My mom's 80th birthday today - and we have no cell phone service; however, I did organize flowers to be sent to her before we left. Hope she got them.
I thought yesterday was a great ride - it was nothing compared to this. The weather is gorgeous (started at 46 degrees and ended at 72 degrees). No wind (love those trees) and absolutely the most beautiful scenery you can imagine. When we sing "how great is our God" in church - that's a fact! Such a creator that can make such unimaginable wonder is truly great. We spent 2-1/2 hours actually in the rocky mountains with snow-capped mountains all around, lovely trees and landscape and you never knew when a creature would come upon the scene. Nice winding curves, some steep grades, over many rivers (lovely in themselves) and just surrounded by beauty! Amazing.
We took a break from riding and took a dip in Liard Hot Springs - literally a hot spring. Of course, it smells like sulfur, but other than that, it was lovely. Some places in the pool were hot, hot, hot and others were just nicely hot. It was great! We also took a break for breakfast this a.m. at one of those roadsite restaurants (just a hole in the middle of nowhere) - best pancakes Duane or I have ever tasted (Duane shared a bite with me). The kids in that community come from 50 miles away and get to school by horse, snowmobile, car or whatever they can find. If the weather is too bad, they simply don't have school for as long as it takes. They have a total of 25 kids in K-12 and 2 teachers.
We left the primitive cabin (no kidding!) at 6:30 a.m. and arrived here in Watson Lake at 2:00 p.m. That gave us time to find a laundromat and do a couple loads of clothes (when you motorcyle, you can't take a lot along). Found a place to eat (Duane had a buffalo burger - yum) and checked into our "hotel." I finally got us a good place to stay. It's actually an old Air Force officers quarters that has been completely renovated. They have some collectibles from the 30s and 40s in the entry and play music from that era, but I don't believe I've ever been in a cleaner place. Thank goodness - the last two made me feel like Shrek. We even have a TV in our room - amazing.
Couple notes about this town called Watson Lake. All of the electricity for the entire community is supplied by generators than run on diesel. At 4 a.m., they shut the generators off for 2 hours - one side of town one night and the other side the next - all year. So, like at our hotel, you cannot take a shower or flush the toilet (or any lights or anything) between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. tomorrow morning because it's their side of town's turn to be shut off. It definitely is the wild blue yonder out here. The other notes is a good news/bad news thing (Jesse loves good news/bad news things). The good news is I got hit on by a guy while waiting for the laundry to get done. The bad next is he had no front teeth, was way overweight, had grease stains all over his clothes and I'm not sure the last time he showered. Guess I just don't have "it" anymore.
Wildlife we saw today: black bear, red fox, many bison, moose and elk. Only disappointment was we didn't see any mountain sheep. Also, didn't see any caribou, but I wasn't surprised about that.
Well, thanks again for checking in and for your prayers. We appreciate all of you.
Gayle - BOTB
Once again, here's news from the front of the bike. As previously stated by Gayle, "what a day!". God made these mountains, but it took the Army Corps of Engineers to tame them (at least a little bit). We had a solid 100 miles of hills, curves and changing grade elevations. At one point, I counted the amount of times I shifted the bike, it was a total of 22 times in 5 miles, that's shifting about once every quarter mile. High speed was 60, low around 25. There was a stretch where we were about 10 feet above the water next to a LONG lake, and the other side was a straight up granite wall, just the tiny road in between for miles, absolutely gorgeous!
All in all, the last three tanks of fuel ran between 46.3 and 47.5 mpg. Not bad! This bike sure does love that mid range/higher torque thing with lots of curves! Of course I hated it (haha).
Any way, I am going to try and post a few pictures after we post this. Thanks for checking and praying!
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Thanks for the posts once again. Every night Steph reminds me that I have to read them. They are starting to be the highlight of my night. The pictures are amazing. What beautiful country. Northern Montana was supposed to look something like that where we picked up our boat but we had 41 degrees, sleet and fog so we couldn't see many snow capped peaks. Weather today was 90 plus with about 20 to 30 mile an hour winds. High humidity so it was muggy. I am glad that you had better weather. No comment on my BOTB first post. Auntie Gayle, you are slipping. Love EW
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