and realised too late that I lied to the custom agent about not brining in booze. Oops.
Hit Harrison Hot Springs around 10:30pm.
It is now 8:30am and I am pretty much finished with breakfast and rain is threatening to start. Got to go.


Day 2:
Dear Canada. Your beer is too expensive.
So apparently BC is a package store kinda place. Liquor in the liquor stores. And beer sold in a special store that most of the time is also a pub and a liquor store. I gotta make my purchases early. I am fine with that. But bought beer in BC for the first time today and it was $12.90 for a six pack of bud light. I thought I was reading the wrong tag when I saw it. Maybe reading the price for the 12 pack or heck even the 24 pack. But no, my bud lights cost over $2 a can. Even with the Canadian dollar conversion, that is over a dollar fifty a can! WTF Candada. Will check into the prices of wine and liquor tomorrow.
I woke up at 7:30am and pushed it to see how fast I could break down camp and be ready to go. Apparently it takes me about an hour to be ready for the road. I kinda felt bad for waking Elise, but she poked her head out of the tent around 8:30 and we were on the road by about 11.
I was struck by the many different environments that we rode through yesterday. We started in forests like home, went into scrub land and ended the day at Lake Mclellen in a Pine forest again. The best part of the ride was going through the granite mountains. The trans Canada highway goes along the fraisier river so you are riding on a ridge with the river below you. Across the river from the road were the most amazing granite mountain peaks. Which were white and grey with no vegetation on them at all. It was an amazing sight. Sadly, we did not stop to take pictures.
Kinda funny that both elise and I think the other is more aggressive when leading. She seems to have more pickup in the straights, and I reduce the speed as much in the curves. Today is the day that we split up at Prince George. While trip planning last night I was surprised how blaze Elise is about the fact that she has a 140 mile range and there is a stretch where she will have to go 152 miles to the next service station. I offered my reserve tank which should just about cover it, but she was confident that she could hitch hike into town. In the end she has decided that she will probably buy an extra tank in Prince George before she goes.
As I am typing this, the loons on the lake are calling to one another. They have quite an interesting song.

Day 3 & 4
Made an early exit on day three so did not do the usual wrap up. Day 3 had us leaving Lake Mclellen and going north up to Prince George where the plan was for Elise and I to split up and go our separate ways. Lunch was at a Dennys in Quenolte (sp) and I realized that I could make Jasper by the end of that day, and then I would have 3 days until I had to be in Camloops/Banff. What was I going to do with the time? One idea that had been floating in my mind was to ditch Jasper and Banff and go up to the Yukon with Elise. Every time I think of Elise’s trip planning it makes me think of Calvin and Hobbs when they decided to go to the Yukon on a whim. I told Elise over lunch that we had to stop some place in prince George that had the name of the town written on it so that we could snap a photo of us together before we parted. After meandering about trying to find some example of Prince George’s Civic pride, we found a big log man made out of plastic that had the letter PG on his chest. I should say that I was very disappointed that of the 3 locals we first asked, none of them knew of a visitor center or something with the name of the town on it.
At the PG Man which by the way was next to the Casino, Elise said that if I were up for going up north, she would not mind the company. I will admit that I almost turned left instead of right.
But I did go right and rode through some boring roads until I realized, that the next town may or may not be in my fuel range. I kept trying to do mental math to figure out the distance to McCallen in Miles from the KM.
One of the rest breaks on the ride from Prince George to McCallen was a tea break at a nice rest stop by the side of a river. Just as I was about to get up and go, two dudes came in a muddy Kawasaki Enduro’s. Judging from the mud and the amount of gear they were both backing (full set of bags, sleeping bags, extra tires, fog lights, communication gear, etc) these guys were in the middle of a serious trip. It turns out that they were Larry and Kevin, a 65 year old man and his I would say 40 something son-in-law. Since July 7th they have been on the road from Indiana to Prudo Bay in Alaska and were now on the return leg home. I asked them where they were going till today and they said they did not know, I suggested that they try t stay at Mt. Robinson as I was planning on doing. They thought it was good idea and asked if I wanted to ride with them. I asked them how fast they tended to ride and found out that they like to go about 60 mpg. I thanked them for the offer and said I would see them in McCallen.
I sated getting nervous when I saw my odometer reading 90 miles since Prince George and McCallen was still about a 90km to go. I popped my fuel light at around mile 100 and knowing I had about a gallon left, really hoped that I could make it. After the fuel light came on, I throttled back and started going much slower. After the fuel light popped, I came across two disabled motorists and did not stop because I was worried that I would not have the fuel to make it. I made it to McCallen with no great issues. As I stepped outside after getting setup to pay for the gas with a card, Larry and Kevin pulled up.
We decided to all go get dinner together and talk things over. Apparently, it had been the elder’s dream to go to Prudo Bay Alaska on a motorcycle. His daughter amazingly enough encouraged her husband, who before the trip had only done 300 miles total on a motorcycle, to go with her father to Alaska. I asked, if there was any chance that this was an elaborate insurance scheme. Who ever heard of a wife encouraging the husband she actually wants to see again to go on a ride up to Prudo Bay after only riding 300 miles!!!
After dinner I continued onto Mt. Robinson and they went for an offer from another patron in the restaurant to stay at their B&B/camp site. Only 15 a head and for an extra 5 you can have breakfast with him as well. After making a wrong turn, I ended up in the Mt. Robinson area after dark. That is not a pleasant situation to be in. After scaring a nice elderly couple in their conversion van, I found the camp site which was pretty large and laid out in a spiral pattern. I was pleasantly surpised to find that the camp attendants drove around in a pickup truck to check you in at your site, and they also gave you fire wood. SWEET. The Burn ban is over!!
Day 4 (Aug 17th) During the night I went and put in the Sanyo’s battery to charge just to make sure it could have enough juice. I the morning it was gone. Who would take a battery charger and battery for a Sanyo camera. No one has these things. Mental note, cameras that need their own special battery is out for future moto adventures. Though it will be hard to find that intersection of waterproof, small and uses AA batteries.
After taking down camp I rode up a dirt road on a whim to see what was up there. I was rewarded with a cool picture of Mt. Robinson and some railway cars at the end of the line.
When I went to gas up, Who was there but Kevin and Larry. We all gassed up and headed on to Jasper. This time I decided to ride with them and it was nice to be riding in a pack again. Riding at 60 miles an hour behind a guy who clearly was not interested in staying in a stacked formation, was a little frustrating. But the slow speed let me spend a little more time gawking at the amazing lakes and mountains on the way in.
Got into Jasper and went into the town itself to check it out, pick up supplies, and get a little intel. After some thinking, I decided to ride to the 3 close by camp sites to check them out. My ods on favorite was Snarled River, but was curious what a 300 and 700 site campground looks like. To the planners credit the experience at the camp site is probably not that much different than a standard camp site. But the fact that Snarrled river is the most primitive, sits along a river, and also had firewood available to buy sealed the deal. When I got there there was no attendant even though it was 2pm. But there was a self registration desk and a big pile of wood to pick throught for 8 bucks a bundle. I found a camp site that had an ample supply of wood already there and paid for 2 nights and one bundle of wood for $40. In retrospect, I should have been suspicious of the small BBQ esque fire circles and the fact that so many empty campsites with unused wood piles but more on that later.
After setting up camp, my adventure for the day was to go up to Malign canyon, Medicine Lake, and Malign Lake, and if time go see Mt. Whistler via tram. The first thing I have to say is that Medicine lake is Stupid beautiful. I was behind a car when they suddenly stopped for no reason that I could see. I cursed and put on the brakes and slowed to a stop while I rounded the corner. And got into view of Medicine Lake at which time I just stopped in the middle of the road as well for about 10 seconds before I realized there was a man at the sore had he obviously and parked his car and walked down from some parking lot. Obviously the pictures I took can’t do it justice, let me just say, best mountain & Lake view ever. Medicine Lake is so named because it is a lake that has no outlet, but will sometimes totally drain out. The native Americans attributed this to some “magic” or Medicine, but more recent geology has discovered that there are several holes in the bottom of the lake that let the water out underground.
The rest of the ride up was very nice, and Mlign Lake is pretty. But by the time I got there, the Mosquitos were out in force. Mental note: Never go to a standing body of water in the afternoon. Go mid day or in the morning but never at 5pm. Also striking me is the fact that about half of the people there were German. Why are there so many germans at national parks in North America?
The Canyons were great as well. Though I am noticing that at the three sites I went to today none of them had water. Clearly the Canadian Govt. hasn’t spent as much money on plumbing as the Us Park Service seems to have.
Now earlier I had said something about the BBQ eque fire pit. Well the damn thing is pretty much useless. It is a metal box with 4 full walls (bottom, two sides and a 4th little one in the back. The front is totally open, and the top has a griddle portion and a grating that swings up in the front. The “sides” are the same length as a standar fire pit, but the griddle at the back makes it difficult to use the full length. The “front” and “back” are only about half the size of standar fire pit and you can not lay a log down in that direction. I can see this design coming up in committee trying to desing a fire pit that will cause fewer forest fires. “The short length will force people to cut their logs smaller and therefore, smaller fires and less chance of escaped fire.” Sadly they give us standard sized pieces of wood, and one is going to cut the logs in half againt the grain. So what do you do? What I and every other fire pit in use tonight is doing, Stand the logs up almost straight up resulting in the most precarious fire I have ever managed.