The South Shall Rise Again

Today was another very wonderful day. This is getting monotonous, I know, but it's true. As I said in the blog about yesterday, we planned to get up early and get going. And early we did, up at 6:30, coffee by 7:30, and on the road by 8, and that's AM.

The ride down to Hedley was enhanced by meeting a young biker in the coofee shop in Princeton, with a nice bike of his own. Nancy chatted him up and found out that he regularly bikes from Princeton to Penticton, a distance of about 100

 km! We asked him for suggestions on a route, and he suggested a secondary road to get to Hedley, then the main highway, Number 3, on to Keremeos. We did this and were well rewarded. Saw several marmots, one coyote, a bald eagle, some magpies, and lots of other birds. And few cars and trucks. It was a very refreshing change from the highway we had been expecting. And the side of the road was full of wild rose plants which are now in bloom and add to the smell in the air. Also, of course, when you're on a bike, you can smell the newly-cut hay in the fields, and the sawdust in the wood mills. So it was a ver

y sensual experience, in the real meaning of that word.

Even though there were several good-sized hills along the way, we were amazed at how fast we got to Hedley. We had planned to go up to the mine face there.

(Now, for those of you who are now aware of this, the Hedley Mine was begun in the late 19th century when gold was found in the area. The mine face is about 1500 metres up the side of a mountain, and they dug the tunnels from there. The mine was closed in the 1960's [after something like $40,000,000 in gold was removed], and they have begun to restore the buildings at the mine face as a tourist attraction. I had read about it and wanted to see it. As did Barry.)

Unfortunately, the trips to the mine face were only on Thursday through Saturday, so we were out of luck. But we did meet a man who worked in the mine, and is now working on the restoration. He gave us a lot of information, and directed us to the mining museum n

ext door. We spent some lovely time in there, generally learning about gold mining, and the life of those folks back in the early 20th century (the Chinese cooks were paid the handsome sum of $1/day in 1913; the mason - not a Chinese person - was paid $12/day).

We biked on and met Nancy for lunch. We had just passed the 500 km mark in the trip! To celebrate, we had the first local cherries of the year. And then began our ride further down to Keremeos, a farming community near the American border. When we got there, we realized we were not that tired, and decided to bike another 20 km or so towards Osoyoos, and sto

p at a winery there for sampling. Wonderful wine, but lousy mosquitoes. Nancy met us and we let her drive us back to our motel in  Keremeos for the night.

That night, my sister Mary came down from Penticton to meet us for supper. We ate in a place called the Bistro. We were to eat outside, but it was so windy we moved indoors. We were served by a cute young waitress whose blouse was cut too low. (I told you it was a good day!)  The meal and the visit with Mary were all very good, and we went home tired and happy.

That night was very windy, and cool. I guess that is what a desert is like. I turned in early and read for a while before turning out the light. It was to be an early morning the next day.