Journey Notes

We are in Hope, BC at nice little campground right on the Fraser River. After a great BBQ hamburger dinner, we are listening to Johnny Cash and working on our computers. Rochelle has created a wonderful setup that allows us to both work comfortably. Rochelle is even got a 24" monitor connected to her machine! We will get a picture of the setup online sometime soon. I have been extremely impressed how well Rochelle has packed the huge pile of stuff into this little camper van.

The 90km day started in Abbotsford in a light rain that waxed and waned all day. The rain almost stopped over the last 20km into Hope. The route was mapped out by Google Map's bicycle routing software. It was pretty good most of the way, routing me through beautiful farmland. One mistake it made was assuming that because the trace of two roads crossed that they actually connected. At one point I stood looking up at the road that I wanted to be on about 20 meters above my head. Not only that but at that point I have traversed about 2km of muddy, potholed road that would have been a challenge on a mountain bike, let alone my skinny road tires. I managed to find a trail that finally hooked up with the road that I wanted to be on. A nice little 5km of off-road that I had not expected for the day!

After a wonderful lunch in Agassiz that Rochelle had ready for me, I put back on my wet shoes, gloves, etc and headed out for the last 30km to Hope. It felt really good and I got into a nice rhythm with long straight, flat stretches with a couple of good sized hills that gave me a taste of what is ahead tomorrow.

After yesterday's ride, I thought I had destroyed my Nexus S phone but by midday today, most of the functionality had returned. It still has some problems with it's acceleration sensor (tells it which way is up) and the Bluetooth antenna that seems to break it's connection to my headset about once every 2 or 3 minutes. Hopefully those things will work themselves out too. Dodged a $600 bullet there.

Tomorrow we head north into the Fraser Canyon. There is not much along this stretch of highway even though it was the primary way people traversed the BC Rockies for years. That's likely because there is little flat land. It's about 65km to Boston Bar and 108km to the next town, Lytton so my ride will likely end somewhere in between and we will stay tomorrow night in the nearest town.