It was time to head home.  The only hurry was to do it before the weather changed.  Leaving the Fraser Valley on September 26, I had noticed the information sign before we got to Hope:  Winter Tires required from October 1.  We hadn’t thought about this since we’ve never travelled in the fall and we don’t usually put the winter tires on until ski season is imminent.  Winter tires aren’t required in Greater Vancouver, but “you are responsible for equipping your vehicle properly for the conditions you are driving in”.  So our goal was to get home before any snow flew in the passes and triggered snow tire checks.

It was looking to be a beautiful day and we had no reason to rush, so we took the long way home.  The scenery was lovely—I’ve never travelled in the fall before, being always either in school or working.  Wow!  We took the Coquihalla Connector to Merritt, then Hwy 8 (no shoulders, little traffic, but what there was was mostly loaded logging trucks), Hwy 1 to Lytton (the town was “closed" so we had to go back to the roadside diner out of town for lunch), Hwy 12 to Lillooet, and Hwy 99 home.  We didn’t go into Lillooet so have no idea whether the town was open to visitors.  A loop through Merritt, Lytton, Lillooet, and Pemberton would be a great cycle trip—if the towns were all open and the highways weren’t so scary.  Maybe it’s not as bad as it looked from the car.  On a bike you’d be able to hear the logging trucks.

My apologies. I only took a couple of photos from the car and they aren't really worth posting.