Day 118 and 119 - 28-29th September, Wenatchee

No biking, spend weekend with Josh and his family (especially they daughter Julia love us), we visited Wenatchee, worked on blog, organized pictures, helped Josh a little with firewood for winter, spoke with my brother (he and his girlfriend just finished 5 weeks long hike through whole Slovakia). Weather is still cold and rainy, hopefully tomorrow will be better. 

Day 117 - 27th September, Chelan - Wenatchee, 46.01 miles

Again rainy, well, we are quite close to the coast now, probably this weather will be very common soon. Today we just biked on the Hwy #97, eating some apples as we passed through orchards. Still biking mostly down hill, only a wind was today against us. Passed Lincoln Rock and in the State Park had lunch. Arrived to Wenatchee and tasted a little of city traffic, but very soon we found out that near the Columbia River is amazing bike trail and escaped there. Our destination for today was Pitcher Canyon, where Cheryl's friend Josh lives. We had to biked on steep hill to get there, but it was very nice place there and Josh with his wife invited us for dinner and were amazing hosts.

Pictures:
Wenatchee and the Saddle Rock

Day 116 - 26th September, Malott - Brewster - Beebe Bridge State Park (near Chelan), 49.41 miles

In the morning I changed that curved handlebar to my old one. I don't understand what advantage of these curved one, it was very uncomfortable, maybe my bike frame is too small for handlebars like this.
From Malott we followed the Old Hwy #97, it was with beautiful views on whole valley with all these industrial orchards. There were parts when it looks like on the old western - yellow desert, hills, rocks, pastures with cows or horses, barb wires, Mexican shops... We took a look into one, it was full of unknown stuff (for us). 
After Brewster the Okanogan River joined the Columbia River and all disappeared in huge dam. Also the Old Hwy #97 joined with the New Hwy. In the evening we left it and biked a little uphill on Apple Acres Rd to Ice Caves State Park. We thought that there will be some place to tent, maybe we will be able to explore some caves. But except of nice huge cliffs and rocks, there was nothing, and as we heard day before, people destroyed these caves by dynamite because they became unstable, so probably nothing left. But it was very beautiful place with really strong atmosphere, spirit...  Suitable place for camp we found in Beebe Bridge Park, near Chelan. There was a campground.

Pictures:
Biked on the wild west...
Ice Caves State Park

Day 115 - 25th September, Tonasket - Omak - Okanogan - Malott, 39.76 miles

Today we had another rest morning, then biking in the Okanogan River Valley, through the orchards, on the Hwy #97. Because now is time to harvest all that apples and pears, all orchards are buzzing with work, everybody is picking an apples. All Trucks on the Hwy are full of apples. In Omak we visited another DQ, (they had excellent deal, two Blizzards of Month for price of one), have a funny conversation with local grandfather. From Omak we got to Okanogan, leaving the Hwy #97 and biking on the Old Hwy #97, it was better, less trucks. Our final destination for today was Malott, met there old woman, trying to get rid of "goat head" weed, invasive plant with very sharp thorny seeds which can pop your bike tires. Our camp was in city park, again, hiding in pavilion, again were flooded in the night with sprinklers, even in pavilion... We called SJ and spoke with her for the rest of evening. 

Pictures:
Ready for harvest...

Day 114 - 24th September, Osoyoos - Oroville (back to USA) - Tonasket, 25.13 miles

After rainy night, it was sunny, nice day. Ranger came to check people in Campground, he said that he didn't see us and went away :-) First task for today was to get to USA, we were quite nervous, how hard will be to get new tourist waiver for another 90 days? How big our surprise was, when officers on the border just asked a few common questions, took our passports and very quickly, without any other questions, did all the paperwork and gave them back to us with new waivers. This was even easier than got to Canada last time. Another surprise was where we were. From the green mountains we came to the desert and everybody around us spoke Spanish. Are we in Mexico already? No, we should be there around Christmas ... So following the Hwy #97 and the Okanogan River, we headed south, mostly downhill and with good wind in our back. Everywhere around the river were orchards with apples, pears, peaches or cherries (without fruit now). We slept in Tonasket in small city park, surprised about two o'clock in the morning with crazy sprinklers watering our tent and bikes.

Pictures:
Last morning in Canada - Osoyoos - Haynes Point Provincial Park
Our first miles in Washington...

Day 113 - 23rd September, Greenwood - Rock Creek - Osoyoos, 57.61 miles

Weather was a little better today than yesterday, but colder (about 10 - 15 degrees Celsius). We enjoyed nice downhill to Midway and then rode to Rock Creek following Kettle River in the valley with many pastures and green lands around. After Rock Creek we had to climbed pretty steep hill, not so steep and high as hill between Castlegar and Christina Lake, though. But this time we had strong and very cold wind. When we reached Anarchist Summit (1233 m), we had to put all our rain gear on us again. From Osoyoos came huge dark clouds full of rain. Very soon we biked down and up hills with freezing cold rain and wind. And than came descent down do Osoyoos. We were glad that we came from the east, the west side was more steeper, with many serpentine. To get down to Osoyoos would be nice rode, but not in the rain. Luckily while we got down it stopped raining and because DQ was on the way we stopped there for something like dinner, spent all our Canadian money. Tomorrow we are leaving Canada and going back to USA. The night we spent in Heynes Point Provincial Park. It was raining again.

Pictures:
Anarchist Summit
Down there is Osoyoos

Day 112 - 22nd September, Grand Forks - Eholt - Greenwood, 23.75 miles

Amazing breakfast with real European style pancakes. Biking in the morning with Martina and her friend Beth on the old railway changed to trail (The Rails to Trails). Without her guidance we wouldn't ever ends up on this trail, because it wasn't very suitable for ours bikes. But it was very nice, totally worthy, leads high through cliffs and steep hillsides above the valley and with nice views to Burrell River valley. We met old couple, artists, who created something like outdoor gallery from old railroads spikes, screws, bolts, rocks... Then biked through two tunnels, before the second one we said goodbye to Martina and Beth. Thanks you very much for everything again, it was amazing visit and coincidence, that we met you. After a second tunnel the heavy clouds started to pour a rain on us. Very soon we were dressed in all our rain gears. After Eholt we left the Rail trail and continued on Hwy #3 to Greenwood. There finally stopped to rain and we camped in Osaka Park, this town have significant Japanese population, forced by Canadian government to move here during the Second World War. We tent in a small pavilion, near was an old bike shop with huge pile of old and broken bikes behind. I found there nice "touring" handlebars, so I spent the whole evening, modifying my bike.

Pictures:
On the Rail to Trail with Martina (on the left) and Beth 
On the Rail to Trail from Grand Forks to Eholt
Biked through tunnel

Day 111 - 21st September, Nancy Greene Lake - Christina Lake - Grand Forks, 45.78 miles

Rain in the morning, hidden in comfortable cabin enjoying that we are dry. About noon sun came out and also we. Biked through Bonanza pass (1535 m), met some senior bikers on they way up, then rode nearly 45 km down to Christina Lake. Hands on breaks all that time...
Met one touring biker on his trip around BC, after two months he seems that had enough. From Christina Lake we went to Grand Forks through nice valley, still following Hwy #3 and border with USA. Learn a little about the Doukhobors from Russia. While I did grocery, Baška met Martina, woman which did Trans-America bike trip by herself, when she was 23, now she lives here in Grand Forks so she invited us to stay at her house (first she saw us on Hwy, so she went home to ask family if it is ok to invited us for dinner and then she returned, hoping that we are still in the town). So we had amazing dinner with streaks prepared by her husband AJ, and then speaked a lot about ours journeys, countries, Martina showed us her photo album from bike trip, maps... 

Pictures:
Bridge on the Hwy #3 between Nancy Greene Lake and Christina Lake

Day 110 - 20th September, Kokanee Creek - Nelson - Castlegar - Nancy Greene Lake Provincial Park, 58.41 miles

Cold day with good wind in our backs, blue sky, following dammed Kootenay River up and down on Hwy #3A rollercoaster, to Castlegar, with steep climb to the Bonanza pass (1535 m) as the evening exercise. Sleeping in the abandoned Nance Greene Lake Provincial Park in the nice cabin with crackling fire in the stove, reading third book of Harry Potter.

Pictures:
City of Nelson 
Evening relax with good book (tablet)

Day 109 - 19th September, Creston - Kootenay Lake - Crawford Bay - Kokanee Creek, 59.79 miles

We woke up to the beautiful morning, cold but clear. Today we decided to left Hwy #3, because it goes straight through the mountains. Instead of spending whole day biking uphill on the busy road, with trucks trying to sweep us down from Hwy, we decided to do "small" detour, quite nice and scenic one, though. So from Creston we headed to the north on Hwy #3A, following east bank of Kootenay Lake (huge water dam, solution how to deal with floods, just flood the whole valley...). The Hwy was like rollercoster, but with nice downhill rides and not very bad uphills. Also the views on the Selkirk Mountains were amazing. During our lunch break, Baska didn't resist and swam in the lake for a while, it was sunny day, but not very warm. Then, when we returned back on the Hwy, we met a Black Bear. First, Baska thought that it is big a big dog, no it wasn't. The Bear stopped about 300 feet in front of us, quite surprised what are we doing there. Maybe he/she never saw people on the bikes, so he/she started to run away. How surprise was, when we followed, trying to get as close as possible. It wasn't very easy to catch up with him/her, a bears are pretty fast. But after a while he/she left Hwy and started to climbed hillside away from lake, so we got right under him/her, maybe to 60 feet. This bear was so fat, shiny, nice and like a huge toy. He/she tried to climb a tree, but was so fat that it was impossible. So for a while we just starred at each other, than he/she walked away from these Slovak nuts :-) Everything happened so fast and we were so surprised that we didn't take any picture, shame... Last part of today's trip was on ferry through Kootenay Lake, but to get on, we had to biked through very steep hill from Crawford Bay to Kootenay Bay and through tourist resort with many art galleries and magic/fairy/Celtic/spiritual shops, typical tourist trap. At least from hill was nice view on Kokanee Glacier. Ferry was operating every two hours, so we had to wait about one hour. Sun set behind a mountains and suddenly was very cold. Finally we used some of our warm clothes, which we were carrying uselessly a whole summer. While we were on the ferry, a full moon came up and enlightened the top of Kianuko Mountain on the east. Last part to Kokanee Creek Provincial Park we biked in the night. It was nice when we found out that bikers can camp there for free.

Pictures:
Kootenay Lake with Selkirk Mountains
Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park
... a little bit of magic...