The day before the mountains....

Hey all, we have successfully started our bike adventure with only a few minor glitches and are now sitting in the library in the town of Hope B.C. catching up on emails and the upcoming weather forecast. We started out at mile zero yesterday in Victoria B.C. with the help of Bill Basset (Katie's friend Carly's dad) who showed us how to get there and then biked with us for part of the way across the island. The Bassetts were really great to us and let us spend the night at their house as well as cooking us a gourmet dinner consisting of lamb, spinach casserole and strawberry shortcake.... oh and also a little wine! We left pretty early yesterday so that we could catch the 9:00 ferry that head to the main land...it was close but we made it and boarded the ferry at approximately 8:58! Once on the mainland we got some groceries and then a man suggested that we take a scenic route towards Abbotsford....let's just say the scenic route (although quite scenic) was also WAY out of the way and fortunately we realized this before we got too far. So, we biked on covering about 120km and eventually made it to a camp ground outside of Abbotsford called the Aloha trailer park...it was an interesting little trailer park and the owner Bertha offered us an expensive place to stay. It was also here that we found out we bought the wrong type of gas for our stove and therefore had no cooking capabilities. This is when we went back to Bertha and asked in a round-about fashion to use her stove. After quite a bit of persuasion she agreed and then proceeded to give us a tour of her home and her husband's works as a taxadermist (....yes, interesting...). I think Bertha actually enjoyed our company and in the morning came around with sweet trucker style Aloha trailer park hats! Today we were able to bike about 100km into the inter of B.C. and had the opportunity to take in the amazing scenery! This province is beautiful, however, I think I would enjoy it more if it would stop raining and warm up just a little...it would definitely make the nights spent in the tent more enjoyable! The terrain today was also quite enjoyable (without too many hills) and I think we are definitely dreading tomorrow's start into the mountains. Hope all is well at home...we'll be in touch again soon!