Day 7

Is this a happy Trail?

Mile 1673; 10:40 AM
We start out the day in Trail, B.C. (home of the Smelter Smellers). The one advantage that this particular motel has (aside from the fact that Jerry & Dee are not here being entirely too cheerful when it's not even noon) is a full-sized coffee pot. Apparently, these folks understand that mornings require large amounts of coffee, not little teeny pots of coffee. (Because we come from the land of Starbucks, we have been hauling around our own coffee beans and coffee grinder.)

The motel is on a hill, so Robert decides to coast into town on his bike, while Laura drives into town to meet him. With the warmer weather, Robert has put on what he calls his "cool stripey shorts" and what everyone else calls either "those goddamn stripey shorts" or "a frontal assault on the color and fashion sense of humanity." Robert likes them because they go with everything (since they have stripes of every color). He figures that although someone may try to run him off the road on purpose, everyone is going to see him.

Once in the lovely town of Trail, Robert attempts to find a source of espresso. A place called the "Coffee Coop" looks promising, but only delivers white bread and weak coffee, and should, therefore, be renamed the "Chicken Coop." At least it's a lovely day to sit around outside and fall asleep over a cup of coffee-flavored water.

Trail does have a wonderful bakery, which sells sausage rolls (yeah, we can't figure out why a bakery sells meat products, either, but it does). And a Thrift Store that sells Laura a sparkly sweater (in case we get invited to Afternoon Tea at a disco).

Time for lunch!

Christina Lake, B.C.
Mile 1727; 12:50 PM
Christina Lake is some lake up in the kind-of mountains they have in this part of British Columbia (hey, after seeing the Rockies, the Cascades seem like rolling foothills). Laura has a soup made up of whatever they happened to dredge out of the lake that morning. Robert has a sandwich with shrimp (or shrimp-like creatures). We both decide to pass on the Peanut Butter Pie ("Would you like that creamy or crunchy?").

At the outdoor artifacts shelter

Mile 1777; 2:20 PM
In the lovely town of Midway (which is midway between someplace and someplace else), we stop at the Midway Railroad Station Museum and Outdoor Artifacts Shelter (under construction). Anyplace else, this would be called the Outdoor Farm Junk Collection. It consists of a railway station (which no longer has scheduled stops), a caboose, and whatever farm implements nobody in their right mind would use anymore.

Because the Museum part is closed and the Shelter isn't built yet, we are left to use our imaginations to figure out what exactly these implements were for. One of them looks like it automatically pans for gold (Robert tries to start it up, with the idea of paying for our trip in a few short minutes, but it doesn't work).

Canadian Sunset

Sunset and power lines

Sunset redux

So, what's French for Osoyoos?

Robert decides that because tomorrow night we'll be staying at yet another Bed & Breakfast (not our idea), we should book the Honeymoon suite at the local motel. Robert hopes that it has a heart-shaped bathtub. Laura hopes that it doesn't have a heart-shaped bed.

It turns out that "Honeymoon Suite" translates as "kitchen, with refrigerator, living room, and large jacuzzi bathtub." It's more of a "Married For a While" suite, which suits us just fine. They've even got a toaster! (Although they still have an HO-scale coffee pot.)

Nothing, however, is heart-shaped.

We catch the full lunar eclipse (which, incidentally, was an eclipse of the Harvest Moon) and then crawl into the center of our non-heart-shaped-but-still-the-size-of-a-wrestling-ring bed and pass out.

Rub A Dub Dub