I've been doing a fair bit of riding on my trike this summer and, as always, loving it. In a previous post, I told you about the trip I took July 28/29 and before that I told in a post about the July 21 ride with the Brothers of the Third Wheel, another post about the July 22 ride with The BC Lone Wolves. This post is about my most recent ride with the Vernon BC Chapter of the All Canadian Riders Club... well, some of the club members anyway.
Shane rode alone to Kaslo, BC on Thursday August 2nd, then on Friday August 3rd Hammer & Melody on their bike and I on my trike rode down to meet Shane. On the ride there, we stopped to fuel up in Cherryville where we met another rider on his way to the Kootenays too. Alex was a very nice guy and we invited him to ride with us. He lives in Calgary with his wife and kids, on a bit of a vacation to celebrate his birthday, then going home before the real day of his birthday to spend it with his family. We were riding through the Monashee Mountains with Melody & Hammer in front, me behind them and Alex behind me. Going down a steep hill as we went around a sharp corner I guess I took it a little faster than I should have, but my front wheel hit something (pothole? frost heave?) and before I knew it I was sliding sideways. I went off the road and into weeds, thankfully rather than doing down into a ditch or over a bank, there was a bit of an uphill that I went up, bringing the trike around just narrowly missing a tree, back down onto the road and continued on with my heart thudding wildly in my chest. I rode the corners slower after that. When we got the the Needles Ferry, Alex pulled up beside me and said "You scared the heck out of me on that corner back there!" or something like that. I told him I'd scared myself pretty badly too!! He said "Good recovery though! Really good recovery!" Hammer & Melody asked what we were talking about, they hadn't even noticed a thing.
We crossed the Upper Arrow Lake on the ferry then rode on. About 8 kilometers out of Nakusp I was hit in the eye by something I figured was a bug. I was wearing my glasses and my sunglasses on top of them and still the bug got in. I think it grazed off my nose and came into the eye. I rode the 8 km with my eye closed, burning a bit though not too bad to ride. When we pulled into the gas station in Nakusp I took off my glasses and they young gal that came out to serve us said "Oh my GOD, you have a BEE in your eye!!! It's a bumble bee and it's still alive!!" She picked it out of my eye for me and filled my gas tank while I went to the washroom and washed out my eye as well as washed the 'bee blood??' off my glasses. We said goodbye to Alex and rode on.
The rest of the ride to Kaslo was uneventful, until we stopped at a STOP sign entering the town and my trike stalled. I changed my gas tank over to 'reserve' and tried to start the trike with no luck. Not knowing I was having issues, Hammer & Melody rode on. A car pulled past me and another one stopped beside me to ask if I was okay. Just then the trike did start and, thanking the guy I rode on. Just down the street, Hammer & Melody were coming back. The people in the car that passed me told them their friend was having trouble... nice people there. We went straight to the camp site to meet Shane and get our camp spots set up.
We were all volunteering at the Kaslo Jazz Festival, so we quickly headed off to the Festival Site to the 4:30pm Volunteer Orientation, then we each did our Friday evening 'shift'. I worked in the Beer Gardens, selling drink tickets. I had so much fun and was still able to listen to the music, then when off shift I sat on a picnic table where I could see the stage and so enjoyed Taj Mahal Trio. With so many people there and in the dark, there was no way I could find my friends there, so I just 'went with the flow' of people and walked back to the camp ground. Unfortunately there was no parking at the Festival Site so people had to find what they could in the town or walk from the camp grounds which was about a mile away. My friends didn't show up, so I crawled into my tent and went to sleep around 11:30pm figuring they went to the bar for more music.
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