16 days and an open road. Silver and I braved the cold and rain while on the beautifully cut out roads of the Kootenays, enjoyed the hot sun and wines of the Okanagan desert, relaxed on the warm coast, conquered the freezing temperatures and rain of the Rockies, and then endured the arduous ride home across the prairie through the rain. Around every corner were great friends, great company, and great food.

These have been the greatest days.

The hardest thing about being home is that it is just so hard to believe that it is over. These tours are something I look forward to all year- from the first day I get home. It feels like the day after New Year’s Day…Christmas holidays are over and now you have to wait an entire year to enjoy them again. At least I have many good times in between to look forward to!

I always try to learn something or grow somehow on these tours. It’s nice to come home a little bit different somehow. Part of the fun of being on the bike is the hours and hours of solitude and time to reflect. While the bike offers enough mental stimulation with the scenery and the act of riding itself, there is a lot of time to generate ideas and think about the future.

So, here’s an analysis of the trip’s noteworthy components:

Wine

I ended the tour with 18 bottles of wine from 14 different wineries. Considering that many of these are intended to be gifts this was a very modest year in terms of wine. The biggest reason for this was budget (don’t get into politics if you ever want to have money), but I also have a healthy collection at home of about 60 or 70 bottles of BC wine from previous tours. I’ll have to count one of these days. The problem is that EACH bottle is special so I always want to enjoy them with somebody special or for a special occasion. Unfortunately those opportunities just never come up and I refuse to open these rare bottles without a good reason to do so.

Point being: if I have shared or have offered to share my BC wine with you, then you are somebody special.

This year had a different vibe in that while I was very satisfied with the standard top- notch wineries like Cedar Creek, Summerhill, and Quail’s Gate, I was looking for something more. That’s why I enjoyed going to the smaller wineries I had not been to like Silk Scarf and 8th Generation. I was really into new experiences, and the smaller, family owned wineries usually offer something unique.

Length

The tour itself was short, with a planned 13 day calendar that was extended to 16 at the very end. The planned 13 is modest in that the last three tours have been 20-22 days long. The only drawback to this schedule was that I covered a lot of kilometres in a short amount of time…which tired me out most days and is the cause of my rampant fatigue. In retrospect I would not change a thing, but I might not have taken such circuitous routes places just to shorten the travel time.

Roads

The routes I took offered a few new roads I haven’t been on- most notably the road from Rock Creek to Kelowna, the roads from New Denver to Castlegar to Rossland, and the road from Cache Creek to Kamloops. All of the others have been experienced on past trips and at this point there are only a few little roads in southern BC that I have not ridden on.

People

I love being alone with my thoughts, music, and imagination on the road. However, after a few days of that it is really nice to see people…especially fun people who are great friends and fun to be around.

Our wine touring crew has been going four years strong and it still rockin’ more than ever. Everyone is out to have a good time…cool and laid back…they’re an awesome group to be with in the desert. Staying with Scott and Gill in Port Moody was awesome. Even after two days I felt totally laid back and relaxed after hanging out with them. And the food was amazing…but not as good as the company.

Visiting my cousin Lara and her boyfriend Shane offered a good time to catch up, as did seeing Leanne in Vancouver. These are people I only get to see once a year if I’m lucky, so I was fortunate to have the opportunity.

The group in Canmore was interesting for the tour because most of the people there were familiar faces from home (or around home). It was a good foreshadow of getting back to reality but we were out of Saskatchewan context so there was definitely a different vibe. There were also new friends I met in this situation so the dynamic was very complex and it really worked! No awkward decision making drama…just a good time with good people.

Close Call

The episode on the highway to Vancouver scared the living daylights out of me. It has weighed on my mind ever since it happened and has affected my behaviour severely.

It is amazing how a person reacts when things are put into perspective like that. I recall very clearly sitting in the rest area after it happened, and how I felt and what I did. I recall feeling both scared and relieved. I recall the two people that I wanted to phone, but called neither for fear of worrying them. I recall the shock on my face when I saw my bald tire. I recall my hands shaking uncontrollably.

After that moment on the road nothing in the world mattered except for the real important stuff. That is the lesson of this tour above all others- focus on the important stuff. The rest is fun and can be important but without those basics…what’s the point? I mean…we only get one chance to live in this world…so why let the small stuff take over your life?

Friends…family…happiness and passion…relationships with each other…those are what are really important.

The Shocking Conclusion

In Penticton I announced to our group that this was going to be my last tour for a while.

This decision was made before I even left. It breaks my heart to even think about it because the tours are sacred to me, but I just don’t see how it will be possible to get away for more than a long weekend next summer. There is an election that Fall and all of my energy will need to focus on that. It was difficult enough getting away this year.

Whether or not the tours resume after a year off remains is unknown. There are far too many variables to consider. I always knew I couldn’t do this forever and wanted to take the chance while I was still young, mobile, and free, and these are all disappearing on me…

…and I’ll have to go find some other Thing To Do.
Of course, I still have the wines. Every time I have a good bottle of Syrah on a cold Fall evening, some baked oysters with a Chardonnay, or even a nice little evening of Ehrenfelser on a patio I can be taken right back to the tour. I’ll just have to imagine.

Here’s the whole tour: