Spences Bridge to Clinton(almost)

Up early (5am), and on the road about 630am. Had a muffin form the hotel, as they weren't open yet for breakfast. That's Ok, we'll stop 10 km or so up the road we figured.
Start out with a fair sized climb out of the valley, and several smaller climbs. I don't think our legs had recovered from the Canyon, so they felt pretty hard today. We met up with Larry, the cyclist from Oregon. He had gone past Spences Bridge, and camped beside the road. He was walking up one of the hills when we rode up.  We had a quick last visit, as he was planning to turn east at Cache Creek, and we would be heading north. It is nice country for riding. It is quite dry, and always makes me think of the Old West-wide open spaces and sagebrush.
The first place we found that we could get breakfast at was in Cache Creek, and it was more like lunch time then.Instead of a few kilometres till we find a place to eat, it was pretty close to 50km. Breakfast/lunch was a the Husky House Restaurant. Good food, and a real truckers restaurant-they had card phones at all the tables. Handy if you're travelling and want to check in while having lunch. I used it to call the hotel, and hear horror stories about one of the rooms being cleaned out by a drug dealer who took everything they could.  Glad I missed that-goes to show what can happen if you're not as vigilant at work.
We went looking for some groceries, and discovered that Cache Creek is smaller than I remembered it being. I was looking for a Save-On Foods, or Safeway, but after riding through town we had to ask, and were directed to a little corner store, not a real supermarket. Got what we needed anyway, and headed out.
39km to go to Clinton-an easy afternoon. Right! Wasn't bad till we got out to the Hat Creek Ranch. We met a cyclist heading south-he was coming from Prince George, and was upset it had taken him 4 days of riding so far. It sounded good to us, but whatever.  After Hat Creek Ranch, the road starts to climb. It was massively hot out on the road in the blazing sun. The road climbs for a long time, a lot of it at about 8%. About the time you're ready to die, it flattens out some (not flat, just not as steep) and continues on forever-give or take a bit. We pulled into a rest area, and hid in the shade of a motorhome being piloted by a nice Danish couple. We tslked to a trucker, who told us about the climbs once we got past Clinton, first to 'Big Bar' then to Begbie Summit. We ventured abck out into the sun, and went about another half mile and found Willow Springs Campground. $10- to camp, free showers, and laundry at $3- a load. We got a nice grassy site, near the water. Mosquitoes seemed to be hanging out there too. We met a real live wire there-her name is Joanne Jones. She came over and introduced herself to us. Even better we got treats-Cantaloupe, and homemade gingersnap cookies.  She had worked her life in marketing (Expo 86, Barcelona Expo, etc..)and seemed to find our trip quite unusual and interesting.
Distance 84 km
Time-Forever (almost)