Saturday, July 7, 2012

Day 5 - Williams Lake, BC to Okanogan, WA

My plan to avoid the traffic at the western border and the weekend Seattle traffic may have backfired. The border crossing went as planned as I pulled up with only one vehicle in front of me. That has never happened at the other locations closer to Seattle. I've had to wait hours at times to get across. But it did drop me into the dark red section of the temperature map shown on the left from the weatherbug.com site. Right after crossing the border, I passed a sign that claimed 98°F. Then 20 miles south, 103°F. And 30 miles further, 105°F. This seemed like a bad trend. Needless to say, I wimped out and started shopping for a room with A/C.

North of the border, following the GPS for shortest time, it took me on one of those roads designed for motorcycles. My rear tire has been getting a squared off profile but this road definitely rounded the shoulders a bit. It must be well known as motorcycles outnumbered cars by at least a factor of two. This is just the beginning not the twisty part. I'm not sure what the haze is from. Maybe just he normal morning fog?

There were quite a few small lakes along the way with a number of folk letting the day pass while fishing. This is in contrast to yesterday's small towns separated by cultivated fields. This area felt like the Sierras in California.

The bike has been running flawlessly. No oil added, tires not losing air though the rear is definitely showing wear as you can see in this photo. The analog voltmeter has been occasionally flickering a bit when it gets hot but he digital one doesn't register any fluctuation. Maybe the fuse is loose again...

4 comments:

  1. Summer finally hit as you have found out. Was 88 here today and supposed to be 90 tomorrow.

    Glad you found a nice twisty road meant for motorcycles.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Should be in Corvallis late tomorrow afternoon or early evening. Couldn't the rain and cold have held out for a little longer? This heat is brutal and just yesterday I needed the jacket liner...

      Delete
  2. The haze could well be from the Colorado fires. Almost all of Southern BC is covered in a a blanket of smoke.

    Not my kind of temperatures. But we also hit 41C (105.9F) yesterday around Lytton, BC a.k.a. Canada's hot spot.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Richard;

    We also have haze here, from the forest fires in Colorado. Right now I don't dare try to ride, so I am basking mostly in air conditioning. That RED Map doesn't look very comfortable

    bob
    Riding the Wet Coast
    My Flickr // My YouTube

    ReplyDelete