The tailings from the mine are still visible. But it has been completely cleaned up and is regularly stocked with trout, though because there's no spawning, the huge monster fish from bygone days are indeed a thing of the past.
As we started to set up camp we received our first visitors: mosquitos. Fortunately I had remembered to bring a little bug spray and that kept them at bay while we got tents set up. Next up was cooking our dinner. We each brought our own dinner to cook and Bill and I agreed that Dave had the best meal. A nice little medley of beef, mushrooms, and peppers nicely seasoned with a bit of Guiness. Okay, maybe more than a bit. Bill had some homemade soup to heat up and had a nice bottle of wine to share. Bringing up the rear was me with freeze-dried mac-n-cheese (not so good), green beans, and a chicken pattie. I'll prepare better next time. After that we built up a nice roaring campfire, where the three of us roasted our feet and had a nice quiet time just talking the night away. Finally around 10:30pm we finally called it a night.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Monday, May 27, 2012
When we got up the next morning we discovered it had rained a little bit but not that much. So we started cooking breakfast when it decided to rain again. This would be the pattern for the day - rain, stop, rain, stop. But I didn't care - I wasn't working! So after a bit of bacon and eggs, we cleaned up and got everything packed up. We settled up with the caretaker and then took off about 8:30am headed southwest through Greenwood and Midway again. We paused in Rock City to figure out where to ride to: west to Osoyoos and the border or north to Vernon. Dave and I had taken a really fun road on the west side of Okanogan Lake last fall and wanted to take Bill on it. The weather was a bit iffy though, so we decided to try heading to Kelowna and then to on to Vernon if the weather was decent. Turns out that Highway 33 to Kelowna is a pretty nice road that even the rain couldn't ruin. Still, it rained on us several times so when we stopped in Kelowna for lunch, we decided that it'd be better to just head south.
Tom Clark
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Intellitect, living in Spokane, Washington. I also do a little development work on the side. And I love riding motorcycles all over the country with my friends.
