Distance: 125km
Total distance: 502km
Average speed: 25.1km/h
Weather: sunny the whole day!
One look inside Linda's house and there's no mistake how much enthusiasm she has for cycling, everything from leading women's rides to organizing tours to planning bike to work weeks. She is so perky and I really didn't want to leave so that I can hear more of her bike stories! Alas I said goodbye at 9:30 (I am really good at lazy starts now) and blasted down the giant hill that Kamloops sits on top of. After a start like that, everything below 30km/h feels super slow for the rest of the day. I merged onto the Trans Canada, my route basically until Ontario, on outskirts of Kamloops and watched in amazement as Kamloops Lake appeared and disappeared, and I slowly moved into the more lush Columbia-Okanagan district. Although it's definitely a lot busier than yesterday, there were still moments of calm when I could hear the crickets by the side. The first two hour or so of cycling each day always seems to feel the hardest, with my butt and right shoulder both hurting and me constantly staring at the bike computer hoping for time to go faster. Fortunately it always gets better after the first snack break, and today was no exception after I stopped to eat a banana in Pritchard Station. I rolled into Chase around 12:30 and decided to splurge on a not so healthy lunch of Monte Cristo sandwich, onion rings and corn chowder at the first cafe I came upon. Coming out of Chase there was a sign for mountain goats so I kept my eyes peeled but unfortunately no luck. The kind moment of the day came from a construction worker who held back the traffic for a few moments and let me go first across the one lane bridge that they were repairing. Around 24km from Salmon Arm, an older man also turned onto the highway on his bike and we ended up riding together along the Shuswap Lake to town. It turns out that he had biked across Canada east to west 30 years ago! I got to Salmon Arm around 4 and stopped at the visitor centre to ask where I could get a good dessert for my hosts. The girl pointed me to Shuswap Pie Company where I got a bumbleberry pie. I looked through the bookshop and bike store, and then hung out a bit on the wharf before biking up to Jim and Judi's place up the hill. Just by chance their daughter is also named Sheri and graduated from kinesiology at Uvic. She even went on exchange to Australia for a semester as well!
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