19 August 2012 – Since we had time and nothing else to do but wait and talk we figured out the options.
There was no way Louise wanted to ship the bikes and she didn’t want to cut my trip short by heading straight home. So we figured if we have to ride 3 days to get home, we might as well ride the three days to Nakusp, then we could rest up for a few days before heading home over 2 days. So I modified the plan and figured that we could head back to Jasper, then to Clearwater, BC., then Vernon, BC, and then Nakusp.
While it looks like Louise is going to cry, she’s actually just making a sad face
Finally released from the hospital at about 5am, we headed back to the hotel to sleep for as long as we could and we’d just take it easy for the rest of the day. I had already called the hotel to get the room for an extra night – turns out that the hotel had already earmarked our room for someone else, so they had to do some juggling to make everything work. I have to admit I did use the “sick wife card” to get the guy to do what I wanted – which was to not move rooms.
Later on in the early afternoon while Louise snoozed, I got bored and decided to go clean the bugs off the front of the bikes. So I popped down to the lobby and asked the front-end folks if I could borrow some rags, a bucket and some detergent.
After a few minutes of calling and to and fro, they came up with an old bucket, some rags and some detergent. There was no obvious convenient place to fill the bucket with water, so … I filled it up in the bathroom and went on out to the parking lot to wash things up.
It was blazingly hot outside in the sun, but I did manage to get the bug guts off the bikes and they looked a lot better.
Later we had dinner at the Five Guys Burger and Fries a short walk up the road. It was the first time I’d been to one, but Louise had been to one in Calgary before and knew what to do and expect. It was a good burger, not the best ever, but pretty good. On the way back to the hotel we stopped by the Starbucks for a triple vente extra-hot latte for me and a Chai Tea latte for Louise.
Now by this time, Louise was feeling much better, still in discomfort most of the time, but only in pain if she twisted or stretched or something, so we were feeling pretty confident that we’d be ok riding on as long as we took it easy.
Day 6 loomed ahead.
On The Road with Ian & Louise 