Prince George

We started out fairly early this morning.  We had a full day of riding to get to Prince George.

We left our lavish room & headed for breakfast before packing up the bike & trailer

We were up and out of the room heading for the only place open for breakfast in town by 5:50AM.     It was a beautiful morning!

and made a few photo op stops along the way.   The weather was a bit chilly in the morning, but the time we stopped for lunch, the jackets came off

We stopped for lunch at Hungry Herbie's

It was a slow ride to Prince George, but we finally made it to our hotel by 5:30 ish.

Next stop...Smithers, British Columbia
xo

Hopping to Hope, British Columbia

We left Oympia, WA and headed for Hope, British Columbia.

It started out a bit chilly but by the time we crossed the border into Canada, it was sunny and warm.   Couldn't ask for better weather.

As we headed North from Olympia, here was nothing much to see on the I-5, we detoured into Bellingham, Washington for lunch.  Downtown Bellingham is a cute area.   There were lots of quaint shops, restaurants and an amazing amount of places to buy coffee.   Lots going on in the area.

We found a lovely spot on a harbor to have lunch.   The restaurant, Anthony's was a perfect spot to have yummy seafood on our way out of the US.

We got to the border and spent about 20 minutes in line to get into Canada.

The views are magnificent every where you look!

One of the issues we had was trying to figure out the speed limits....110 km/h made no sense to us and the American made Harley.  If we were in my car, we would not have had a problem.

Hope is a beautiful little area on the Fraser River.    Apparently a Rambo movie, First Blood, was filmed here and there is a special tour that you can take to see all the spots from the film!

We made great time and pulled into the Colonial 900 Motel where we were greeted by Madonna, a 70 - 80 ish yr old lovely lady cleaning the rooms and generally being in charge until the owner got back.   She was a delight, and managed to give me her life story as she asked me to help her carry the vacuum back to the office for her.

We have ended the evening having dinner at the Olympic Flame Greek Restaurant next to the Motel.  The food was great and the belly dancers were fun...however there were only 3 tables filled and it was a bit awkward!

We're on our way to Prince George in the morning.

Oooh my...Olympia, Washington

We started our morning in Salem.  We decided to ride to Portland, Oregon for breakfast at the original "Original Pancake House".   So yummy!

                                  Jono had an omelet!

I had a mini helping of pancakes ...Yum!

After breakfast, we headed to a Langlitz Leathers in Portland.  They will make leather anything...shirts, vests, jackets, chaps, pants....to your specs.   Fun to just look around the shop and watch the folks putting all the stuff together.

 Portland is crowded place.   We got stuck in traffic, between the cars, street cars, the trucks and the trains...we felt like home except we were totally lost!   Construction everywhere!   Yikes.

        We finally made it out of Oregon and into Washington State.

Our planned stop for the night was Kelso, WA....as we got closer to the hotel we both realized that there was no way in hell we would stay at that place.  A slight detour was made to pick up the Satellite phone and off we went heading to another, more civilized place.

We ended up in Olympia, WA which is a bit of a mix between Venice, CA and Main St, Santa Monica.   It's a lovely area with a harbor and neat shops.

Jono and I were amazed that all through Oregon and Washington we did not need to wear a jacket.  The weather has been absolutely perfect so far.

We're off to dinner...see ya in British Columbia   xo

Suddenly Salem, Oregon

We made it to Salem, Oregon however we had planned on getting to Kelso, Washington...we got side tracked again!

We got a late start leaving Medford....We got lost in the Fred Meyer's Store.    Oh well.....
We decided to head to Crater Lake (a bit out of our way, but certainly a place not to be missed!)

The weather was perfect.  We didn't need our jackets for the entire way up to the lake.

The first stop was the Upper Rogue River Gorge.   Amazing!

There was so much to see, smell and hear!

 

I hope you can view and hear this 12 second video.

We entered the US National Park - Crater Lake and I got to use my very own  LIFETIME SENIOR PASS!    Oh yeah!

The pics just don't do it justice.   It's a place that everyone needs to visit.

We stopped for lunch at the Crater Lake Lodge and took in the views from the restaurant area!

It's a beautiful old (1923) Lodge overlooking Crater Lake.

We headed back down the mountain, with jackets this time...it was much colder.The snow was still on the ground.

 We had a bit of a traffic jam as the road crews cleaned up the mini rock slide just below the lake.We decided not to try to make it to Kelso, Washington and planned on staying in Salem, Oregon instead.  We were greeted with:

Next stop will most definitely be Kelso, Washington.

xo