Day 5 - Welcome home, guys!
- Nakusp, BC to Wauconda, WA
- 349 miles
- Friday, July 19
- (Click
on map to view the entire Day 5 route)
We stop for breakfast in Nakusp and
afterwards, Pork Chop
pauses for a little clowning around outside the cafe. (Click
on the photo to see what he's doing)
 We head south for some excellent BC riding. On Hwy 6, we
travel a valley between the Ruby and Nakusp mountain ranges. Once
we hit the town of New Denver, we head east on Hwy 31A and travel
through a mountainous area along the Kaslo River. We reach the
town of Kaslo and Kootenay Lake where we head south along the lake
on Hwy 31 to the town of Balfour where we will catch a ferry
across the lake. It's all top notch cruising.
This ferry boat is much bigger than the one
we took yesterday and the crossing
is much longer as well. We queue up and wait to board. (Click
on the photo to see the ferry dock & boat)
Once we load up, we relax and enjoy the
view. The Tucson desert rats really dig this water travel stuff
and even as accustomed to it as we Seattleites are, we enjoy it as
well. It's a nice break from all the riding we've done this
morning. (Click on the photo to see us kicking
back)
 One of us decides to do a little photography
from the porthole in the men's room on board and it turns out
pretty good. A ferry worker tells us that this is the
world's longest, free ferry ride in the world. (Click
on the photo to see the view from the toilet)
Our trip through the BC countryside leads us
through one small town after the next, separated by expanses of
forest. At one gas stop, we discover some artwork on the side of a
cabin. Our excuse is that we keep seeing speed limit
signs that say 100 on them. We look at our speedos and seeing that
we're only doing 80, we give it a little more gas. Wow! These
Canadians sure like to haul ass! Luckily, we don't have to try
this lame excuse on any BC Mounties. (Click on the photo to see
the artwork and its message)
We arrive at the Canadian / US border. There
is no town and we are in the middle of nowhere. It looks like we wake
up the US Custom guy as he comes sleepy eyed out of his office.
There's no other traffic and just him. He's grey haired and looks
like a big, donut eating cop. He greets us and asks casually where
we've been and for how long while looking at our driver's
licenses. We briefly describe our ride and apparently satisfied,
he says, "Welcome home, guys!" That's it. We ride into
the NE corner of Washington State, glad to be back.
Click here for
Day 6
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return to the ODMC Rockies Tour 2002 home page
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