Jul
22
Day 3 and 4 – Smithers and Terrace
I’m stubborn. I admit it. I really, really wanted to try to make Hyder. I’ve resisted my own advice that the journey (which has been beautiful beyond compare), is more important than the destination. So, I pushed hard and at the end of the 3rd day racked up another massive 500 km day and arrived in Smithers, utterly exhausted again, with a lot more pictures to show for it and…
Wet. Very wet.
It started raining in Houston. Well, actually East of there at called Rose Lake. It was funny, because that’s just moments before, while filling up Niobe’s tank in Burns Lake, I’d asked a Forest Ranger (who was also filling up, alas not a motorcycle), if the clouds meant rain for these parts. He said yes, but said “You might get lucky.”
I got wet. I have pretty good gear, but I had forgotten to close all the air vents in the jacket and within a few moments, I felt the trickles begin on my skin.
And the wind was kicking up. A lot. Blowing the bike back and forth on the road as much as those big wood product trucks. Not so good.
I pulled over in the next town, Houston, and took shelter in an A&W (they are as ubiquitous as Tim Hortons it seems). After a hot cup of coffee, I changed my shirt to something dry and carefully went vent by vent in the jacket, taking care of all those things I had left undone.
Properly buttoned up, I still arrived a bit wet on the inside in Smithers last night.
And Friday was to bring more of that severe weather to the area, so I decided it would be best to keep heading West, capture as many sights as I could see, to get closer to Prince Rupert so that, come Friday, I wouldn’t have to be in the tough weather as long.
So tonight, with a sore back, a bit disappointed for not seeing Hyder, but grateful for the beauty I have seen thus far, I am kicking back for the night in Terrace.
And it is about the journey, and I still cannot believe what I have seen thus far. As a fellow biker I met at a little bakery in Vanderhoof told me, this is “God’s country.”
Just like yesterday, I have far more to say, but it will have to wait for now. Tomorrow into the storm and into Prince Rupert.
