Many of you probably know that Lytton is Canada’s Hot Spot. I heard that the hottest temperature record in Lytton is well over the 40’s!

I started skating from Lytton to Lillooet quite late actually; at noon. This is, of course, due to my on-going problem of looking for somebody to transport my stuff to the next city. Thankfully, Lytton is your typical small town where the people are very nice. Once everyone there heard about me, they started sharing ideas on how to solve my problem; they started to think who usually goes to Lillooet. We finally found Sheila; she works in the postal office and she actually lives in Lillooet. So, as soon as I got everything ready to go (water and food), I went to the post office and left my heavy backpack with Sheila. She would be off from work at 4:30, then she’d drive to Lillooet with my stuff. She would either pick me up when she’d spot me on the road or drop off my stuff to Father Bob whom I would be meeting today.

I started skating right at 12 o’clock. Boy, was I glad that I covered Lytton at this time of the year because it really is hot in there! Can you imagine if you skate there during the summer time?! I would’ve been fried! Luckily, it was also windy, so it didn’t really get too hot for me. But, you know what, the wind is also not always helpful. The wind can sometimes be too cool, so I’d feel cold. Worst of all, the wind can also be too much that it’s really hard to skate; even when it’s supposed to be downhill, the wind can make it feel like you’re skating uphill.

Yesterday, I told the Mack’s (the family that took me in for the night) about my big problem of having to look for some way to transport my stuff to the cities ahead. From Logan Lake, my next destination is Ashcroft, and by the end of the day, I have to be in Lytton. Thankfully, the Grandpa Lee and Clinton have found a way to help me out. Clinton and his very nice friend were going to Ashcroft today, to get her three horses back to Logan Lake, (by the way, she also works there in Ashcroft). So, the plan would be to leave my stuff with Clint as he does some work, and I would start skating in the morning. As soon as he finishes his work, he and his friend would drive to Ashcroft and picked me up on the way because I have to catch a bus from Ashcroft to Cache Creek, and I have to catch a bus from Cache Creek to Lytton.

So, I started skating from Logan Lake to Ashcroft at 9 o’clock. Right at the start, there was already a big hill for me to climb. There was no cellphone signal in Logan Lake, but when I started heading towards Aschroft, there was one. So, as I was climbing up a big hill, I called my co-workers in Vancouver. I wanted to hear some familiar voices. Of course, my mom phone me before that. That’s my plan: I call my loved ones to get me through the high hills. Even though I’m skating up hills and talking on the phone, for some reason, I don’t get exhausted. It must really strengthen me to hear some familiar voices; next time, I’m gonna call my work and speak to my kids there. Also, I thank everyone for the awesome messages on my cellphone, website, and Facebook. I tell ya: those messages really give me strength.

Since the first time that I thought of inline skating to raise awareness for child care, I knew that I would like to take Sundays off. That’s a good time for me to give my body a rest. Needless to say, I didn’t skate anywhere today. So, there shouldn’t be too much on this blog...

But, there is something that I would like to tell you. On the day before I left for Princeton to start my journey, I didn’t really know what to pack! Most of all, I didn’t care if I’d be packing heavily or lightly because for some very silly reason, I was so confident that somebody (I don’t know who, maybe I was thinking that it would be the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny!) would be able to transport my stuff ahead of time to the cities ahead in my schedule. Boy, am I EVER WRONG!

So, when I got to Princeton, after I was interviewed by Matt’s and Shelby’s mom, the first thing that I did was go to the postal office. I asked the helpful lady there for some ideas/suggestions on how I would be able to transport my stuff ahead of time on a daily basis. We would find out that, through postal delivery or Greyhound bus, it would be hard and risky because it would take, at least, two days for my stuff to get where I would be. At this time, my stuff weighs over 10 kilograms...and you know what, I skated with this thing from Princeton to Merritt!

When I got to Merritt, my body was already so sore and hurt that I decided that I just could not skate anymore, on that same day, to Logan Lake. That’s why I stayed in Father Domingo’s residence at Sacred Heart parish in Merritt. Luckily, I knew that he also celebrates Mass up in Logan Lake on Sundays, which was my next destination. So, today, he gave me a ride to Logan Lake.

Ninety kilometres is the distance between Princeton to Merritt. If you’re driving, you’ll probably cover 90 km in also about ninety minutes. But, hey...what about if you’re inline skating for 90 km? What if the road is hilly? What if the road is so bad that it can trip over even a car? What if it’s early in the morning? What if it snows all of a sudden? What if the wind gust is going against you and blowing as hard as it can? What if you’re the only one who’s travelling that road? What if you’re carrying a backpack that weighs well over 10 kilograms...? What if you’re cold? What if you get lost? What if you have to keep skating for 8 to 9 hours, non-stop? What if there was not enough shoulder on the road???

I could probably just keep asking questions because the answers to those are pretty much my blog for today! Yup, those things happened to me today...on my birthday! Well, thank you, Mother Nature, for that really wonderful gift! You probably were saying to yourself, “Bret’s inline skating around British Columbia and across Canada? Here’s a perfect gift for him: a shot in the arm! A vaccine that will give him an overdose of the physical reality of what it’s really like to inline skate around BC and Canada (*chuckles evilly).

Man, what can I say—IT WAS DANG HARSH! I’m surprised that I’m still here, (writing this blog), alive and kicking! I betcha’ though that I’m gonna be aching every square-inch of my body tomorrow. So, I’m gonna sleep like a log tonight, but wake up tomorrow, feeling like I’ve been hit with a log!

I’ve never been to the prairies before, but the way from Princeton to Merritt have got to be like the prairies because, dude, it just kept going and going and going. I could’ve sung that song that goes, “I’m on the highway to (you know where!).” I did sing to Bryan Adams’ song that goes, “Life is an open road.”