Cruising through Nicola Valley

Everyday that I've been on the road, it has rained. No lie. But there has also been sun; glorious and brilliant, live-giving and limb-warming sun. This is what I felt beat down on my neck and shoulders as I rode down into Merritt, past the hotels and fast food restaurants and along the creek into Lower Nicola. It was around seven in the evening, and the late afternoon sun gave off that gorgeous and magical quality, making everything and everyone seem all at once beautiful and dreamlike. Nostalgia for a time when digital clocks and motorized vehicles didn't exist crept over me as I rolled along the country road past wooden farmhouses in various states of disrepair, willow trees reaching into the creek, and green fields stretching to the base of the mountains.

After 170km, my body tired but my mind elated, I appeared at Mo and Allen's place in Lower Nicola. Mo and Allen are friends of Aunty Di from Kamloops; they go waaaaaaaaaaay back. Back to when everyone had long hair and believed in peace and love and worked on the railway. I love showing up on people's doorsteps, having no idea what they look like or who they really are, and being welcomed in like one of the family. I tried to sound intelligent as Mo quizzed me on my journey so far, my travels up the coke, and where I was headed next, but had a hard time concentrating on my words after she put a plate of food in front of me. Famished, I ate as Mo and Allen shared their adventures of crisscrossing the BC/Alberta border and driving through the prairies at sunset. It was calming to hear someone elses voices beside myself, after having not more than three conversations after I left my sister's place that morning.

The next morning Mo sent me on the road with apples, carrots, and about a quarter of a watermelon (peeled and cut into bite-size pieces). I took off toward hwy 5a, the old route into Kamloops past Nicola Lake and Quilchena. The ride was scenic, the road a little narrow, the weather on and off like a faulty sprinkler system. Definitely a more relaxing ride than up the coquihalla, and the only major was riding up into Knutsford, so I had it pretty easy. Except that the hill had an 11% grade, and the moment I started up the slope the sky cracked open over my head. I mean, I looked east and saw sun. I looked south and I saw blue skies. But above and ahead of me? Rain, thunder, lightning. Boom bang pow slpoooooooosh. Sigh.

Luckily, the wetness evaporated as I soared down the hill into Kamloops and I arrived at Aunty Di's place in Brocklehurst dry as a...I dunno...cell phone?

So that's where I'm at. Visiting the family in Kamloops. Listening to people's stories and telling my own. Trying to catch up on years and years of missed conversations in one three day visit. When I said good-bye to my Mom in Surrey, I mentioned to her that I didn't feel like I wa

s really saying farewell since I was off to visit her mother, father, siblings, nieces and nephews. The same blood flows in our veins, tying us all together in this crazy stringy web. I'm heading out tomorrow for Armstrong to see my cousin and her kiddos, then Kelowna to see more family, then on to the Kettle Valley Trail for a bit and over to Castlegar, Nelson, and Creston via the Crowsnest Hwy.

love and peace

Megs