July 3 Fort St. John to the Shephard's Inn

July 3 Monday - still the holiday weekend even though everything was shut on Saturday. Another easy day 46 kilometres, 6 of them going back and forth in town picking things up.

I started out riding to McDonald's intending to have breakfast but they had experienced a power outage so they were closed. They said it would be 15 to 20 minutes before they opened again. I headed back to the Safeway store to buy some bananas and to replace the meal I had eaten and pick up stuff for lunch for the next couple of days. When I came out there was a another tourist's bike leaning against the wall. I stuck around to see if I was right in my guess that he would be German - mountain bike and Ortlieb panniers. No, I was wrong. He was Japanese and he was headed south so my hopes of having someone to ride with for a while were dashed. His English was limited but he did convey that he was going to South America.

I headed back to McDonald's - it was about 10:30 but breakfast was no longer being served so I had another cup of coffee knowing there was a restuarant only about 10 kms down the road. As I approached it I imagined that I saw a closed sign so I was desperately hungry at that point. But no, it was open so I ordered the favourite Denver sandwich with fries and iced tea. Leaving there, it seemed the road was more downhill than up and as time went by, the tail wind picked up. Except for the heat, the ride was very good. I got to the Shepherd's
Inn at about 2:15, had a cup of coffee and asked if I could camp. They weren't prepared to take campers yet but were more than happy to let me take a shower. I cleaned up and waited for Jim to show up. He arrived at 4:30, earlier than I expected.