The Rally

The 2007 Western Rally was my first rally. I'd only had my bike a year at that point, and only a few thousand miles logged, but I was beginning to feel comfortable and confident on the bike and I was eager to make a long trip. I had stumbled across the Volusia Riders website when I first bought the bike, and initially was impressed with the amount of information available on the website. I mostly browsed the site, reading the discussions that interested me or looking for an answer to a question I had. I never expected it would become a part of my daily life...or help me spend so much money.

My biggest mistake was not bringing a camera. All of the pictures here were taken and shared by others after the rally. (Thanks to those who did take pictures, and to Warren & Polo who got me started on these blogs).

Over the winter I began following the discussion planning the Western Rally. Unlike many of the rides & rallies on the website, this one is not at the same place each year. Ideas just seem to get tossed around in "committee" until one is chosen. Alberta Rider had already "pre-scouted" a Creston rally, and pushed it as this year's site. I was excited when Creston was chosen, since it is only a few hours from Spokane. That would make it relatively easy for me to attend, and without the concerns of a long extended trip. Even though it was close, it was my first rally, I didn't know anyone (except aVOL2) and lots of questions went through my mind. Would I be able to do that much riding? Would I fit in with a group of bikers? Would I like the people and would they like me?

Of course, now I've discovered that group of "bikers" is just a bunch of great people who enjoy riding. And now, several rallies, rides & road trips later I'm always looking forward to the next one.

The general schedule for the rally was to arrive in Creston Thursday afternoon and leave Sunday morning (June 21-24). Through the course of the discussion, Duffy & I had hooked up to share a room. My initial plan was to take vacation and visit mom in Seattle that week and then ride to Creston with Duffy & Crochammer on Thursday. As it turned out, I couldn't get time off until Thursday, but decided to make a longer ride out of it anyway. On Thursday I left early, headed west through Grand Coulee, to Omak, and then north into Canada. I met up with Duffy & Crochammer for lunch in Osoyoos, BC and then we rode Highway 3 to Creston together. For me, the ride was about 450 miles that day -- about double my longest ride at that point -- but, a great ride and none of the fatigue (but my first 2 bee stings) I was so worried about. I've always enjoyed road trips & driving and that day I started to realize, the same was true for trips on the bike.

The setting in British Columbia was idyllic. The area is beautiful, very lush & forested, with lots of water and mountain views. The roads were not always perfect, but overall, were good, very lightly traveled and a lot of fun. The area is quite popular with motorcycles and several of the roads we were on were designated as Destination Highways (top rides for scenery & twisties). The pictures I have from the rally don't often do the scenery justice, but what really struck this American was how pristine and untouched the region was. Back home similar scenery would have been dotted with homes, scarred with roads and clear-cut lumbering, random "developments, " the ocassional abondoned property or vehicle...you name it. Here it was the ocassional small town, maybe some small farms and then just unspoiled countryside (obviously much less populated region, but still...).

Thursday's rally schedule was simply to arrive & check-in, and then head to dinner as a group. Dinner was about 30-45 minutes north of town, in Sirdar, at the local pub. We just missed the group, but when we asked for directions the clerk at the motel told us just head north, "you can't miss it."

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The bikes at the Sirdar Pub.

Not sure if we had it reserved, but we had the upstairs "banquet room" all to our selves.

Curler, Hiway Thunder, son Jason, Duffy and Wood Welder.
Crochammer, Kitchen Magician, Don & SO, DanEBoy and wife Debbie, Noodles & Krusty, jmax99, Boulvdozer.

The motel turned out to be a great little place for us. I believe we had all the rooms rented and a few folks spilled over into another motel a few blocks away. The nice part was there were 4 acres attached behind the motel, with a lawn area, picnic table and gazebo. A perfect spot for a little socializing between rides.

DanEBoy testing an alternative ride. Dan's trailer is in the background -- he trailered the bike over from western Washington, since his wife doesn't ride, and after the rally they were heading to the midwest to visit a friend. Kitchen Magician, Wood Welder, Alberta Rider (and friend) and Krusty.

Don, his girlfriend, and Curler.

Hiway Thunder and his son Jason.

Friday's schedule called for a "short" ride -- West on Hwy 3, making a loop through Salmo, Castlegar and Nelson, then back through Ymir to Creston.

Being the rally virgin, I learned an early lesson. When the time came to saddle up, I was the only one not topped off with fuel. Ooops! Probably wouldn't have happened, except that after dinner (while others were no doubt fueling up), I went along on an extra ride with DanEBoy and Alberta Rider and got back after dark. Anyway, I recalled seeing a few fuel stations at the edge of town near the highway junction so I took off to fuel up (I passed a few stations, but wanted to hit the Shell to use my card). When I got to the stations, turned out they were corporate fleet stations so I had to double back into town through traffic and find a station. Cost me a fair amount of time and on a different street so I missed the group and ended up a bit behind.

The valley near Creston.

Heading up to the pass.

A caught up with the group, when they pulled over near the summit to get a group shot at the lake.

The next day, we actually had a rather close enounter with a "spooked" moose that ran out into the road at this spot (about where the semi truck is). There are frequent roadside critters in Canada...you always need to be on the lookout.

I had a minor dilemma on Friday. The rally coincided with a good friend moving from Spokane and her going-away party was on Friday. I didn't want to miss the rally...or the party...so I had gone to the rally, and on Friday I went on the ride with the group, but decided I would break off midway and head home. We had a good lunch at a sports bar/Pizza restaraunt in Castlegar -- the restaraunt had lots of pictures of local hockey legends, a few of the Canadians in the group had played in their younger days, and it is religion in Canada -- so we talked lots of hockey.

When we were back on the road, I broke off from the group at Nelson and took Hwy 6 south and headed for Spokane. I had about a 3 hour ride to get back home. The party was at 6pm and I got there a little bit after 6 o'clock. Nobody was expecting me (I was out of the country after all), and I didn't tell anyone I was coming, so before going in I traded a few text messages and said my goodbyes. Then I headed in to surprise her.

For everyone else, the plan was to cross the border into Idaho and have dinner at Feist Creek, a little north of Bonner's Ferry, ID. I had been there before, and really hated to miss the dinner, since it would be a great chance to get to know everyone better, but wanted to be back home for a close friend. Even though I couldn't attend...lots of shots from the Feist Creek dinner.

Rank & Librarian (Rick & Linda)

Vol210 (Jim) and Polovision (Paul) Wood Welder (Gary) and aVOL2 (Julie).

Canuck Rider (Al) and wife, Betty.

Duffy, Ronnie, Julie, Polo and Crochammer.

Betty, Linda, Rick, Alberta Rider (Warren).

As it turned out, it was about 1 am when I finally got home, back in Spokane. I got in a few hours of sleep and was back up at 5 am. I hit the road about 5:30 and headed back to Creston to join everyone for breakfast. By the time everyone had their first cup of coffee at about 8:30, I already had 150 miles and a few hours of riding in.

The Saturday ride: North up Kootenay Lake to Crawford Bay, take the free ferry to Balfour, north to Kaslo and across to New Denver, then south to Slocan, Castlegar and back through Salmo to Creston.

Alberta Rider leading the way...and always snapping pictures.

Waiting for the ferry at Crawford Bay, to take us across Kootenay Lake to Balfour. Unlike the expensive trips back home, this ferry is free (compliments of Canadian taxpayers, of course).

Tim showing Duffy and Crochammer the latest in GPS technology (now likely obsolete).

The small town of Kaslo was our lunch stop. A few of us stopped in this small sandwich & ice cream shop for lunch. In the back was an interesting museum with old mining history and artifacts. After our sandwiches, there was soft-serve licorice ice cream. I remember kidding Warren as we were outside enjoying our ice cream. Everyone had licorice except him. I pointed out to him that all the "bikers" had blue jeans, black leather and black ice cream. He, however, was wearing green denim and eating pink ice cream (strawberry I presume). I warned him that all the other bikers would soon be pointing at him, laughing and calling him names. He thought that was pretty funny.

The road from Kaslo to New Denver was lightly traveled and loaded with twisties. I believe this was one of British Columbia's Destination Highways. Either way it was a great road to ride.

We made a stop along the way to interrupt a picnic and get a group shot. The photo doesn't show it, but like most views in the area, mountain peaks were visible in the background.jmax99, Jason, Hiway Thunder, Alberta Rider, and Wood Welder.

Somehow, near the end of Saturday's ride we got split into two groups. While a few ended up ahead, most of the group was behind, and we opted for an emergency stop in Nelson on the way home. Sal was in desperate need of her afternoon espresso injection, and nobody wants to lose a rider, so we headed into Nelson for a little afternoon caffeine. Nelson appeared to me to be a more "touristy" type town -- sat right on the water, lots of street-front stores (no shopping centers), and very busy. Which of course, meant no parking so we ended up lining up most of the bikes curbside in a no parking zone. Actually, I don't think most of us even realized it. Anyway, of course a cop came along at some point and was prepared to ticket all the bikes. Kitchen Magician just happened to be outside and managed to talk him out of it. Or maybe even the cops are nice in Canada...or he looked at the plates, all from different states and providences and decided it wasn't worth it.

On the way back, near the summit we had a close call with a moose. Stu (Kitchen Magician) and I were riding 1-2, and as we approached the lake I noticed a man and a horse standing on the left side of the road. Funny how the mind works, that was the instantaneous recognition of the image -- then questions arose. Why would a man and a horse be standing alongside the road on Canadian mountain pass? After further review, it was determined it was actually a moose, and the man was slowly trying to approach it to take a picture (umm, maybe not a bright idea). All of this, of course, took less than a second or so to process while traveling towards the animal at about 60 mph. Then the moose spooked and darted into the road. I thought he might take out Stu (so did Stu!), but he stopped and Stu made it by. My next thought was he would split between us -- I was stopping hard and waving my left arm to slow the group. I was sure I could avoid the moose, but not sure about the risk behind me. But after a little stutter step, the moose turned around, maybe more spooked now by the rolling thunder of about 15 approaching bikes, and ran back towards the roadside idiot and over the bank towards the lakeshore. Thankfully, everyone behind me was able to slow down and avoid any collisions. My initial reaction was to go back and throttle the idiot, but we rode on.

Back at the motel, we were asked if we had a picture. Warren told us we needed a picture to validate and to make it a worthy story. This picture is the moose they saw. I'm sure our beast was a much more impressive animal, and of course a much more dangerous situation...but, alas, we didn't get a picture.

After the Saturday ride, we rode to Jimmy's in Creston, for dinner, a few drinks and some chat around the table on our last night together.

Polovision and Ronnie pointing the way to next year's rally.

An honorable mention for our server, Carla -- who managed to take care of an active and distracted group of bikers in fine fashion. She was also good enough to pick up half a dozen cameras or so to snap the same group shot around the pool table. Of course, she was also rather attractive and a bit of a sweetheart, so that may be the real reason this shot was snapped.

A few folks filtered out early, but before leaving we gathered around the pool table for the obligatory group shot.

Then it was back to the motel, for some late, last night socializing. All we needed was a campfire.

Kokanee (a member) was unable to attend, but did drop off some Kokanee (a beer) from Kokanee, his workplace in town (a brewery). And Julie (aVOL2) made us Jello shots and her famous "chocolate cake."

Noodles, Sal, Countersteer, Alberta Rider, and Rank.


Wood Welder, vol210, aVOL2, jmax99.

Rank, Wood Welder, Librarian, Boulvdozer, and Crochammer.

Sunday morning was time to head home. Many, who had a ways to go, got an early start and hit the road. I didn't have far to go so I took my time, had a late breakfast, and hung out in the parking lot with the last to leave. Since I had already been through 3 border crossings in 3 days, rather then heading south through the nearby crossing just outside Creston, I decided to go out of my way, to the east and try a 4th crossing at Kingsgate.

The rally turned out to be great success -- kudos to Warren (and some local contacts) for planning it out and putting together a great weekend. Some people arrived a little late or had to leave a little early and a few locals dropped in for only a portion of the event. Countersteer (Clint Oysterwood then) and aVOL2 actually drove in late by cage due to other obligations, and heck, I even left for a while. But I had a great time and met a lot of good people. Most of the folks at the rally I now consider friends and we have ridden together several times since.