Today's Highlights
1. The bathrooms in the Columbia Icefield Tourist Center had hand dryers.
2. When we arrived in B.C. and the sun came out.
We got up and packed the bike and then checked out of the Whistler Inn. We ate breakfast at Smitty's and got gas. We were on the road again by 1:00 PM. We rode for about 5 minutes and then Colin had to stop to put his rain pants on. I continued to wear my jeans since I don't have rain pants. We stopped at Horseshoe Lake, but not to see the sites. We had to put our yellow rubber duck looking Tofino rain jackets. We got a mom to take a picture of us and then we were on the road again in the down pour. The sun would tease us for a few seconds at a time, but the rain never let up. We went through storm after storm with each one getting harder.
We took a break at the Columbia Icefields. My jeans were soaked everywhere and to top it off mother nature wasn't the only one bitchin' because I had my period too. I would have bought rain pants if the gift shop sold them. I was tempted to buy some off a tourist, but most them were asian so they would never fit me. We stood under the hand dryers in the bathroom for a long time to warm up. We paid $6.00 for hot chocolate and coffee, but it tasted so good. It stopped raining so we got back on the bike.
Of course though, five minutes down the road it started to rain again. It was scary at some points with the windy road, the rain and our high speed with the water spraying up onto the roadway. I thought back to when I was a little girl and I relied on my Dad to keep us safe on the windy mountain roads and now that I am married I rely on Colin to keep me safe on the windy rainy mountain roads.
Our next stop in the absolute down pour was a gas station where there was a guy filling up his show bike with gas. The guy insisted on talking to me "Well, hi there. Nice day for riding." I couldn't help but think yes if you were actually riding since he was filling up his bike and then was putting it back in his truck. Why have a motorcycle if you're not going to ride it? The gas attendant said to Colin "Well there is someone who does not care about the weather."
I admit the only okay thing about the rain was that we saw three unbelievingly gorgeous rainbows that stretched across the mountains. I took a picture of two of them. We rode right under them and you could see the colors disperse into the tree tops on the mountain. Thankfully as we crossed into B.C. and by the time we stopped in Golden for a snack the frostbite in my toes and fingers had gone away and my clothes were dry because the sun came out. The difference between riding today is that we had all the vents on our jackets closed and we wore long sleeves. Yesterday, we had all the vents on our jackets open to let the wind in.
We also stopped at Bow Glacier and I thought we were back in the Domincian for a minute. The water was that clear aqua blue green. We took a few frameable pictures.
After Golden we got on the nice not as busy highway that went to Radium and Windvermere (where Diane lives Sandy :-] we saw her showhome) and Invemere. Colin's GPS died, so we stopped at the Petro in Invermere to ask how to get to our Skookum hotel. An RCMP officer was passing us and we didn't have our signal light on and he was a real prick about us not signaling (you know small town cops who have to think they own the town), but we didn't want to drive in front of him or he probably would have arrested us or something for having an upside down license plate.
We checked into room 4 to a muggy smelling motel room (mom we couldn't have paid you to stay there). The beds were comfy and for only $60.00 a night we had a fridge and microwave. The only thing that wasn't pretty was the shower. I had to shower with my sandals on. The restaruant closed at 8 so no skookumberry pie for us, (it was 9:00 PM). We rode back to Invermere and to a mexican bar (Bud's bar) where we had quesadilla and enchiladas and listened to the locals talk about supposed bear attacks, shark attacks and various other tales. Our Australian bartender/waitress was being hit on by every guy in the town.
Colin and I both were not feeling too well this morning (Thursday now), but we're in Kimberly and it's sunny and must be at least 20 by now. We're in the library writing our journal entries for free. We are going to go enjoy some delicious B.C. cherries and then we're back on the road for a long trip to Nelson and then camping. Yeah, three days rest from the bike. It's 12:30 but really 11:30 if we ever hit the time change to gain an hour. I still don't think we're far enough in B.C. yet.
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