Day 1 – To Kamloops
N50° 40.551’ W120° 19.910’
As we’ve already established, and despite every pretence of planning, the concept of advanced preparation in the face of a long motorcycle tour seems to be an elusive one. While I also got the GPS unit installed on Thursday evening, and I have a list of everything that I want to pack, the actual packing only starts at about 9pm on Friday evening. And continues until about 1 am.
6 am Saturday morning sees me getting up as the cat tries to sleep on my head. 7am sees me programming the GPS while I eat breakfast and have a cup of tea. 8am sees me with cup of tea number two, outside re-configuring the comm system yet again. New Bluetooth module that I’ve had for 3 months, but haven’t installed. New cable for the GPS that came in yesterday afternoon. Minor adjustment to the VOX to fix the problem from last week. No testing, mind. Just a tweak to make it more sensitive, with a hope that this is enough.
8:55 am and I’m done. With 5 minutes to get my boots and riding suit on iif I’m going to leave on schedule.
8:57 am and the skies open, with the first of what will turn out to be many deluges. Truly, it is raining on my fricking parade.
9:05 am and I roll out of the garage. Let’s hope that I’ve packed everything. Let’s hope that I’ve fixed everything. Let’s hope it all actually works. Testing? Testing is for wimps. The time when I’m going to find out whether everything does what it is supposed to do? That would be now. As I head out on a 3000 km, 10 day trip. If it all works, we’re golden, If not, I’m deeply, deeply screwed.
Looking pretty alert for a guy that was up all night packing.
Fortunately, for once the gods are on my side. For while they hurl torrential downpours and gale force winds in my path – and you have to know that that’s an interesting combination on a motorcycle – for the first time, everything on the comm system is working. I can talk to Dianne. I can listen to music without the VOX circuit kicking in and cutting it off. Damn it all, I can even answer the phone. The only thing that I can’t do is listen to the GPS. That is still not working. Ah, well – such is life. In the grand scheme of things, that’s lower down on the priority list. Much lower down.
Dianne drove with me as far as Edson before she turned around and headed for home. We enjoyed a latte at Mojo Java in Edson (which, I have to say, is surprisingly funky given the overall context that they have to work with). After that, it’s just me, my iPod and rain . And more rain. Lost of rain. Pretty much non-stop rain all the way to Jasper.
Wait! I am in scenery like this!
A Croque Monsieur and an Americano at the Soft Rock Café in Jasper sees my core body temperature return to its normal level. After the temperature plunged to 8°, it was nice to find somewhere warm. Shortly after that and I was on the road again. Fortunately, the ride to Kamloops was unadventurous. The rain went away (mostly), the traffic was light (mostly) and the roads were in great shape (mostly). I pulled into Kamloops at about 6pm, with nothing more pressing than the need to find somewhere nice for dinner.