Our day begins with a wonderful morning ride on the Meadows in the Sky Parkway, a 13-mile journey that climbs steeply from downtown Revelstoke to 4,921 feet. After 16 switchbacks through forests of cedar and hemlock, spruce and fir, we arrive at Balsam Lake, 3,400 feet above Revelstoke.

At the top, the subalpine landscape often explodes with wildflowers. The view from the summit is astounding, with breathtaking vistas of the Columbia River and Revelstoke. For those with patience, you can take a shuttle one kilometer to a second summit, this one at 6,350 feet. (Yes, I mixed metric and English units; it happens a lot in Canada.) Here, you find Mount Revelstoke’s historic firetower, built in 1927 – and declared a Canadian National Historic Site 60 years later.

The Parkway is part of Mount Revelstoke National Park, one of the few in Canada established at the request of local citizens. A Meadows in the Sky fun fact: it’s known as the “Royal Road” because of some of its visitors. The last royal visit was in 1955, when Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited the city of Revelstoke and the National Park. No word on whether they took the shuttle to the summit.

We descend steeply, but carefully, back down to Revelstoke, where we jump on the Trans-Canada Highway and head west. The highway follows the Eagle River. Forty-five minutes from Revelstoke, we pass through Sicamous, a resort town that bills itself as the “Houseboat Capital of Canada.“

Sicamous sits on the eastern shore of Shuswap Lake, which has four arms, forming a shape reminiscent of the letter H. The lake is the centerpiece of Shuswap Lake Provincial Park.

We turn south in Sicamous and follow Highway 97A, the Vernon-Sicamous Highway, along the eastern shore of Mara Lake. After turning west onto Highway 97, we arrive in the small community of Falkland BC, home to one of Canada’s largest Canadian flags.

The flag is 500 feet above the valley floor on Gyp Mountain. It’s 28 feet high, 56 feet wide, but isn’t really a flag in the traditional sense – you know, flapping in the wind. No, this flag is made out of wood, telephone poles, cement blocks and metal. Seriously. The colors (colours?) of the maple leaf are heated onto enamel. The flag is designed to withstand 35 tons of wind pressure. Quite the feat of engineering, it resides on the list of Canada’s large roadside attractions.

From Falkland, it’s only 50 miles to Kamloops, where we turn in our Harleys, and discover to our pleasant surprise, that Randy’s F-150 is still in the parking lot where we left it. The trash hauler is ready to take us back to the USA.

Today, our last on two wheels, covered about 200 miles. We have 300 more miles to go in the trash hauler before arriving back in the Seattle area. Long day. Great week.

Now … who among you is ready to ride? Gary and Randy do it.

How hard could it be?