Sometimes when you are traveling on the road you need a vacation. We took a ‘vacation’ back to the east coast to visit family at Salter’s Point and Lake George, attend weddings on Saturdays, meet up with friends at the beach and teach a willing few the finer points of riding on the air chair! Lobo traveled with us and he loved chasing balls on the golf course at Salter’s and swimming and hiking off Turtle Rock. It was a busy trip and by the end we were ready to come “home” to Tonto who was parked in Calgary.
Tonto had an appointment for a bit of bodywork around the fenders to make room for new bigger tires. After a lot of looking we found a great guy, Mike who agreed to take on the cutting, folding and molding of a custom job. Tonto also now has new Mag-Hytec transmission pan and rear differential cover. These are heavy-duty, high volume parts that will increase reliability on long, bumpy, dusty backcountry roads.
Our friends Neige, Nick and Solei were great hosts again while we were in Calgary. And Don and Fiona hosted a great BBQ and band at their farm where we danced the night away for our first night back on the road! The next day we did a great bike loop outside of Calgary in the Kananaski forest with a group of friends. The Aspen trees were turning, the air was cool, and there were smiles covered in dirt all afternoon. That night we had the interesting experience of finding a boondock about 40 feet from some very active train tracks. We were so tired that we decided to see if we could make it through the night with these HUGE cargo trains rumbling by. It was an early morning departure.
We headed towards Canmore to get supplies and some internet time. Just as we were pulling into the Safeway supermarket we went over a speedbump and heard a huge BANG and a dragging sound! The motorcycle carrier had dropped off! Luckily the motorcycle was saved because the straps holding it up held, and it was a clean shearing off of the weld job on the 2” extension we had added in Cedar City. Sadly we were too stunned to get a photo of the moment. But now what? Of course there were friendly Canadians all around who lead us from one place to another to find a welder. On the third try (the first was out of business, the second too busy) we found Lee who agreed to do our emergency job. He did some fantastic work welding the pieces back together, adding gussets and paint and we hitched the carrier back up and were on our way!
The Canadian Rockies are spectacular at every turn off the road. We didn’t stay for more than a few moments at some overlooks this time through but the national parks along the Trans-Canada highway deserve a return trip for some exploring. We had heard there was some good mountain biking in Revelstoke and it was a town I was looking forward to visiting. Revelstoke is going to be growing very fast with the opening and expansion of the new ski resort. It is a place set in an incredibly beautiful valley with National parks at one end and endless wilderness, mountains, lakes, and rivers around. We hit some green mossy trails with good climbs and descents (they like their downhill bikes around here) and then we took a ferry across Upper Arrow Lake to look for the hot springs. The next day was spent soaking in the natural hot springs on Halfway River and it was a great way to unwind and ‘get back to nature’.
Last night we took a small cable ferry across Upper Arrow Lake at Arrow Park to access some forest service roads and our own little piece of lakeside boondocking. Today we will head on a big loop (requiring two more free ferry crossings) away from the Trans-Canada (away from the train) through Nakusp, to Salmon Arm and Kamloops for a weekend with the Dixons. Looking forward to some mountain biking, water sports and good laughs.
