Things We Love: Wines & Winding Roads (Not together, of course!)

Two full days of riding (and a few bear and moose sightings later) found us just outside of Kelowna, BC.


(I promise to stop posting bear photos, soon. Really.)



While (futilely) waiting out a rain storm in Glenallen, Alaska, we had met a super cool lady rider on a V Strom, Rachel, who had invited us to stay with her in Kelowna. We messaged her, but since we were ahead of “schedule” by a week, she had not yet returned. Not to worry, though… one of her travel-buddies would be happy to put us up and so it was that we did not have to sneak into a vineyard to camp.

Rosemary has retired from a career in nursing, though she still works in hospice care from time to time. Anyone who is able to do that kind of work deserves a special place in whatever comes after this life. And immediately upon meeting Rosemary, this was apparent. Her home is lovely, but her garden is a sanctuary. And her fresh-from-the-oven scones took me to heaven.


(Our hostess busily preparing her freshly harvested cherries, while I lurk nearby ready to snatch a warm-from-the-oven scone).


(For other scone-lovers out there, I can vouch for the awesomeness of this recipe.)

Roel and I tasted through several wineries in the Okanagan region and got a really good feeling for what the area has to offer in the way of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cab Franc.


(Had a lovely tasting at Tantalus where we actually enjoyed the entirety of the portfolio they had on offer AND they are doing cool things with Riesling... we really like places that experiment and take risks, and their Reisling Lab "experiment" was yummy.)


(Everyone in the Okanagan will tell you to go to Mission Hill Winery. We quickly discovered that this is ONLY because of the lovely gardens, impressive architecture and amazing views of the valley. The wine, and the service, is unmentionable.)

With some excellent advice from Rosemary, an avid outdoors person herself, we headed off roughly in the direction of Whistler, planning to take the scenic route and camp just before reaching Whistler.

Welllll, plans-shclans… turns out the Africa Twin wasn’t up for our so-called plans…

We were thoroughly enjoying one of the most incredible roads we have ridden in the past few months (we took Route 8 to Route 1, then took the right towards Lillooet on Route 12) when all of the sudden I hear a string of curses with a ring of confusion in my headset.

Roel: &*^%%*^ I don’t know what’s going on. I’m losing power.

The power fail was intermittent, though, so he kept going. Considering we were in the middle of nowhere and had no idea how much further “somewhere” was, that seemed to be the best option.

Until we crested a hill and on the downward winding portion of that hill, which happened to only be one lane where the guardrails of which gave way to 300ft+ drops. Roel honked his horn to let on-coming traffic beware of our presence on the single lane and as soon as the road opened to two lanes again, his power completely failed.

This was one of those occasions where had I not believed in guardian angels, or motorbike angels, I would have started to believe.

A second stroke of good fortune gave way to a pull off at the bottom of the hill where a few trees offered some respite from the sun that beat down on this wind-less, barren valley.

This was a new symptom of whatever was bothering the Africa Twin: never before had it lost power mid-ride… only when the bike had been turned off, did it refuse to start again.

Roel pulled everything off the bike, gently coaxing the battery and every wire connected to it and fuse related to it to work again, and turned the key. Bingo, we were back in action. For the moment, anyway.


(Amazing to see a long-distance bicyclist *almost* as packed up as the Africa Twin.)

We made it to a small town that gave us both the hee-bee-jee-bies for no apparent reason. There were a couple of campgrounds around this town, but riding into and out of them we determined that we did not feel comfortable and decide to continue on. Just before riding out of town, two separate people, completely unasked, recommended a campground about 7 kilometers out of town and so we decided to check that out.

It was beautiful… As a community/public relations project, BC Hydro maintains several free campgrounds throughout BC and this one was lovely.



We found a perfectly shaded spot to set up our tent which was only a 5-minute walk from a cool stream that relieved our swollen sweaty feet. We got to meet some interesting fellow campers and slept sweetly under a clear sky of a million stars.

"Road Signs"

After a delightfully restful evening at JJ’s cozy “Warm Showers” cabin, we headed to Eye Candy Custom Cycles to catch up with Sam and get started on the much-needed and long-awaited top end job on the Transalp. Sam had very generously offered a lift in his shop, access to his tools and his priceless “supervision” which would make this task actually feasible.

We arrived at the shop excited to get started, only to find out from a somewhat grim Sam that the parts of the Transalp were on back-order and were not likely to arrive for another week “or so.”

Roel had also just found out that the US Consulate in Vancouver had closed it’s doors to non-Canadians applying for US work visas, so he would actually have to fly back to the Netherlands in order to apply for his work visa to work at the winery we had been accepted to intern at in Sonoma, beginning in August.

We were devastated. The opportunity we had been waiting for since last October had finally presented itself (expert mechanic, excellent shop, affordable top-end job), but we didn’t have a week “or so” to wait for the parts to arrive. Due to time restrictions and our desire to still see everything we had wanted to see in BC before heading back into the US, we were going to have to continue South, where we would intercept the parts in Vancouver, from which Roel would fly back to the Netherlands.

Many of our travel decisions are dictated by “signs," like roadworks detours or random encounters with people who share some special piece of local knowledge with us. Although most of the time they are always positive “signs” which guide us to one town or another or to some special experience, sometimes they are walls or gates that we simply cannot get over, under or around. With no other choice, we took this as a sign that we weren’t meant to work on the engine at this time. And perhaps… the solution to my oil consumption problem will just be to simply replace all of the seals, which we will try to do on our own when we reach California.

With that, Roel changed his rear tire and his oil in the comfort of Sam’s shop, and we headed South in a hurry. 

Back in British Columbia

The ferry landed at a very dark and rainy Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Before finding a place to camp, we had to go through Canadian Customs/Immigration, and for some reason, the line went especially slowly. Roel went ahead and when I finally arrived at the booth, I did my best to answer the very bedraggled looking border agent’s questions efficiently and honestly. He asked about food or animal products and I was about to lean over to check to see if I had eaten the last apple from my saddle bag when he stopped me and said “Listen, I’m talking about weird stuff… animal bones, bear hearts, that kind of thing. You have any of that? No? Good. It’s been a really bizarre night here. By the way, take care on the road once you get 10 miles out of town. The wind knocks me around in my truck, so I can only imagine how terrifying it would be on a bike. Welcome to Canada.”

Gotta love Canadian border agents.

After a chilly hour in the rain searching for a camp site, we did something we don’t usually do and rode around the gate at an open provincial campground. (Closed/off-season campgrounds are usually our thing - not open but “Gate Closed After 10pm Campgrounds”).  Figuring that at 2am, there would be no more arrivals, we glided into an empty spot and set up camp.

The next morning we were thrilled to see sun and we headed in the direction of Smithers. Sam at Eyecandy Custom Cycles had ordered all of the parts that would be necessary for us to begin the top end job on the Transalp, so they would be there ready and waiting for us.

And at a truck stop back in Idaho, we had met a V-Strom rider named JJ who had invited us to stay at his “Warm Showers” cabin just outside of Smithers. (“Warm Showers” is like the “Tent Space” equivalent of the bicycle world, fyi.)

Not only would we finally be able to get my bike’s engine sorted out, once and for all, we would actually have a warm, dry place to stay with shower, etc, while we were there.

The sun was out and things were looking up.

I Love Bikes. But I Love Boats, Too: Ferrying Back to BC.

(The bikes all lashed-down and sea-worthy)

We boarded the ferry to Prince Rupert, and Roel secured the bikes while I pulled everything off of the bikes that we would need for the next 36 hours: food, the tent, pads and bags (yes, we would be camping on the top deck) and all of our electronic gear.



(Provisions for 36 hours away from the bikes. Kinda like when normal people pack their bags for a weekend getaway, right?)

We raced to the Solarium on the top deck and were relieved to find that only a few others would be camping up there (we had been warned that it could completely fill up). As the ferry pulled away from Juneau, the sun came out and we got some stellar views of the inner passage as the ship continued on.





I basked in the idea that I would have nowhere to go for 36 hours. And so did Roel. We did some reading, I caught up on some blogging and we took tons of photos.... of whale pods, lighthouses, fog-shrouded mountains and even an iceberg, which WE DID NOT HIT!!


(I'm no Rose. Giving the OK sign after our captain (who we're pretty sure was inebriated) safely navigated around an iceberg.)

It felt like 36 hours of vacation and I cannot remember a recent time where I have felt more relaxed. I never thought my Dutch boyfriend, who has taught me SO much about frugality, would be brilliantly pleased with an experience that required the expenditure of a large sum of money.






Although we had worked a grueling day of mushroom picking in Carmacks, Yukon in order to pay for our ferry fare, while whale spotting from my seat in the sun lounge on the solarium deck, I couldn’t have been happier with the cost or the reward.

I love bikes. But I love boats, too.

Juneau, Alaska

We woke to more pouring rain, which honestly didn’t inspire us to tour around Juneau too much. We headed into town and ducked into a local coffee shop with wifi where we checked e-mails and updated the website a bit. When we returned to the bikes across the street there were several people milling about and as soon as they saw that we belonged to the bikes, we were answering questions left and right. The cruise ships in port had just let their passengers loose on the souvenir shops of Juneau and apparently the bikes and us were a better attraction :) We met a lot of lovely people, but tore ourselves away from the great conversations and friendly faces with enough time left in Juneau to spot some bald eagles, visit Mendenhall Glacier and do some last minute shopping for meals and snacks to get us through the 36 hour voyage to Prince Rupert, British Colombia.


First ever porcupine sighting!!!









Juvenile Bald Eagle

Ferrying to Juneau

Making it to the ferry terminal well within our check-in time was a huge “win.”


(Our chariot awaits ;) )

We spent some time chatting with others in the line-up waiting to drive/ride onto the ferry, and one lovely guy went back to his car and returned with a couple of small travel packs of West Coast Coffee, roasted in Oregon. Apparently, he had the same appreciation I did for excellent coffee but was better stocked. And lucky for me, very generous. Thank you, sir.

We boarded the ferry in the Haines terminal and stowed the bikes for the four-ish hour ferry ride. This would be the first time my bike would really be out in the open waters and I had trouble leaving her to head upstairs to the passenger deck, so I checked the lines Roel had tied off a few times and headed up.



The ferry ride was relaxing, extremely scenic and largely uneventful.






Taking in the ocean views from my recliner, I eavesdropped on a woman in front of us who appeared to be in her mid to late-60s telling a group of slightly younger women about the turn her life had taken recently. She had lost one of her sons and about a month later, lost her job. She didn’t own her home and knowing her money would soon run out and she would face homeless-ness, she got creative, and found a job with an international food service company that would move her around the world to wherever they needed staffing, and would provide room, board and travel expenses along the way. To me, it sounded like she’d had the most incredible experiences in her late 60s: working in Africa and spending time with local tribes; working in New Zealand and traveling around both the North and South island, making friends from all over the world wherever she went because her limited budget had her staying in hostels; working in Alaska where her family from the US visited her, and she was able to introduce them to her new Eskimo friends and show her family around their small fishing village. I was fascinated by this woman I was eavesdropping on, and was somewhat disgusted by the body language and reactions of the women she was telling these wonderful stories to: What she told them seemed to frighten them… was it because she was a nomad and could not be safely categorized as a similar cushy-job holder, cum-retiree? Or was it because they worried that they could somehow catch her great misfortune by being too interested in or too open to her story? Because that was all that they saw: misfortune.

What I saw, was a woman, who, like many in this country, has been dealt a number of hard knocks but instead of letting them get her down, made lemonade of these lemons and enriched her life to an extent that these poor wealthy, privileged woman could not even fathom.

So as the ferry pulled into Juneau harbor, I stood up, interrupted this incredibly inspiring woman while she was trying to explain just how one goes about staying in a youth hostel, and told her exactly how impressive and wonderful I thought she was. I hope she tells her story to someone who will bring it to the masses… so many could benefit from a story of such personal and professional triumph.

Anyway, we rode off of the ferry and moments later the heavens opened. We rode all the way through the small downtown of Juneau, and out of town to where the road ended, looking for a place to camp. No luck. We rode back to a gas station as the Transalp was dangerously low on fuel. A nice guy in a pickup who looked “outdoorsy” pulled up and so we asked where we might be able to find free camping and he fortunately directed us to a lovely spot on the other side of the bay where we set up the tent in the rain in record time and crawled in hoping to get a few hours of sleep.

Sorry we've been MIA... but we're baaaaccckk :)

Sorry for being MIA, guys. “Deadlines” crept us on us and all of the sudden we had some serious miles to cover in what seemed like an ever-shortening period of time!

So catching up with where we left off…

Per usual, our morning in Tok began with crawling out of the tent into the rain. Given that our suits needed a good rinse after our run-in with bison guts the evening prior, we had mixed feelings about this rain, but it still meant we needed to find shelter in Tok and let the tent dry while we had our breakfast.



While there we decided to “bite the bullet” and book our ferry tickets. It was a huge expense, BUT we had picked morel mushrooms for a day back in Carmacks in order to pay for the addition expense and we REALLY didn’t want to ride the Stewart Cassiar Highway back down to BC in the rain. It was now or never to book, lest we get to the ferry terminal and find out the ferries were all sold out, so we booked and crossed our fingers: We had about 24 hours to cover 438mi/704kms, cross two borders (Canada and then Alaska again) AND get a shower in somewhere before getting into a confined space (ferry movie theater, you know) with strangers we’d prefer to make friends with. Perhaps it doesn’t seem like much, but given that we don’t exceed 65mph/105kmh and are always slightly worried about our older, somewhat finicky bikes… we had our work cut out for us.

We hit some rainy spots throughout the day but almost as soon as the Alaska Highway brought us over the Canadian border into the Yukon, nature delighted us with some stunning weather (literally, we were pelted with hail as soon as we got our passports back from the Canadian border agent, but then the sun came out and the weather was glorious). Additionally, the road kept getting more and more beautiful and we enjoyed some incredible nature spotting along the way.





(Our first moose sighting in Canada, dispelling our long-held belief that Canadian Moose were the equivalent of the Unicorn ;) )


(Yes, that's a grizzly next to the highway)








We made dinner by a beautiful lake I no longer remember the name of (sorry) and as we headed off to get in a few more kilometers before resting for the evening, we simply had to stop and take in the sunset.





I can’t remember when we last ooooh-ed and ahhhhhh-ed so much… the stretch of the Alcan between the US/Canada border and Haines Junction was a treat. And we did find a nice flat spot to camp, far enough from the highway that the traffic noise only woke us a few times during the night.

The next morning, we made it to Haines, just in time to slip into the local pool and pay a couple of bucks for a nice hot shower.