North to Alaska: Day 44

Welcome! Day 44 (Sept 21) of North to Alaska

Quote: “Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.” Charles Kuralt, On the Road with Charles Kuralt

Today we arrived in Osoyoos. Scenery wise, I thought today would be much like the last couple of days. Boy was I in for a surprise. We started out around nine heading south. The first part of the drive was as I expected. Good road, rolling hills, light rain and little traffic. All in all a nice day for a leisurely drive. After a couple of hours we turned off of Highway 97 onto Highway 8. We immediately found ourselves in the mountains. Highway 8 was paved but much narrower than 97. It also had some sharp turns that hugged the mountain. We also went up and down a good bit. I stopped at one pull out and took some pictures. Once we hit Highway 5, like an Interstate highway, the curves were not as pronounced but we climbed to new highs. I had cruise control set at 68 since the speed limit was 110KPH. After one long climb we started down. On the way down I noticed two separate places for run-a-way trucks. At one point I looked at my speed and noticed I was approaching 90MPH. I quickly started slowing down. I paid a little more attention to the other downhill runs. After we left Highway 5 we reconnected with Highway 97. This part of 97 was similar to Highway 8 as far as scenery but not nearly as hard to drive. All and all an enjoyable drive of nearly 7 hours.

We are staying at a real Holiday Inn, not the Express one. It is a nice change to be in a real motel with hot tub, exercise room, and restaurants. This is the best place we have stayed in many a night. It is off season and the cost is no more than the Super 8 from last night.

Tomorrow we will be in the lower 48, as it is called up here in the great northwest.