Epics And Road Trips - Osoyoos

We arrived in Osoyoos at dusk and got a room at the Best Western. We gussied ourselves up. Chris by doing pull ups into the HVAC system and myself decided to confuse the locals with a cheap cowboy hat and Kraftwerk t-shirt. I was into a new music scene at the time, Electro Kraut Cow Punk. We went to a local bar that Chris knew. I walked in and Chris pointed out the woman who's back was to us with the ultra mullet. It was all spiky up front and back hair went down to her ass. Then she turned around, oops sorry sir. It was karaoke night and mullet sir was the host. Great voice but needs a Queer Eye intervention.

The riding we wanted to do would strictly be secondary and dirt roads to Oliver. The technical riding would come at the end on our way home and hit Sumas Mountain.

In the morning we noticed a lot of micro cell storms in the area. It was really weird, there'd be a storm a kilometer west, another a few kilometers north, and another even further north. Everything in between was nice and sunny. We decided to ride and risk it. The temperature was quite nice and a little rain has never prevented us from riding.

The ride to Oliver was really nice and uneventful, the fun started on our way back via Black Sage Road. It's a really nice and scenic road and on this day there was little traffic. As I mentioned earlier there were micro cell storms happening all over the place between Osoyoos and Oliver and this is about to play a big role.

I get to the rise of a hill and I see Chris off to the side. I ask him what's up and he is relieving himself. I tell him I'll meet him at the bottom of the hill. So off I go as fast as I can down the hill. The downhill is split into two by a short flat section. As I'm heading to the flat section all I see are thousands of black spots crossing the road. And then I hit it! The black spots are honey bees swarming back to their hive because of the storm just west of us. I hit them at speed. The bees are bouncing off of me, my helmet, my face, my arms, my legs, my chest, my pounch. It was about 5 seconds of this. I come to a screeching halt after going through them and start knocking bees off of me. They are inside my shirt, my shorts, my helmet, clinging all over me. All Chris sees from the top of the hell is me flailing around like a maniac and stipping off my riding gear. Chick A Bow Wow Wow is not what comes to mind when seeing this. He starts on his way down. I see him coming down and it dawns on me his deathly allergic to bee venom. I start yelling for him to stop so he won't get stung. Nope didn't work, he stops next to me and asks what was up. I say I rode through a swarm of bees. He notices the bees either dead or struggling on the ground. He asks me if I was stung. I realize I have not been stung. Luck of a Croat. I tell him no. He calls me a bastard and how is it possible because if it was him, he would have been stung and going into anaphylactic shock immediately and start to swell. Well then it is a good thing you have your EpiPen with you. No it is 10k away in the truck back at the hotel.

He asks if I'm okay and that standing around with all these bees on the ground is making him nervous. The last of the ride was uneventful. We stop by a winery that has Burrowing Owls and it was neat seeing them. They were hard to spot but every now and then one would pop its head out. Really cool. We spend one final night in Osoyoos before heading home. The weather was not great and decided to ride Sumas Mountain another day.