Well, goodbye, new friend. Boston Pizza was good to the Blackhawks and then good to the Warriors, so that’s a start. But it was the Logpile Lodge, Barbara and Chris that made our stay great. And Rob the cab driver. The whole town was filled with kind and generous people, at the restaurants or just walking around. Even the conspiracy wack job at the laundromat was engaging, if in need of a slight electro shock.

Smithers has taught me that there are more shades of green extant than I had even considered. And I am red/green colorblind. STILL it pops everywhere. Where is Bubba Gump when you need him? I saw olive, forest, hunter, lime, dusty, apple, kelly, bright, chartreuse, mint, emerald, verdant, teal, seafoam, with envy, around the gills, goddess, Pumpsie and Robert (for those who know The Mayor) green!

But it’s how Smithers is easy on the eyes that compels.

It was hard enough to leave, so I filmed it. It starts with a Charlie dance – always a bonus.

See for yourself how beautiful this lodge and town is, on our way out….

AND there’s a Tim Horton’s! That exclamation point is a relic of a day when TH baked their own donuts and bagles in store. Uhh, no. Now it’s a sad reminder of how lousy chain food can be. After eating some bacon-flavored cardboard, we were engaged by some older bikers (yeah, imagine) who enjoyed telling us about our bikes, where we should go and what we should do. It was fun to be the cool kids, but a pretty easy compare. We smiled and nodded, a lot, and headed ouwt, ay?

Most of the day was spend on the remote Cassiar Highway, a relatively newly-paved standard that gets narrower and rougher as we head north. Our first stop on the Cassiar was Gitanyow, the last gas headed north for 135 miles on an Indian reservation. Note that at the pump, we are non-status, and welcome to use Pump #2.

At Bell 2, we stopped for lunch and had surprisingly good salads and became introduced to our new friends, the bugs. Huge spruce beetles, tiny mosquitos and butterflies that had been sacrificing themselves on the alters of Harley, Triumph and BMW were now on our glasses if not in our teeth. The salad was a better refresher. I got back on the bike tired and needed to sing at the top of my voice to scare myself in ways I did not want the road to. Success.

All was surprisingly sunny, fast and fair, with occasional visibility dance party exceptions of a quick and bone-chilling rainstorm 70% of the way there and 10 minutes of hail before breaking through into sunshine at Dease Lake.

We saw wildlife (black bears) and too much wilddead, primarily rabbit. How could the sparse Cassiar traffic sacrifice so many rabbits? Crows were always there to try to wake them up and point them out to us.

The Cassiar is exceptional. Almost nothing there – a corridor of green and narrow. Beautiful vistas and an ever narrowing, less traveled road. It may be hell on tires, but it grips like crazy for motorcycles, and through Dease Lake, anyway, it’s been safe and a blast to ride.

Seeing the black bears was a treat – a couple by the side of the road just gazing at us as we motored by. Lots of signs about moose and caribou, but so far we are left jumping at moose shadows.

As for leaving Smithers, we left beauty and quite a bit of civilization. At Dease Lake (population 450,) the beauty is NOT joined by a pub or restaurant to watch the Blackhawks win the cup. There is no restaurant. Our humble rooms at the Arctic Divide motel are nice, but just that. We had sandwiches, Cheesies, Ketchup flavored potato chips and Smarties for dinner with Kokanee and Canadian beers over hockey and cribbage. Ay? I can feel my vowels getting longer and a Mazda in the plaza for pasta sounding decidedly like something that might be uttered on a chesterfield. While scarfing a cup of cheesies.

Oh, yeah, and Doug, thanks for all the cash from the cribbage games. It seems fun and I really appreciate you reviewing the rules with me again so I can play. Need a hat?