Monday, August 20, 2007

Day 13 - 20 Aug 2007

We started out today at 9:15am to overcast skies and a light rain, that quickly turned into a moderate rain. This lasted for about 1 1/2 hours. We had a lazy day today, though, having traveled only 400 miles to Williams Lake, BC. , where we arrived at 6pm after traveling about 9 hours .

No critters spotted today - with all the traffic we encountered today, we know that we are back into civilization somewhat. Not a good day for riding, though, because riding in the rain can be challenging and stressful. To put this in perspective, imagine driving in a convertible with the top down, in the rain, with no windshield wipers, and no heat. Your visibility is reduced, the cold rain hitting your face (we have no face shields on our helmets) freezes your face, and your glasses are spotted with rain droplets. And then you get colder. But we do appreciate days like this - really we do. Number one, it humbles us, and number two, it makes us appreciate the warm, sunny days even more. And it makes us better riders.

But then we rode into hail. Larger hail stones than yesterday, that ripped parts of my beard right off of my face. Butch said that he won't have to shave tomorrow - ripped his one day growth right off. Fortunately, the hail was in short duration - much shorter than yesterday's hail. So once again, we were blessed. Humbled, but blessed. ;-)

Tomorrow's ride is an even shorter ride - about 385 miles to my home in Everett. Hopefully, the rain will have passed, and we will arrive safety at about 6-6:30pm without incident. We plan on washing our bikes in the morning before we leave -we have washed our bikes about 6 times since we left. Yet our poor bikes remain dirtier than we have ever seen them. We wash them, and it rains, or we travel through gravel pits and they get covered in dust. Would we do this again? Yes - in a heartbeat!

Things we learned today:

1. Never spend time washing your bikes the night before it rains.

2. Hail stones hurt!

3. We really appreciated the emptiness and the vastness of the Yukon and parts of British Columbia. Mile after mile of nothing. Very little traffic, if any at all - and even fewer buildings. Seeing the wonders of God's beautiful earth and seeing His creations (critters) in their natural habitat is a moving experience. Coming back to reality isn't as easy as one would think.

4. But we miss our brides, and are eager to see them ASAP. Being separated this long is not a good thing. That is why we will have to do this again - but with our lovely brides next time. ;-)

5. Butch said that he saw a lot of short horned elk today - does anyone know what he is talking about? This is a serious question - he said that Neil would know what he is talking about. Anyone else know?

6. We have been blessed yet again this day.

Tomorrow...........HOME!!!!! (for Jim anyway) ;-)


Butch and Jim

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Short horned elk are cows, Jim. Just cows.

Well, I guess to be technical it depends on the species of cattle whether the cows have horns or just the bulls, so I will say "Short horned elk are cattle, Jim." to be correct.

Jim Peless said...

You win the prize, Jared......just cows. Although we did see some long horn cattle yesterday also.

eltee Harry said...

Short horned elk is what hunters call them when they 'mistakenly' shoot them. You get alot of meat, though!