Lucy and Ricky

Lucy and Ricky (a.k.a. Janet & Kevin) woke up around 7:30am to Ricky throwing a pillow at Lucy from his own queen size bed across the room. Lucy slept all night without waking up which is very rare for her. The first task for the day was an early morning bike ride before breakfast so we got dressed and headed out to take the bikes down off the car rack. We rode across town and down to the park where we found a trail around part of the lake that later turned into a series of single track trails. Our favorite trail was the "Cedar" trail. Riding through it was like being transplanted into a place near the Russian River in California surrounded by enormous cedars. We had a great ride and after about an hour rode our bikes over to MacDonald's for a breakfast burrito. It seemed to be the most popular place in town and it took quite a while to get our food. There was a young couple at the table next to us who had shaved their one year old boy's head and had given him a mohawk. It was quite the striking haircut---he definitely stood out!
We rode back to the motel, locked our bikes up on our rack and went to our room where we spent the next hour or so working on our blog. We were just about to leave when we got a phone call from the front desk asking if we were checking out today because "check out time is 12 noon". We looked at the clock which read, 12:05pm. Yikes! Time had really gotten away from us. We had a long way to drive, and we still needed to stop at the grocery store for supplies. We pulled into the store's parking lot and walked over to get a shopping cart and found out that it cost a quarter to use a cart. Kevin found the thought of having to pay for a cart difficult and insisted that we use the red plastic baskets to shop with. Soon he was moaning that the baskets were too heavy and was now over the whole “quarter for a cart” issue. Groceries are expensive in Canada. One small can of Blue Diamond Almonds cost $5.69, and a six pack of Canadian pale ale is $14 dollars. We didn't buy the wine because a bottle of red wine that we'd pay $7 dollars for at home, cost about $24 dollars here. Also, the taxes in British Columbia on alcohol and hotels can be as high as 21%! But hey, the ice was free.
Finally we were ready to get on the road. We passed through more gorgeous country with a lake or snow covered mountain around each turn. We went through a town called, Sicamous, which boasts as being "the houseboat capital of the world". It did look that way as everywhere we looked, we saw houseboats. Shortly after "houseboat town", we drove passed a small store where Kevin spied a few people eating ice cream cones. He had to have one and got the car turned around in about 3 seconds. He was on a mission for ice cream. We went into the store and headed over to the ice cream counter. The young man at the counter asked us for our receipts which we didn't have, so he sent us over to the register across the store where we stood in line to pay for our $2.75 single scoop ice creams. With receipts in hand we went back to the ice cream counter to wait in line again. Kevin made it through the wait and soon it was our turn. The customer right before us had just been handed an ice cream cone that looked to be about 10 inches high. He mumbled something under his breath about only ordering a single; Kevin and I glanced at each other with that knowing look that we were sure he had really ordered a triple cone or bigger, and was now embarrassed about ordering such a huge amount. What a pig we thought! When Kevin was handed his cone, it was equally as big. These scoops were the largest we have ever seen. Kevin took on the same embarrassed look that the previous man had. I stopped the server when my cone reached about 4 inches, and it was still way too much ice cream, but boy was it delicious. We went outside to join all the other pigs. If you’re going to eat an ice cream cone of this size, it is better to be surrounded by a bunch of people doing the same thing. Pigs feel better in a pack. While working on our cones, we met a couple who have lived in the local area for the past 30 years. Over this period of time the husband had developed the advanced ability to eat a monster double scoop…this requires a big stomach and the ability to balance a quart of ice cream on a waffle cone. No easy task! They told us that the place we were planning to spend the night, Hope, BC, was where the Sylvester Stallone movie, "First Blood", was shot. We wiped the ice cream off our faces and headed back onto the highway. We passed by so many waterfalls, but there were no safe places to pull over and take pictures so we just kept moving. The weather turned colder and rain started to fall. We drove on for hours but the weather wasn't letting up. We stopped a couple times to look at campgrounds but with the rain it was hard to decide if we should camp or not. It would have been okay setting up camp but taking down a wet tent in the morning didn't sound very appealing. As we contemplated where to stay, we saw a sign that said, "Bridal Veil Falls"--2 Kilometers ahead. Glad to hopefully get a chance to photograph a waterfall, we eagerly followed the signs to it. We reached the parking lot and gathered up our cameras and tri-pods and headed off in the direction of the waterfall. A light rain was falling but the trail was short and we made it to the falls in a matter of minutes. It was a spectacular waterfall and we were glad we had stopped to see it. By the time we finished shooting the pictures, the rain had really started to pick up and we made the decision to find a motel to spend the night in. The GPS came in handy and we located a Days Inn Motel in the next town of "Chilliwack". Chilliwack sounded like a fun place to spend the night, and off we headed toward the motel. It was pouring rain as we pulled into the parking lot and we were grateful there was still room available. We were able to park our car right near the front door and Kevin backed the car in so we could unload our things under the porch awning. We barely got wet. We checked to make sure everything was locked up and that all three locks on our bikes were securely fastened. Janet asked the motel owner if it was a safe place to park and he answered that he couldn't provide security but he locked the front door of the motel at night. The room was okay--once again we slept Lucy and Ricky style--we were glad to be in a nice warm room hunkered down for this rainy night in Chilliwack, BC.