July 13, 2023
In Penticton: the ride to the south
A five bird day! I haven’t had a day like this since February back in SLO and Morro Bay, when I spotted 35 new species in five days.
So that’s exciting. Also though we enjoyed a pretty nice bike ride, an out and back south of town. It’s another repeat - we followed the exact same course five years ago on our ride to Osoyoos - though like yesterday we didn’t realize this until the night before when I finally got around to rereading the journal of our previous visit to the region. Not only did I not remember we’d ridden this way, but neither of us even remembered we’d ever been to Osoyoos. This came up on our drive to Penticton yesterday when we passed the turnoff to Osoyoos and Rachael remarked that the name sounded familiar. I assured her that we’d never been there, and speculated that it sounded familiar just because we’d have seen signs for it last time around.
No matter. It’s a fine ride, easily worth repeating every five years.
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Near the south end of the lake, we leave Eastside Road for McLean Creek Road as it skirts around a prominent formation that rises above the lake. Continuing beside the lake on Eastside Road is also possible, but not today - it’s closed through this stretch for a construction project. It’s just as well, because otherwise we’d have missed McLean. It’s a beautiful ride, easily worth the bit of additional climbing involved.
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Just before Okanagan Falls we come to the turnoff for Oliver Ranch Road, another cycling delight with a feeling similar to McLean. I say we, but I really mean I because Rachael left me behind at the cedar waxwing sighting. I assume she’s a mile or two ahead of me by now and I’m starting to keep an eye out for her coming back at me but I really don’t know because for some reason our Garmins aren’t talking to each other today so I don’t know her location.
A mile into Oliver Ranch Road the phone rings. She’s come to a barricade and is turning back, and wants to let me know. It takes some back and forth before we figure out what has happened and where we are with respect to each other. When she dropped down to Okanagan Falls, her Garmin steered her back north toward Penticton on Eastside Road, and she’s come to the same barricade she encountered from the other side earlier. As a result she’s actually behind me, not ahead, and we’re less than a quarter mile apart.
I pedal slowly for a bit waiting for her to catch up until I come to the long drop to Vaseux Lake and wait there in case she wants to take any video on the descent. And she does.
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Oliver Ranch Road ends at its junction with Highway 97. This was our planned turnback spot, so once we bottom out we just turn around and start climbing again, retracing our route back to Penticton. We get about halfway up this climb when I decide to stop for a shot of Rachael on it, and that’s all she needs to make her escape. I won’t see her again until we’re both back at the room.
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One of the nice things about kingbirds is that they’re easy to spot and identify - larger and more colorful than the other flycatchers, and not as shy.
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Video sound track: In Your Own Sweet Way, by Dave Brubeck
In other news
So now we know. Dr. Lin contacted me yesterday to see if October 31st would work as a surgery date. My first thought was that it was too early, and besides it’s Halloween, which sounds ominous. After sleeping on it and talking it through this morning though, we’ve changed our minds. Other than leaving us with a pretty short tour of Spain this fall it actually works out pretty well. We’ll have reached Valencia, the planned end point of the tour, in time to fly home for the surgery; so the impact will be that we’ll lop off the two weeks on Mallorca we were planning at the end.
Which will leave us with roughly a seven week tour, the shortest overseas tour we’ve taken since going vagabond. On the other hand though, it’s still longer than any other tour we’d ever taken before then.
After living with the uncertainty for the last few months it’s nice to finally know so that we can resolve some outstanding issues about this fall and winter. We’ve been thinking about it for awhile so it doesn’t take long to settle everything. We talk it through over pizzas at Trattoria Napolitano and then walk back to the room and get to work. In addition to cancelling our bookings in Mallorca, we booked a return flight from Valencia, booked an Airbnb in Portland for the month of November, booked another one in Tucson for six weeks, and sent off an inquiry to a hotel in Valencia to see if they’ll hold our suitcases for a couple of months.
And, since that’s not quite enough planning for one night, we also roughed out a concept for next year. Assuming everything goes well this winter, we’re thinking of another nine month tour next year - three months in the Schengen Zone, three in the U.K. again, and then back to the Schengen. Under our current thinking we’d start about the first of March, somewhere far enough south that it works that early in the year. Mallorca would be just right.
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2023 Bird List
164. Cliff swallow
165. Cedar waxwing
166. Killdeer
167. Eastern kingbird
168. California quail
Today's ride: 43 miles (69 km)
Total: 672 miles (1,081 km)
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When do we get to see what seven weeks in Spain looks like?
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