Yesterday (Saturday), I chose not to ski. Not sure why, but it just wasn't in my head even though it was sunny, no wind and about -2C. Carolyn went out for a few hours in the morning/lunch time.
About mid afternoon, we decided to head down into Vernon to have a look around. On the way down (from 1640M ASL to 430M ASL - hmm... think Tour de France, and this is in about 10k's), C thought that a tour over to Sun Peaks might be worth while as it was an option for us to ski. Especially since the Garmin Nuvi only said that it was 80k's away. One right turn later and a quick stop at Tim's (nope, didn't win anything), we were headed up Hwy 97 towards Kamloops.
At the end of 97, we did a right turn (high speed ramp actually--I guess for the truck run outs in case they are brakeless), and about 10k's later, we turned right on a very high arc 1 lane bridge of the Salmon Arm river.
Now, you know your in trouble when your GPS says "turn right on unpaved road". OK, right it is. Funny, 'did you see any signs for Sun Peaks?'. Nope.
Next command from the Nuvi is 'Continue for 37 kilometers on unpaved road'. This can't be good. I can now start to hear the banjo's playing (no, we weren't listening to the Bluegrass channel on Sirius). By now it is 5pm and the GPS is saying we should be there by 5:42. Hmmm... this dirt road winds its way straight up and all we see is some pretty bare field.
At that point, I check the Nuvi (GPS). There is a part called 'Avoidances' in the navigation. I guess when I was storm chasing with Ron last week and we were doing cross country near Austin Texas, I had turned off the part that says 'avoid unpaved roads'. The Nuvi, doing what it was told, did find us the fastest route to Sun Peaks. Not the way the brochure would wish you to go, but, as always, it will get you there.
After checking google maps on my Blackberry, we decided that this is NOT the right or tourist way to Sun Peaks, so we turned around and headed back towards Hwy 97 and start our return Vernon.
Our Ford Edge rental from Budget is now coated in DIRT. I hope that is OK, as I was warned that since it is an SUV, that I do have to stay on paved roads.
Since this is the first time we have driven the Edge in the dark, we noticed that you can switch the colour of the interior floor lighting and the rings around the cup holders to about 8 different colours (I can hear Ted saying 'come on!' already).
Today is our last day on the mountain. Not a cloud in the sky and you can see forever.
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