August 29, 2010

We didn’t get as far as we planned today.  We had too much to do this morning, got a slow start, walked around a bit too much, and stopped a little too often.  We finally just picked a campground along the road.  I think we just ran out of gas, figuratively as well as literally.

The literal version happened only about 15 miles back.  I am willing to take a little more risk when I am driving with another vehicle in a civilized area so when we passed through one town and the three gas stations were all on the left hand side of the busy road, I was willing to keep rolling.  The next town wasn’t too far away according to the road sign and even the town after that was well within my estimates of the van’s range.  Well, the next town didn’t have any gas stations.  The 1500 foot climb certainly didn’t help, but more importantly, my working capacity in the gas tank is about two gallons less than I thought.  Kris ran ahead with a gas can and got us going again after about a half hour unplanned stop. 

I had recently emptied our gas cans because the best use of that American gasoline would be to displace the purchase of the most expensive Canadian gas.  Canadian gas keeps getting cheaper as we head south so I felt a sense of urgency to make it worthwhile.  I also didn’t feel the need for the reserve capacity anymore since gas stations are relatively frequent now compared to the Yukon or even northern BC.  I also wasn’t carrying any for the generator because I was planning to buy some today.  We have had hookups rather frequently lately and I don’t like letting gasoline age before feeding it to the sensitive small engine.  So there I was with three gas cans mounted on the rear bumper of the trailer that were as empty as the big tank on the van.

Yesterday was an excellent day.  It was one of those days that includes so many activities that I can’t believe it was a single day.  We didn’t even get rolling that early in the morning.  Our first stop was the visitor centre (their spelling, not mine) where we got a little input on local activities and tried to take advantage of their free wireless (which wouldn’t let me upload for some reason).  It was already lunch time when we arrived at Pinnacles Provincial Park. 

Pinnacles is a small park that provides a nice view of the town of Quesnel and their massive lumber, pulp, and paper industry.  It also has some strangely eroded features called hoodoos, a non-technical term often used to reference strange towers of rock left behind as softer surrounding materials are removed by the forces of nature.  Their hoodoos were quite amusing, although the viewing was from above as they were on the side of a rather steep valley.

Our next stop was downtown where we walked along the perimeter trail and even crossed the massive Fraser River on the footbridge.  The trail makes a figure eight, doing a large loop on either side of the big river.  We decided that we wanted to see it all, so we set a plan to get the bicycles to make sure we could cover the miles.

We abandoned our walk of the perimeter trail and headed downtown to their casino.  It was a small casino that for some reason still holds a policy against bringing in a camera.  I could have pointed out the ridiculousness of such a policy when almost every cell phone has a camera built in and most tourists are carrying some small digital camera, but the casino employee was just doing his job so I checked my camera at guest services.  We didn’t play long.  It took our money rather quickly.  I managed to hit for $15 before my money ran out, but that didn’t make up for my losses.

After picking up some groceries, we headed back to the campground to get the bikes.  It took a little time to put the rack on the car so we had a cookie as a snack to make up for what was looking like a late dinner.

We parked at the visitor centre as they had told us we could access the perimeter trail from there.  It wasn’t straightforward.  We had to walk our bikes across a field to get to a trail, but then we missed the turn to the perimeter trail and ended up at a parking area that would have been much better.  We backtracked and found the trail.

Our navigational challenges continued once we crossed the river.  The trail followed side streets, turned to gravel in places, and just vanished in others.  Occasional signs didn’t even highlight the major turns.  We kept pulling out the map every time we came to a dead end.  It was a rather humorous way to explore an unknown town while getting in some road bike miles.

The town was pleasant with two significant rivers.  The perimeter trail took us along the riverfronts and through some residential areas.  It was a pleasant afternoon so I suppose the ride would have been enjoyable no matter what the scenery.

The vegetation has clearly changed.  As the vegetation changes, the animals change as well.  At Pinnacles, we were greeted with a sign that warned not only of bears, but of cougars as well.  I’ll take a bear over a cougar, any day.  We found fresh bear prints as we walked around and some suspect prints that I later verified were canine, not feline.  On one stretch of road, I thought we were being tested on animal identification with their crossing signs that lack words.  The first sign was the standard leaping deer sign.  The second sign was a standing deer with huge antlers, I think it meant elk.  The third sign was the familiar moose.  These three signs came at me over about a 10 mile stretch.

We saw our first mule deer of the trip.  We stopped at the Scout Island Nature Center in Williams Lake today.  We walked around for a bit looking at the ducks on the water.  We also noticed logs chewed by beaver and occasional deer footprints.  It wasn’t until we were back in the vehicles that we saw deer, a mother with her two babies who weren’t that much smaller than her.  They were right next to the van and they turned to cross the driveway.  I had to radio Kris to warn her that the deer were about to cross in front of her.