Our bike is overdue for its first service. Its computer told us this when we we out in the eastern parts of Washington State where there are no BMW dealers. It was the weekend when we got back to the west coast where we might get it serviced. We looked ahead and decided the first opportunity and nearest place to get it serviced would be Vancouver, although we had not actually planned to go through there. We phoned to book it in on Monday, but the service section is closed Monday...

We rang them Tuesday morning before we left Jim and Terrie's, but could not get through to the service manager in any reasonable time. We decided instead to drive in and see if they could service it then and there.

We said goodbye to Jim, Terrie and Joya, and rode off on an absolutely perfect day, weatherwise to Canada.

The Customs Officer there who processed our papers was especially helpful. He asked about our planned route and suggested a different route between Golden and Banff that would take in a number of interesting sights and places that few travellers know about or visit.

We rode through miles of suburban sprawl as we approached Vancouver, heading for the BMW dealer.
It turned out they could not service our bike that day, but they helpfully called ahead to a dealer in Calgary to book us in there. The only gotcha is that they can't service it on Saturday when we expected to be there, so we have to get there early Friday morning. This means riding further than the 200 miles originally planned each day. Specifically it means we will have to travel 275 miles tomorrow...

We had the option of riding up Canada 1 which promised to be faster, or up 99 which would be slower but perhaps a little shorter. We had already lost the morning and ridden way out of our way going into Vancouver, so we decided to take Canada 1. Getting through the city from the dealers and onto Canada 1 was slow, and stressful - our GPS was going silly at times. (At one time it told me to turn onto Canada 1, then as I was about to do so, recalculated the route, and told me to continue straight on for half a mile, then do a U-turn, and join Canada 1 at exactly the spot where I was currently parked. I was trying to figure out what was going on.)

Here's another good GPS story: the voice synthesis program is less than perfect and regularly speaks names with odd cadence and syllabic stress. Combine that with a heavy American accent and, I regularly had no idea what street I should be looking for. One day I decided to change the voice, and found I had not one but two "Australian" voices to choose from. That was surprising, but what was really weird was that when the GPS wanted me to continue 27 miles on WA(Washington) 20, the Australian voice would tell me to "continue 27 miles on Western Australia 20" (!)

We stopped for coffee in Abbortsford, very close to the US border, and not all that far from Jim and Terrie's. The road continued west to Hope before turning north up the Fraser River that runs through broad valleys and steep narrow canyons. It was interesting to note that there are train tracks on both sides of the Fraser River.

By the time we got to Lytton, we were already getting tired, but were still 50 miles from Cache Creek. The views on the Fraser and Thompson Rivers were superbl on every turn. The vegetation turned sparse so that you could see the contours and shapes of the hills. Every bend would take your breath away. Most of highway 1 is a delightful ride despite the occasional truck. Photos do not give the scale or depth.You'll have to do it yourself.

 It was 6 pm when we got to Cache Creek. There were so many motels in the middle of nowhere.  We checked into one, bought supplies for dinner and crashed. We had covered 235 miles at an average of 40 mph, which means we were riding for 6 hours. At least the weather was perfect all day - indeed it got quite warm as the day wore on. Summer at last????