Hills, funky tan lines and Tony

May 31 Hope to Manning Park Resort (66.20km)
OK, enough of being lazy and back to work. I left Hope this morning at around 9:30 in the hopes that it would warm up. Well, I needn't have worried because almost as soon as I got out of town, there was a super long hill and I was dripping in sweat in no time. This was the first real hill that I've climbed since my trip began. There were a few rolling hills in the first few days, but this hill went on forever. I should have checked, but I'm guessing it was between 10 to 15 km.

The whole day was essentially long climbs interspersed with some shorter climbs:) Apparently, I climbed about 1000 meters today. Thankfully, the hills were not excessively steep, but very long.

Along one of the hills, I saw another biker on the side of the road who was fully loaded as I was. I stopped for a chat and he, Tony, is going to Winnipeg. He's done a ton of touring before (went from NFLD to Victoria in 1987 and will do it in the opposite direction in stages this time). We essentially leeped frogged over one another all day in that I would pass him while he was taking a break and he would pass me when I was. In late afternoon I was ahead of him and I got to Manning Park resort - the first bit of civilization since I left Hope. There was a campground 10km further ahead, but it didn't have any services and I knew there wouldn't be anything after that for a long while. Since the skies were threatening rain at that point, I thought that I would spoil myself and sleep in the resort. I figured that that was going to be the last that I'd see of Tony because he's a hardier soul than I am (he slept off the highway the previous evening). As I was checking into the motel, Tony pops in and we decide to room together. It's cool to have company for a bit and since he has done so much touring, he has some great advice for me.

Final anecdote for today. As mentioned earlier, I shaved most of my hair at the beginning of this trip. For most of the day, it was hot and sunny out. I figured that the little hair that I do have was going to protect me against the sun. Well it turns out I was wrong and now my skull and upper forehead have stripes of tanning that corresponds to the air vents on my helmet. It is especially noticeable on the top of my forehead where I have three chunks of skin that are tanned while the rest is the normal colour. It sorta looks like flattened out horns and gives me a devilish look:) Tony took a couple of pictures, but they don't show exactly how it looks.

June 1: Manning Park to Princeton (67.10km)
I was some glad that we decided to motel it last night because it was cold and rainy when we got up this morning. We took our time packing up and only got on the road at about 10:15.

The day started with a 20km downhill, which was a welcome change from the climbing of the previous day. Learning my lesson from the other rainy day where I froze, I put my poncho that I'm using as a groundsheet for my tent underneath my raincoat. In that way, I stayed dry and warm during the rainy downhill.

The downhill was followed by a 12km uphill in which we essentially reached the same altitude that we had just descended. The day ended with another long downhill into Princeton.

Tony and I more or less biked together today in that we gave ourselves a place to meet for lunch and we would go on from there. Once we arrived in Princeton we decided to check into a motel together for the night as there was no camping and the next possible accommodation was 35km away. So here I am sleeping in a bed once again living the life of luxury:)

Final story: now that the hills have started, I decided to shed some pounds. I brought two books with me: 1) Lonely Planet Guide to Canada and 2) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Well I ditched them both. I figured the Guide wasn't going to be helpful because it talks mostly about towns that I won't be going too. As for Zen, I thought it would be a really appropriate read for my trip. If you don't know about it, it's essentially this guy that talks about philosophy and how it relates to a road trip that he's taking (I'm sure there is more to it then that, but I didn't get too far). Anyways, I read a bit of it and it really didn't speak to me and I thought the main character was self-righteous. Thanks for your suggestion Ian, but I turfed it.

Well that's about it for now. I tried loading pictures, but I think I have very limited bandwidth. So I'll post them when I can. I'm planning on taking another day off in Osoyoos which is two days away. So I'll try to post again at that point.