Today was going to be a bit more kicked back.
Breakfast was scheduled for the 'Red Fish Grill'. I had dinner there last year with Jerry and the food was good.
Some of the boys and girls were looking a bit worse for wear during breakfast on Saturday morning.
Maybe it was the walls?!
I just love how this turned out. Badass Tony!
Tony said "F*ck the water, where's the beer!" ... ok maybe he didn't actually say that.
Tim showing off his gay-harley rider wave
There were going to be a few groups and really, none of the group riding interested me all that much. Tony wanted to hang around Nelson and kick back for the day, so I decided to go and ride the same roads as the slow group, just not necessarily with them.
The ride out past Salmo wasn't very exciting and I only stopped once along the way to get a quick shot of the valley.
I did notice that there were a whole bunch of gravel roads that branched off he highway, but being on my own I was not really looking to get too far out.
The summit looked like a good spot to stop and wait to see if anyone from the nelson crew would catch up.
I saw this girl and her mom and they kept looking off the edge of the gravel, which got me to thinking....
... it was these little critters they were checking out.
I spent about 15 or 20 minutes kicking back and shooting.
As I decided to head back on the highway I noticed a path on the other side. Sure enough it was blocked with a bunch of rocks. There may have been some kind of 'road deactivated' sign, but I couldn't read too well as I bounced over to the side, past the weather station and over some small logs people had used to make a path behind the rocks.
Up and over.
The road was in good shape, I treaded lightly and soon got to another, bigger, set of rocks blocking the road. It was almost like they didn't want you to go any further.
I decided that it might be best to turn around at this point. The little sign next to the rocks said "Park Boundary" and I just got the feeling they didn't want me there... Who knows, maybe I was wrong :)
The descent was pretty and pretty uneventful.
Back on the highway and within 5 minutes I found another trail to explore. There was a sign saying the area was closed to snowmobiles, but it said nothing about KLR's so off I went.
The trail split right off the bat and "... I - I took the road less traveled by" and almost fell flat on my ass. :)
The "road" was the grassy area with the rocks in it directly in front of me. The Killer weaved and bounced but I made it up ... and decided to be smarter next time.
The other fork paid off though, providing some great views of the peaks that folks would never get to enjoy this way if they just traveled the highways.
Eventually I decided to turn back as I had planned to make this an easy day in preparation to Tony and my trip south and the more serious riding to come.
I ran into some of the VFR folks on the way to the Kootenay ferry and stopped to chat with Tim and Cass.
Tim had taken to calling me "Crazy Bjorn". Apparently it had something to do with standing on the pegs while passing sportbikers and leaving them behind in the tight twisties ... I don't really understand what he was talking about ... maybe there's another guy named Bjorn. :)
From here it was a pretty relaxing ride back to Nelson. Damn hot though, one of the roadside displays showed 41 Celsius. That's something like 105 F I think.
Despite the heat I took a bit of a stroll around to take in the sights and sounds of Nelson
and to pick up some ADVrider champagne
There was more drinking, though I split after a couple of pints to go crash. The heat had taken a bit out of me after all I guess.
Preview of Day 4
-South!
-Heat, more heat and damn heat
-Idaho, it's not what you think
Hope you're enjoying the ride :)
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