Staycation style bike camping

We camped near town

(This is the last in a serious of posts before my big Pacific Coast Bicycle Tour starts)

Last weekend, I did one last local bike camping trip in preparation for the big trip on the Pacific Coast. As I thought that I would house-sitting, I booked a campsite near the city.  It turns out that I didn't have to house-sit, but as I couldn't cancel the reservation, I decided to work around it.

We rode North on Saturday on Highway 97.  We rode out 30 km to Salmon Valley. I haven't biked to there this year, but I have in previous years. It's a nice place to have a picnic by the river in the country.

We finished the trip by riding back to town, then up the hill on Highway 16 West to Blue Spruce Campground where we would be camping for the night.

Passed by a recumbent bike going up Foothills

We had some nice new pavement to enjoy riding North

Salmon Valley

Salmon Valley

On our way back to town, I took Deanna to McMillan Park, which has an excellent view of the City.  We did a bit of mountain biking to get there, although we could and should have taken the road.

Doing some mountain biking

After tending to my birds in town, we headed up Cowart Road hill to College Heights.  We picked up some groceries for the night to simulate the bike camping style that we will be doing in Oregon/California.  Even though I am a local, I had to ask someone from Nova Scotia where the nearest private liquor store was as the Government one had just closed!  We wanted a beer for the night.

At the campsite, we enjoyed some Butter Chicken which we heated on my stove.  It was a bit spicy for our tastes though and I needed the beer to cool it down a bit.  We will have to watch what we get in the future, but buying food to heat from the store is a lot cheaper then eating out all the time.

After a late dinner, we headed to bed.

Heading West on Sunday

35 kms West of town

Next Morning, we headed out West for 35 km.  We turned around just past Isle Pierre Road and stopped for a lunch break.  We didn't have much protein to eat as we didn't buy sandwiches on our way out.  We managed ok though.

During our break this cool dune buggy drove by.  It is so Mad Max!

I was hoping to see the Texas 4000 Coastal Team go by, but they apparently would be getting a ride to up North to catch up with the Rockies team that I met earlier in July.  Oh well!

At the of the weekend trip, we stopped by the Ice Cream place on Cowert Road and we each enjoyed a well deserved double scoop!  I can't wait to sample the Ice Cream and Micro-brewed beer along the Pacific Coast Highway.  It's part of the experience.