I'll live...er.

Today I am in Oliver, BC. Back in Canada. Here's what you've missed:

While driving through a mountain pass in Montana I asked my dad, "what would happen if someone were to break down or have an accident here, where would they go?" There wasn't much of a shoulder and the highway, which was usually four lanes, was down to two due to construction. I couldn't imagine the traffic jam something like this would cause. Two minutes later we were slowing down. A semi in front of us had his four-ways on. The semi in front of him was having serious trouble getting up the hill. We watched him pull across the highway toward the shoulder and held our breath hoping that the on-coming pick up truck would figure things out and stop in time, and that the vehicles behind that pick up truck would do the same.

When it all turned out fine I smiled and asked, "what would happen if a million dollars fell from the sky right now?" I'm still waiting to find out.

In the vacation area of Couer d'Alene, Idaho we got a spot for the night just off of the interstate. I decided to attempt a ride into town, which Google told me would take an hour and a half. I set out on the route it gave me that ran alongside the interstate for a bit before heading up into the hills and around the lake. My bike is a 10 speed and shifts smoothly when I need it to. I put it into the lowest gear as I powered up the hill. The road was doing switchbacks and it seemed like I would never see the top of the hill. When I got there I pulled out the GPS and saw that I had climbed 250 feet. The view was lovely. Unfortunately, at the decent the road went from pavement to loose gravel, which is no good for my skinny tires. I considered walking my bike down the hill but then also had to consider walking it back up for the trip home. I decided against this and headed for home. I was pleased that I had made it up the hill on my own steam, but disappointed to have to turn around because of the road conditions.

On Sunday we were in Spokane, Washington. I think we were in the sketchy part of town, given the angry yelling we heard from the homes behind us, the police visit to the condos beside us and the number of pawn shops in close proximity. I will say that the downtown appeared nice, and it was impressively busy due to a large, 4 on 4 street basketball tournament taking place that weekend. Aside from that, I have very bad feelings about the place as something terrible happened there involving me losing a shopping bag.

Oliver is a dream of a place where every 200 metres you encounter a winery or a fresh BC fruit stand. We visited the Golden Beaver winery on the way to the campground yesterday afternoon. I bought a bottle of white, purely for the name, "Heartbreaker". It was a hard choice between that one and the one I did sample, "Heart of Gold", which of course has the nod to Winnipeg's golden son, Neil Young. I think my mom got a bottle of that one anyway. If you are ever in the Oliver/Osoyoos area, stop in to the place and do a round of pours with the quick-witted proprieter, Stella.

Okay, I'm operating on borrowed Internet from my cousin's hotel room now, so I am going to hit Publish while I still have the luxury to do so. I won't have direct access to the net until my return, and the completion of my trip at the end of this week. Thanks for following me, y'all.