Day 2: Seattle to Williams Lake B.C.

475 miles today, Most of it in the Rain.

Sleep was great after 44 hours of being awake.  I woke up and went into Max's garage to finish packing the bike. I had jettisoned some stuff but grabbed the pair of gloves from my box of stuff to send home and replaced them with the pair of Jeans I had with me.

Max and I talked over a cup of coffee and then headed out to the bikes.  I told Max  I had a dream I dropped the bike in his driveway.  After an 8 point turn I had the bike turned around and Max led me to a gas station.  I filled up the aux cans,  which to my surprise the pump fit into the Primus bottles.

I then bought 3 liters of water to fill my camel back and steel water bottles.  I also grabbed a granola bar and some gatorade.  After all was filled I was checking to make sure my phone was charging.  I had bought a car splitter that had 2 cigarette lighter holes and 2 USB holes. The USB holes were to be for my phone and my Ipod. However, the whole thing was dead in the water.  I played with it to find out that it does not get power when it is bent at a 90 degree.  So I straighted it out, got power and hit the road.

It was now rush hour. So I headed to the I5.  The problem was I set the GPS to route me to the Gas station  was at.  So I had to just actually read the street signs.  I get to I5  traffic on the on ramp.  People in Seattle are just weird. There was a red light at the top of the ramp that let one car go at a time.  Wimps :)

I hit the I5 and sat in traffic for a while..  I eventually got out of Seattle into Everett and the traffic lightened up.  Of course now it started raining.  I stopped at a rest area and made some phone calls and made sure the SPOT was working.  So then I headed to the border.  The signs said a 20 minute wait and I was going to route to a smaller crossing but decided to just go for it.  No lines no waiting.

I answered all the questions right because they let me into Canada.  She was very inquisitive if I had enough money to travel in Canada. I guess 4.40 for a gallon of gas must strand many Americans here. : (note it's 4.16 a gallon here in Williams Lake).

From the border I headed to Vancouver.  Great looking city except you are forced to be on the surface streets and sit in all the lights. Wouldn't have been an issue had it not been absolutely pouring out.  After some time I made it out of Vancouver and headed up the Seat to Sky highway. I'm sure the views were spectacular if you could actually see anything but rain or clouds.  The road would have been fun if I were not on a loaded bike with knobby tires in the rain. 




Around Squamish it stopped pouring which lasted to Whistler.  I then arrived inWhistler and got gas and ate a pizza sub that I purchased from the gas station.  Wasn't that bad.




I left Whistler and tried to get a picture of the ski slopes, but my old friend the rain clouds were not cooperating.




So I kept riding, eventually the good pavement ended and the road went to shite.  At the same time it was time for 13% grade down hill twisty turns.  I don't yet trust the tires in  the rain so I went slow.  There was a small glacier that came to the road, but there was no place to park.  However I loved seeing these signs.




The rain let up for a few minutes by the hydro plant and I got the best picture of the day.  I like this one, but the clouds were still ruining it .



I got to the end of route 99 and took a left onto 97N.  I was hoping to ride out of the rain but it just kept raining.  I got to 100 mile house which is actually a pretty big town with all sorts of services, I needed gas so I filled up and pushed the final 60 miles to Williams Lake.

Pulled into Williams lake and saw a Denny's with a hotel attached. Went in and asked how much, too much for me so  left.  She told me not to go across the street as it was real bad.  Well, I wasn't going to either.  I took the wrong turn trying to get to another place and found this place that had a Boston Pizza attached to it.  I'm a burger, french onion soup and 2 pints of Canadian in.  Wifi is plentiful so I'm happy.  The funny thing is it was 20 bucks more a night then the first place.  So I've blown my motel/hotel budget on the first night.  I didn't want to set up camp in the rain and with my previous lack of sleep I wanted to make sure I'm rested tommorrow.

I have to look at the maps but I'm thinking I'll wind up in Hyder or somewhere  thereabouts.