Knees cried like babies today - good thing it was mostly down hill.  Tomorrow's a break - at least that's what I'm calling it.  I might try to get a day ahead so that I can meet my buddy Tim in Banff to get filmed in 3D and maybe connect with some TV people for PR - he's a film maker and from what I understand an expert in 3D film making.

It was a tough day for pictures given the weather - rain, rain, and more rain...

I'm just going to up load pictures now and update the story tomorrow.

Thank you everyone for your very generous donations and for all of your support and messages - keep them coming.  It really makes a difference for me on my journey and for those living with Huntington's

It was a challenging day and my gear held up well keeping most of me dry.  It rained a lot and when the trucks went by, 4 or 5 at a time, there was a big vortex of mist, rain, spray and road grime.  Still managed to get some nice pictures. And now, at a campsite in Revelstoke, I'm camping beside another guy who's riding his bike across Canada.  This picture was taken about 40 km west of Revelstoke.

The day started off with another fury friend waking me up - Izzy the kitten - I'm not a cat person, but this little guy is pretty cute and he doesn't make my nose itch.  Got a picture with Martin, Christie, and Bailey before school with the Nurse Next Door car.  This is one of Martin's businesses - it's home care for the elderly who want to maintain their independence living in their own homes.  So, if you need a little TLC in your home this is the company to get it from (click here to learn more). 

So, riding down the hill today that nearly killed me at the end of my ride yesterday was a fun way to start the day.  At the bottom I stopped a the gas station and was greeted by a couple of bikers who had already seen my picture in the paper.  I bought a paper and cut out the article.  Onward out of Kamloops I realized how long I've been waiting for this experience.  I got present to how much I've wanted to get back to everyday being better than the day before.  I'm there and it literally made me cry.  How freaking awesome is this?!!  Not only do I get to experience it, I get to share it with everyone who looks at my site and do it for a good cause.  Outstanding!  Then my mind started working and coming up with all sorts of fun and funny things which will get inserted here and there on the site.  The pictures above show most of the day.  It was sunny sunny sunny and my solar panel was working overtime - because of all the power my phone even gave me a message saying I wasn't using the right charger.  By the time I got to Salmon Arm my muscles were pretty shot and it was nice that the camp ground I found has showers.  Not only that they have free wireless internet throughout the camp and each site has power.  To top it off, they donated my $25 camp fee to the Huntington Society.  Sweet!  If you ever come through Salmon Arm - stay at the Salmon Arm Camping Resort.  They also have little cabins, a pool, hot tub, laundry facilities, and a little store with ice cream.

There's lots more to tell, but I need to start regenerating my energy for tomorrow. 

Sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite.

Wow - I'm feeling good for riding 81 miles (130 km).  Saw some cool things today and got to go downhill for a good portion of it.  What do a loon, a wolf, a gopher, and some Canada geese have in common?  They were all spotted today on my ride to Kamloops.  Stopped at a fruit farm to get lunch - a tuna sandwich, a banana, a carrot muffin, and an Orangina soda - and that was about a third of what I could have eaten.  My appetite has gotten huge! 

During my stop for lunch a reporter from the Kamloops Daily Press called me to make a report about my ride.  I told him the story and he said someone would meet me in Kamloops to take my picture for the paper.  When I got about 12 km from Kamloops the photographer called me and said he would come out and meet me to snap some pictures.  So I was riding along and I see this car stopped on the other side of the road - the photographer.  He had a massive camera and snapped a whole bunch of pictures as I rode up. Then he took some more of my story and said have a good ride.  That was cool. 

Upon arriving in Kamloops I had to figure out how to get around since the Trans-Canada highway actually turned into a highway.  After some work with my GPS and a stop at the local information center I figured out my way to the other side of Kamloops where I am staying for the night.  On the way through Kamloops there is a big hill.  With a good tuck and a bunch of traffic I was passing cars at 76 km/hr..... the speed limit was 50!  Kind of wanted to get pulled over for speeding - that would have been a cool ticket to have :)

So finally, I arrive at the turn off to Martin and Christie's place where I am staying for the night.  At the turn off there is one final hill - and it's steep for about 2 km...  and then I get to the house and the driveway is twice as steep!  That was about all I had left for riding my bike today.  However, I arrived to a chicken Caesar salad, cold beer, and a hot shower.  Beautiful!  And now I have clean clothes again too!  Yes!

The ride today was another 81.1 miles (130.5 km) - making progress!

Woke up this morning in my tent at about 4:30 when the sun started to show it's presence.  It was a cold morning and it almost seemed like there might be rain.  I went back to sleep again for a couple hours and finally got up around 7:00 to start packing up and getting on with my third day of biking.  I had a couple of little feathered friends join me for breakfast and they let me take their picture.  Everything until lunch time was pretty much down hill until I reached Lillooet where the terrain started back up a very gradual incline.  Just before Lillooet was one of the BC Hydro reservoirs where there was a nice picnic area and a bunch of sun that also charged my phone.  It also had cell service so I was able to catch up on some phone calls and email and got set up with a place to stay when I get to Kelowna.  Got my second Yoga picture here too - with only a 10 second delay on my camera it's challenging to get set up in time.  Then I stopped at a little café in Lillooet called the Garden Patch Café on main street.  Had an excellent egg salad sandwich and a big bowl of very delicious pea soup - stop there if you ever pass through.  They let me plug my phone in to the wall to charge, so I took my time eating to have enough power to make it to my next campsite.  The terrain changed a lot as I moved on from Lillooet - much more arid and desert like.  Then it changed more to farmland surrounded by mountains.  This day I found the long flat stuff more challenging than the long climb out of Pemberton yesterday....  Now I'm at the campsite (Marble Creek Prov. Park) about 40 km from (Cache Creek).  And during the 60 mile ride I was thinking - man, it would be nice to have a beer...  upon arrival at the campsite I was asking a couple about how we pay for the site and telling him about my ride and he brought me an ice cold Molson Canadian!  Sweet deal!

Tomorrow I ride to Kamloops... about 80 miles (130km).  I'm talking really nice to my knees tonight :)

Some side thoughts I had today - human beings are inherently superstitious - including me.  I've been playing this game in my head with myself of looking for my initials (KHG) in license plates - as if it will tell me what to do with respect to relationships and where I am going to live.... it's been going on in my head for about three years in Minneapolis and I think I've seen my initials once.   So far, in the 4 days that I've been in BC I've seen them three times - at least close enough to call it three (KHC, KHG, KVH).    That's it, enough, ça suffit!  I'm moving to BC :) 

The other thought I had was - this trip would not be possible(at least in this form) without the existence and contribution of every person and thing that has existed before me.  The roads, the bike, the phone, the laptop, the internet, the freeze dried food, the light weight camping gear, and everything that lead up to all that stuff.  Thanks world! and thanks everyone!

Mileage total for the day: 64.76 miles (104.22 km)

Today started off a little slow - on purpose.  I wanted to break up what I originally had as a 95 mile day, so I planned to ride only 45 miles to Duffy Lake Provincial Park.  I spent the morning working on website stuff - uploading pictures and rearranging a few of the pages.  At 14:00 I finally got things in order and got on the road.  Cassandra was going for a bike ride on her own from Whistler so we left together and said our fairwells after a couple of pictures with the new Trans-Canada Bike Ride banner.  

Kristy mentioned that the ride to Pemberton from Whistler was all downhill - which it was and this was great - my average speed was something like 28mph in to Pemberton.  Once I got to Pemberton I saw a small information building and stopped in to see what was waiting for me on the road ahead.  The two staff there told me that the camp ground I was planning to go to had been closed and the next closest site was an extra 30 klicks up the road.  They also told me that there was a 10 mile stretch of 15% grade just outside Pemberton on the route I was planning to take.  Okay... lets see how far I can get.  Riding out of Pemberton was a synch - flat and relatively smooth - though the muscles in my knees required some massaging TLC.  I think they are just waking up to the fact that they've got another 8100km to go :)  Excellently though, they straightened up by the time I got to the large steep long hill.  Just before going up the hill I stopped to talk with a guy who was up from Vancouver out fishing.  He gave me some grapes and I told him about what I was doing.  Cool guy.  Okay - here we go up the hill now - My average speed up this hill was about 4 mph and by the time I got to the top it was close to 3... it was slow and completely AWESOME.  The day was perfect and the scenery was spectacular.  About half way up I ran in to a couple who's brakes had caught fire coming down.  Strangely, every car that went by going down the hill smelled like their brakes were on fire.  Luckily the couple had an extinguisher and lots of bottled water - which they shared with me to fill up my water bottle.  Lots of cars went by with thumbs up or a friendly toot of the horn as I climbed the hill with my 100lb of bicycle and gear.  Oh yah - never try to climb a hill like this without some kick-ass dance music.  It made all the difference.  At the top, some four hours later, I stopped and talked with some more folks who gave me more water and carrots.   They also liked my banner and asked lots of questions about what I was up to.  Finally, I reached the top (4000 ft of vertical ascent in about 10 miles.  It was cool up there - like still snow on the ground cool.  The ride back down was really nice - coasting most of the last 10 miles.  Got to see a couple of black bears too.  Didn't stick around long but got a nice shot of him eating some twigs.  So then, given my campsite was no longer available I had to find a nice place to put my self up for the night and eat some dinner.  I found a nice spot by the side of the road at the east end of Duffy Lake.  What a view. Check out the pics.  Time to sleep so I can get back at it again in the morning.

Mileage total for the day: 51.81 miles (83.38 km)

Good night. 

The day started out with some light drizzle and rain but I wasn't going to let that deter the start of my ride.  I put my rain coat on and set off from the Encil House B&B after getting some water from the Gibson's Aquifer which is rated as the best tasting water in the world.  Good stuff!  Then we had breakfast with Keith and Taya who own the B&B and let me stay at their beautiful garden of Eden.  More good stuff!

After breakfast I rode down to catch the ferry back to Horseshoebay.  My awesome and extremely generous friend Cassandra who hooked me up with the Encil House people and the Holy CRAP people accompanied me to the ferry and took some of the pictures of my departure shown above.  Then, she connected me with a friend of her's who has a condo in Whistler where I am writing this from right now.   The ride to Whistler was pretty tame.  The vertical ascent was ~2300 feet.  The rain kept me cool for the first half until I stopped in Squamish for lunch.  The second half was rain free.  I arrived in Whistler at about 16:30.

Cassandra's friends Kristy and Shannon were awesome too - great hospitality - Thanks ladies!  We made had a great dinner and then made a banner/t-shirt to display what I'm up to (check out the pics above).

Today I'm taking it a little easy - only 45 miles (72 km) to the Duffy Lake Prov. Park.  Not sure when I'll find the internet again so I'm taking some extra time this morning to get things in order and up load the pictures I've taken.

Mileage to Whistler: 80.06 miles (128.84 km)

Until my next arrival in modern civilization.