Leaving Penticton, BC we ride the wine and fruit route south to Osoyoos and the border crossing back into the U.S. Orchards and wineries line the highway as traffic slowly makes its way south. We spend some of our remaining Canadian cash to buy cherries at one of the numerous fruit stands.
While we were in Fort St. John, Diane saw that A&W was going to start offering the ‘Beyond Burger’ (meatless patty). For the last couple of days she has been wanting to try one before leaving Canada. As we rode through the town called Oliver I spot an A&W and pull over. Not only was it pricey, it was just OK. The patties taste much better when grilled which we have done at home. Too much sauce for my taste as well. After that early lunch we continue on towards the border.
Crossing back into the U.S. is an uneventful affair with maybe a 15 minute wait in line. Not bad at all. Our destination for the day is the Grand Coulee Dam which I remembered from a PBS documentary and wanted to see. A relative short ride for us and the first day with no rain in a while. In fact, it got a little toasty with temps inching into the 90’sºF. After some grocery shopping in Omak, WA we take highway 155 through the Indian reservation and into town. A nice ride through the mountains with big sweepers, Diane’s kind of ride.
After stopping at the Grand Coulee Dam visitor center we look for the state park I had picked out earlier in the day. When we got there it turned out to only be a ‘Vista point’, no camping. Oops. Thankfully, as we were leaving the Coulee Dam visitor center I saw a sign for Spring Canyon State Park campground so we doubled back and went to check out the campground.
Score. They had two camping sections. The first one was on a hill with slopes everywhere and was fairly crowded. It didn’t look like there would be anywhere flat enough to pitch our tent. On the other hand, the second loop was almost deserted because large sections were closed to tenters due to grass watering. We found a site that was available with a dirt area big enough to pitch our tent.
Besides being quiet (no traffic noise) there were only three other campers around this loop and everyone was nicely spread out. Our kind of camping. As we were setting up, one of the other campers, Jim, stopped by for a chat. He was trailering his BMW R1200GS Adventure behind his RV. While we were talking with Jim, David from Seattle pulled in on his VStrom 650 and joined us. We ended up sitting at Jim’s RV having drinks and beer late into the evening :-).
Todays route.
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- one of the many fruit and vegetable stands between Penticton and Osoyoos.
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- picked some up for later
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- many vineyards along the same route as well
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- passing through Oliver, BC
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- Diane wanted to try one of these burgers. Time to spend our CAD cash.
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- Shortly after crossing the border back into the U.S.
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- the fruit and vineyard theme from BC continues for a while into WA
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- main street Tonasket, WA
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- getting drier and warmer as we head south on highway 97
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- highway 155 through the Indian reservation to Coulee Dam
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- this nice admin building popped out of nowhere and stands in stark contrast to some of the other homesteads we saw along the road
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- brush fire in the distance
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- getting closer to Coulee Dam
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- highway 155 right through the residential district
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- Grand Coulee Dam
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- visitor center
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- Lake Roosevelt
