Calgary to Regina

First day out of Calgary we left pretty late, around 2 pm. Took a nice scenic route out of Calgary by the river. Mike had a flat along the way. Eventually we got out of the city and got on to country riding, already flat and prairie like. One thing I noticed is that the skies are huge in the prairies and you can see stormclouds forming a good hour before they hit you. This is just what happened, clouds were building up all around us, and just as we turned north on a road we got hit by the trailing end of a storm. Small and vicious, I'm glad we didn't get caught in the centre. We ended up hiding under a tarp for a bit. We continued on through winding roads to Beiseker a little town between Calgary and Drumheller. We decided to try the new strategy of not paying for camping and ask locals to stay on their lawn. So we stopped at the house with the biggest lawn and Mike pleaded our case and got us a spot. It was surprising that it worked as it was in the middle of the town, although it was a pretty small town.

In the morning our host, Bob came out to talk to us for a bit and his wife gave us blueberry pancakes. Then we started off towards Drumheller and the badlands. Nice picturesque rolling hills on the road, got some good prairie shots. As it would turn out, we didn't take many pictres in the prairies after the first few days. But the prairies also weren't as boring as everyone said they would be. They were flat and long, but there are little differences in the meadows that you probably don't notice ripping by in a car, but that make all the difference on a bicycle. That being said, once we got out of the prairies, I was glad to have hills. Anyways, we get to Drumheller and there a nice big hill into the Valley. We stopped for ice cream then worked our way to the biggest dinosaur in the world! This is another pattern that would repeat itself in the prairies. Each town has a sudden urge to attract attention to itself with giant objects. Or in one case, some town has the second largest pop can, pretty lame. After the dinosaur we hit up the Royal Tyrrel Muesuem of paleontology. It's a pretty good museum, but I was expecting a bit more than the usual dinosaur stuff. Call me picky if you will. Then we finally started out way out through the badlands. They are pretty sweet. Surronded by hills and layered so that you can see all the different colours of ocean floor from the different eras. Quick history lesson. This area used to by the shore of Bearpaw lake 70 mil years ago and the different layers of sedimentary rock were formed by rock depositing slowly over time. We also passed by the hoodos, which look like little capped peaks. You'll see in the pics. We expected these to be huge from all the ads, but they were only twice the size of a person. After a photo session there, we headed towards East Coulee, just past Drumheller and set up camp in a secluded grassy area after no one answered at the house we knocked on.

Next day we arose and tried to tie our longest distance of 130 km. For frisbee folk, we passed by a little village called LeHigh in the middle of nowhere. The true home of the LeHigh's untalented frisbee team. We climbed out of the Badlands valley and back into paririe landscape. Made good time, started seeing illusions on the road because it was so straight. It looked as if it just morhped into the sky and trucks simply floated on the road. Eventually made it to the small town of Duchess after a tiring ride. Splurged on some ice cream and bought dinner. We decided not to go to Dinosaur provincial park as originally planned because it was too far. Instead we made it to the sketch town of Brooks and lawn camped again. Made the 130 km.

Next day Mike and Pat wanted to stop at Macdonalds for breakfast... no further comment. Ran into a guy going from Calgary to Moose Jaw on an old 3 speed bicycle. We started off with a good pace. Also started doing pushups on breaks for fun. This didn't last too long. Very hot, stopped outside a little gas station for lunch and boiled away. Kept up good pace to Redcliff, greenhouse capital. From a hill in Redcliff you can see the prairies spread away all the way to the Cypress Hills at the Saskatchewan border. Very forboding. We made it into Medicine hat and saw the giant tepee. Spent a good bit of time at the info centre. This is where we foudn out that Walmart allows overnight camping for RV's. So we decided to see if they'll let us camp there. Surely enough they did. And so begins our classy streak of camping at Walmart. Smart move on their part, as we spent quite a bit of money there, and I'm sure the RVers do too. After dinner, we were still hungry, so we ordered a pizza to the Walmart parking lot, classy act number 2. We then bought chips and dip and stuffed ourselves until we were fairly sick. Classy act 3. So far we have camped at a WAlmart 4 times in desperation/excitement.

Next morning we woke up feeling sick and started off. Pat went into walmart to buy something and the lady asked him to leave his bags upfront because he looked scruffy. We were all pretty scruffy and sketchy looking at this point. Biked along, raced a train for a bit. Arrived at the Saskatchewan border and stopped to take silly pictures. After lunch I started feeling sick from something, this would continue on until night. Also I got a cold a few days before so it didn't add anything good. We stopped at a gas station later on and saw a huge storm cloud building up north of us. At this point I was very sluggish as we continued on. Eventually the storm started closing in and there part of the cloud was spinning and dropping towards the ground. We stopped outside a ranch and asked the local farmer there if we could hide somehwere on his property. He was very nice and put us up in his bunkhouse. Just as we pulled in the storm started. 5 min later it was haling like mad outside. By far the worst storm I've ever seen. The winds were so strong that it was over us in 40 min. Then it cleared up perfectly. Anyways, this guy was a rancher who has had the land since his grandfather. Legitimate cowboy, and all his sons are in the business too. We learned a lot about the cowboy lifestyle out here, its not just big belt buckles and cowboy hats (all though that is a part of it). A tree branch broke off onto their roof and they were out there in a flash working to get it off as it was blocking their tv signal. Big football following in the prairies.

Next day we headed off to Swift Current. More details to follow. In the meantime some highlights.

- Biked 170 km Swift current to Moose Jaw
- STayed in Regina
- Biked 200 km from Brandon to Winnipeg
- Manitoba has terrible roads, almost got run over 5 times
- Manitoba is thus named the most disgraceful and pitiful province
- We are now in Kenora, Ontario, back in the hills
- Have biked almost 4000 km so far