Heat Warning @ Penticton, BC
We woke up to a nice Canadian heat warning. Fortunately, last night we picked up a 5lb bag of ice to cool our warm beer. This ice turned out to be our precious life saver as we rode from Jasper to Penticton through 90+ degree heat in full motorcycle gear.
We made our way west on Highway 16 so that we could go south down Highway 5. We stopped in Mount Robson where we picked up a plush friend, William “Billy” the Billy Goat.
Before getting on the road we dunked our neck gaiters in the melted ice water before wrapping them around our necks. This would soon become our ritual for combatting the heat at every stop.
Around lunch time we stoped at a lake in Clearwater, BC. We bought a sandwich and a smoothie from a nice family run food truck. The owner took pity on our heat predicament and gave us a free frozen bottle of water. At this stop we put ice in our pockets which really helped keep us cool.
We rode through the Canadian country side, through beautiful rolling hills and the British Columbia rivers and lakes. While on highway 5A we were passed by a semi-truck that managed to our pace our motorcycles through the twisty country roads. At this point we were following the semi truck down an isolated road, stowing a sacred bag of ice, with a Billy goat zip tied to Luna’s handlebars through the height of the midday heat and it really began to feel like the “Mad Helen Fury Road” title from our inaugural blog post had manifested.
We eventually merged onto a freeway and lost our truck friend. The freeway made it over a mountain pass where the temperature dropped a bit due to the elevation and gave us some relief from the heat. We then descended into a Valley and with it we were again hit with the full heat wave, but now we were in last stretch of trip.
We drove along Okanagan Lake, past beautiful homes and the occasional winery. Where we eventually made it to our destination, Kettle Valley Beach Resort.
Our bodies were surprisingly loose from a 10 hour day of motorcycle-bikram, but our minds were exhausted. We used our last bit of mental energy to take a hot shower, put on our cleanest dirty clothes (tomorrow’s laundry day) and find a nice Italian restaurant, Pizzeria Tratto Nepoletana, where we ordered pizza and wine:
We walked back and saw even more beautiful shades of blue as the sun set on Penticton. Next we’re going to recharge for 2 nights before making our way to Vancouver Island. It will be a nice vacation from our vacation during our sabbatical.
