12/07/2012 to 16/07/2012 - 4 day break between contracts.

I had a choice to either join most of the crew to a bunch of hot springs along the route to our next contract in Alberta or join our Veteran planter JF to Olivia, BC where I could meet up with Malou, a dutch friend I met in Columbia roughly a year and a half ago when I was there the first time.
Having worked with my crew for the past few months and where sometimes the tension between the crew members could be cut with a knife I decided to go with JF.
We left camp in horsefly after finishing the half day of work and drove for 6 hours to southern Bc where I spent the night in the caravan outside his place being eaten alive by the swarm of mosquitos that resided inside the portable home.
The following day I hitchhiked to Keremeos through Osoyoos that was easy enough having gotten a ride from 2 young girls heading west. Now I wasn't entirely sure where i could find Malou in this small town where I cycled through a few months before when traveling to Vancouver but persisted in searching for her under the hot sun.
I can honestly say that I met half the town asking many people where the cherry pickets hang out and if they knew of or heard of a Dutch girl named Malou.
I even joined a woman who worked in a print shop and her son (Cindy and Blair) for lunch telling them my travel stories and having a laugh.
Eventually after 5 hours of searching for Malou I found her giving her a nice surprise. I ended up buying some beer and taking it down to the river and having a few with her and her friend who she works with cherry picking.
Later we returned to the orchard where she works where I met everyone else she works with.
Somehow i also found out that Marie, a girl I worked treeplanting with earlier in the season was in town also so the following day I went to surprise her too.
I can honestly my time in keremeos was the best time I've had since starting planting and having to leave after sub a short stay was upsetting.
If any of you guys are reading this you should know that you are all awesome, this includes everyone I met in town too.
I had to hitchhike back to olivia to join JF to my ride to Alberta for the remaining weeks of planting. It took quite a while to get out of Keremeos but staying persistent with your thumb out is all you can do. The three rides I got were interesting to say the least as the first one was only for 5 minutes with 3 people in a van where one guy was cradling a weed plant, second with a British vegan who I told he needed to eat meat as he did not look healthy just pale and close to anorexic and
he third was with an east indian father and son where the driver was more so looking at me in the rear seat than a the road. Very frightening.
Another thing to mention is that the route JF and I drove over the Canadian Rockies was also the route I cycled too, so it was quite neat to reminisce for the 8 hour car ride hat took me almost 2 weeks to cycle.