(Leah) We started out the day with a decently quick pack up from Mom’s house and headed down Highway 97 into 100 Mile House.
We fueled up Roberto and then took the Horse Lake Road to get to Highway 24. The traffic on Hwy 24 when we were climbing the hill a few days earlier was very busy and there was a lot of lineups of traffic descending behind large trucks. I expected the same for our trip. The highway gods smiled on us and we had almost no traffic at all. We made it to Kamloops Harley to pick up a freshly repaired Betsy. She APPEARED to be just fine. We had lunch at one of the breweries in Kamloops then headed out on Highway 5A towards Merritt.
Merritt also had a large wildfire close by and it was very smoky in that area. We (shockingly) stopped at the Brewery in Merritt to stock up the fridge for our night of camping in Manning Park.
We had originally booked two nights at the Mule Deer campground through the BC Parks webpage. Side note: one of the worst webpages ever created! The site was pre-paid and we couldn’t find any information about cancelling or modifying our reservation from two nights to just one due to the delay we had in Valemount. The site that we had reserved was available and had a green tag on it rather than a reserved sign. We set up camp and the park employee came by to collect payment. Keith explained our situation and the park employee said she would “let it slide” as there wasn’t a lot of demand to stay in the smoky campsite. Yet another wildfire was close to Manning Park, so we thought the situation was handled. A different employee had a similar conversation with Keith in the morning and was still trying to get him to pay the camping fee and be out within an hour. Frustrating for sure. Keith managed to explain the situation yet again, it makes a person not want to stay in the BC Parks locations though! It is a campsite that has no cell service (therefore no phone or email to contact them) so they expected that we would call the visitor centre in Manning Park to let them know our change in plans.
We still managed to enjoy our stay in the campground and wandered down to the river and set our feet in the cool water to relax a little.
On Friday we set out from Manning Park & the highway was in great condition as there was some fresh asphalt and the drive is very scenic. Lots of hills to climb, Roberto with his new heart transplant and Betsy both handled it well. We stopped at a cidery in Keremeos for a snack and to stock the fridge a bit more.
We got into Osoyoos and checked into our hotel. Keith had noticed that the tires on the trailer were wearing a lot on the inside. They are tiny little tires that are hard to find, so he called the Canadian Tire in Oliver (just 20km down the road) to get the tires flipped around to last us till we got home. We unloaded the heavy items into our hotel room and scooted into Oliver. We waited at a Tim Hortons while the tire swap happened. As we were pulling back onto the highway leaving Canadian Tire Betsy stalled. She stalled and would not start again. Similar to what had happened in Valemount. I tried calling the HOG roadside assistance for a tow, thinking Kelowna Harley would be the closest location to assist. Major logistical problems with the long weekend just starting (this was Friday). The roadside assistance covers one tow per year so it was going to be almost $800 for the tow. By chance, we tried to start her again and she fired up. Keith had me lead the way into Osoyoos so he could see/know if or when she died. We made it to downtown Osoyoos just to the busiest intersection and she stalled out yet again! We managed to push her to a free parking spot across the road, I pulled my valuables out of the saddlebags and jumped on the back of Roberto to get back to the hotel. We went back downtown for dinner, had a great hot dog from the stand set up at Backroads Brewing. While we were there we ran into a couple from Lloydminster we had met in Edmonton a couple weeks earlier at Honi Honi Cocktail Bar, small world!
Friday night & Saturday morning Keith started researching what Betsy’s issue could be and one possibility was the ignition coil. He put out a little mayday post on Facebook and started calling the shops in the area (and beyond) for the part. We have friends in Chilliwack that offered to zip out and meet us if they could find the part. We ran one test on the bike to confirm the problem was the coil, it was inconclusive but seemed to match the symptoms well. We had our wine tour booked for Saturday and didn’t want to miss out on that. Keith started calling shops as soon as they opened, our friend Denise called from Chilliwack with a line on a part that may work. She also posted in a riders FB group looking for the part, but no luck. Our wine tour had a lunch stop included and Keith managed to track down the correct part from Gasoline Alley HD in Red Deer. We did a little happy dance and decided to get it shipped to Nelson and to try to limp Betsy that far. We had a great lunch at Tinhorn Creek and tasted some amazing wines on our tour. We stocked up a solid case worth of wine & made arrangements with one of the wineries to get it shipped home. Our hotel was close to an amusement park so we took a spin on the go-cart track late in the day, it was a blast!
After Denise and Jon worked to find the part for me, they ended up going for a day trip to Osoyoos anyways. We met them for dinner, it was great to catch up. We met them at Toad Rock three or four years ago and hadn’t been able to meet up since. I love the comradery that the biker community has to helping out fellow riders, it is truly heartwarming! Jon even offered to come rescue me with his truck and trailer if I had issues on the road the next day.
Sunday we set off, our first fuel stop in Osoyoos did not work as the pumps were down, we had to drive back through town, fuel and then hit the road. I was the leader of the pack again, it takes a lot more concentration to lead than to simply follow. We rode the impressive road up the mountainside out of Osoyoos, the views were spectacular as we climbed up and up and up! The plan was to sort of “giver” to get to Toad Rock and wait for the part. We did end up stopping for fuel and a coffee in Grand Forks. We only had a 300km travel day planned, well Betsy gave up after approximately 170km, what a slacker! We were just East of Christina Lake (with me in the lead still) when she started to sputter and stalled at the crest of a hill we had just climbed. A few frustrated words were spoken, a couple attempts to start her up happened. We were hoping that some time to cool off would help her to start, we took out our camping chairs and books, we spent at least an hour on the side of the road but she simply refused to start. We decided that she needed to be left where we were at, we were getting hungry and we had no cell service at this point along the road. We pushed Betsy off to the side of the road further and amongst the tall grass. Christina Lake was only 17km of backtracking, so we found a pub to eat lunch at and decided to simply call a tow truck. This truck was about two hours away, we killed some time and then went to wait on the side of the road for the tow. When we got back to the bike (she’d been there just over two hours unsupervised) I noticed that some of the fasteners on my saddlebag were open, I walked over to the far side of the bike and the straps were opened right up, someone had rummaged through the bags looking for something to steal. Luckily, my valuables were removed and the only bag with stuff in it was locked. The small padlock kept them out. Disappointing that some people look for opportunities to kick a person when they are down.
Betsy got loaded up onto her second tow truck of the trip (unacceptable statistic!). This tow operator had a dolly that he used to load the bike, it was really nifty. I (once again) had to ride bitch on Keith’s bike into Nelson, we had a quick fuel stop and then made it to Toad Rock safely. The driveway into the campground had been paved, it was exciting to see. Betsy arrived shortly after us, we pushed her off to the side of the driveway near a garage area to let her do some thinking about how she had been behaving. We got camp set up, hung out at the pavilion for a little while and went to bed early.
Keith and Leah's travel on 2 wheels 