Pulled out of Cache Creek this morning, and headed towards the BC Route 99, which is also known as the Sea to Sky Highway.

Some barbed wire along the way.

This fellow was wandering around outside the wire.

With the number of twelve and thirteen percent grades I was up and down today, I'm looking forward to driving I-40 through Oklahoma. Sheesh. So I'm down a windshield, a headlight, and after today's ride probably a set of brakes.

Ridiculous hairpin turn on Route 99 -- one of many.

It was worth it, though. I can't begin to describe the sights along the road. I took some photos, but on a road like this you eventually have to put the camera away and start driving.

The Hangman's Tree in Lillooet, BC.

I stopped for lunch in Lillooet -- pronounced Lil-oo-et -- and wandered around for a while. Made my way up to a park overlooking the town and the Fraser River. I had a chat with Greg the retired railroad guy for a while. As we stood a few yards from the tree from which murderers received their due, our conversation turned to Clifford Olson, a notorious serial killer in British Columbia who murdered a dozen children during the early 1980s. A friend of Greg's lost his daughter to the madman. He's a cook, and he applied for a job in the prison -- he wanted to be Clifford Olson's personal chef.

We both agreed that the government would probably never let that happen. We also agreed that a hundred years ago, a man like that wouldn't be having a parole hearing every two years.

The tree where Lillooet dispensed justice is no longer standing. It was alive and well in the early 1970s, but by the late-1980s it was barely alive. The town decided to cut it down before it fell on it's own. Now it serves as a reminder of a time when the law meant justice -- sometimes harsh, sometimes misplaced -- rather than the complex legal maze we have today. I don't know if we're better off, or not. I'll leave the debate to the scholars. All I know is that three decades later, someone still wants to poison a rat kept in a cage in Quebec.

I headed further along Route 99, past Seton Lake.

Seton Lake.

A fellow by the name of Mike was enjoying the weather, strumming his guitar not far from where that photo was taken. The weather was amazing -- in the high 60s -- and Mike is enjoying a month of from work, too. He and his fiancee are headed to a resort in Mexico next week; his first trip outside of Canada.

Mike works in the tar sands. I asked how that's going, with the price of oil being so low. Getting oil from shale and/or tar sands is expensive, and is only profitable when the price of oil goes way up. His company, which he was obviously proud of, doesn't shut down when the price bottoms out. They build, increasing their capacity for when the price eventually goes back up.

For a while he was working up in northern Alberta near a Canadian bombing range. Part of his training in the oil field included how to identify unexploded ordnance. I guess if you're a guitarist, you want all your fingers. Heh.

My last stop on the way to North Vancouver was in the small town of Pemberton.

Pemberton Engine #1.

Potatoes are banned in Pemberton. I'm sure there's a reason, but I didn't ask why. All over Canada I've seen signs urging folks to help deal with invasive foreign species -- plants and animals and insects that aren't native to the area, but once introduced begin to thrive and crowd out native species. I remember the snakeheads they found in that pond in Crofton, Maryland a few years ago.

So now I'm in Vancouver. The weather is great. The ride today was phenomenal. I'm going to get some grub and call it a day.

Tomorrow... I haven't decided if I'm going to cross the 49th parallel and head south, or if I'll wander around George Vancouver's old stomping grounds. I'm sure I'll figure it out by check out time.