BC Beemers

For six days we became motorcycle people.  We put in earplugs, put on pants and jackets with Kevlar coatings, stuffed our heads in helmets and pulled on leather gloves.  We rode lots of miles and waved at other motorcycles as we passed. We became BMW riders as opposed to Harley boys or squid bikers.  Harley boys wear leathers and you never know with the go fast guys, maybe shorts, leathers or full on racing suits.  Our goal was British Columbia and the BC Beemers rally in Nakusp.  It took two days and almost 700 miles to get to our destination.  We got lost, sort of, when the GPS seemed to lose its way as we crossed the border.  Lesson learned, paper maps should always be your backup especially at the end of a ride.  We kept our tempers but teeth might have been a tiny bit clenched until we stopped at the visitor center and acquired a map.  We were most concerned about arriving before dinner was no longer served.  Most importantly we had paid for it and almost as important we had heard that the BC Beemers feed their rally participants well and we did not want to miss out on a good meal.

We arrived in camp around five and received our rally envelopes, bought our shirts and went looking for a campsite.  The campground was full of motorcycles and their riders but we found a nice little spot to put up our tent and unfold our chairs.  After taking off the all the riding gear and setting up camp it was time to find our dinner.  A local caterer, which appeared to consist of a group of elderly ladies, was serving up a Greek dinner which turned out to be delicious.  We were in Greece a few months ago and the baklava was the best I've tasted.   Salad, kabobs, spinach turnovers were all excellent and quickly consumed. After dinner we walked into town, the idea of remounting the bike never was considered, and found a local IPA to try.

Nakusp is on Arrow Lake which is a wide spot in the Columbia River.  It has been dammed to raise it for hydropower but it was already big enough for steam ships to ply its waters carrying freight and hauling logs.  It is surrounding by soaring mountains some covered in timber, some peaks bare granite rocks.  In the summer it is very inviting but a conversation with the local quilt shop owner was a cause for reconsidering the location in the winter.  I mentioned that quilting was a good hobby for places with long winters.  I was referring to the long dark days.  In Oregon nine hours of daylight is all you get in the middle of winter and Nakusp would be even less because it is so much further north.  The woman at the quilting machine responded with, "Our winters are not so bad.  Once in a while we get ten feet of snow but not every winter."  If this is "not so bad", I cannot imagine what she would consider bad.  I don't think I'll be moving.