Hello Horsefly!

Short Version:
Clean clothes, grimy town. We leave Williams Lake in search of somewhere prettier to drink delicious Chocolate Porter

Long Version:
We went to Williams Lake town, to a laundromat. There were pieces of kids' art on the walls, one of which caught my eye: a pretty flower in a field, with rain. Not a bad summation of Williams Lake. Apart from, maybe, the pretty flower.

There was a bunch more riding to be done around Williams Lake, but we were starting to feel depressed by the grimness of the industrialism, and so decided to head for somewhere with a more enticing name: Horsefly. In truth, we'd been told the area around Horsefly was lovely, and it was close enough to hand that we could easily come back through if the desire to ride more began to outweigh the desire not to be in Williams Lake. More likely, though, was the road through Likely and onwards north from there.

The balance of power in the forests shifted markedly even in the short eastward distance we covered, from predominantly-conifer to mainly birch. The varying shades of green from the larger, deciduous leaves lent an autumnal feel to the woods, as did the red dead leaves on the dead bushes beneath the roadside powerlines. A number of quality free campsites meant this area featured heavily in our dirtbag camping guidebook*, and the two we eyeballed before settling in at Rafter Creek were certainly among the nicer ones we've encountered. Rafter Creek was just as good, and had the added advantage of campsite seclusion, provided by thick stands of trees between campsites. Oh, and there was only one other couple within cooee. Sweet.

We strolled on the stony beach, and drank the secret Chocolate Porter** I'd had stashed in my luggage since Vancouver, and pretty soon we were feeling right as rain again. The only real negative was the lack of wildlife compared to Forest Lake, but then we turned away from where we'd been watching columns of rain marching across the northern arm of Quesnel Lake in front of the last of the day's light, and saw a young bear walking away from us along the beach. He was no more than ten metres from us at that point, and we wondered how close he'd gotten, and how long he'd been there before we'd turned around.

It was significantly warmer at Rafter Creek than it had been at Forest Lake, but the mist on the lake and clouds draping the hills on the far side of the water were a now-familiar sight. As was the fact that it had rained heavily overnight, and was still raining when we hauled ourselves out of the Reaper, bleary-eyed and yawning. The squirrels were busy hoarding pinecones, which was a striking contrast to their cousins at Lake Tyax, who we'd watched eating half berries and discarding the other half in order to pluck new ones from the heavily-laden bushes. Maybe pinecones keep better than berries do.

Our good moods from the previous evening had not faded overnight, so we made our way across a river with a STOP sign planted mid-current and into Likely, where we bought a lottery ticket. I like buying lottery tickets in small towns we pass through - I like to imagine that we'll win, and that the town will be thrown into disarray as the assumedly-local big winner continues to delay claiming the prize. I imagine suspicion and conflict rife throughout the district; cousin-spouses searching each other's possessions; neighbours breaking in to others' houses to rifle drawers in search of the winning slip. And then we claim the prize, five hundred miles away. And buy a lot of Chocolate Porter.






* = "Camp Free (Or Really Cheap) in B.C.," in case anyone's seeking a copy with less stains and rips than ours

** = Chocolate Porters are the most delicious beers in the world.