Day 28

6/19/09: Off segment; Vegreville, Alberta to Loydminster, Alberta; 92 miles.

         Ok, let me catch you up with what went down last evening. I left you hanging as to where I’d have dinner……….drum roll………..and the winner was……….Subway!!!!! Yes, two more 12-inch subs down the tube. And Ryan went to Mickey D’s and came back saying he was still hungry. So there we are, sitting behind the church on a concrete entryway, both of us still in a state of sugar deficiency. So I say to Ryan, “I’ll buy you fly.” And he’s on it like a ant on sugar. I give him 10 bucks worth of coins and ask for a chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

         He comes back and says, “dude they didn’t have ANYTHING chocolate.” And I’m devastated because I sat there for a good twenty minutes fantasizing about all kinds of chocolate goodies getting stuffed in my mouth like something out of a Little Rascals episode. And then he totally kills me with “nothing chocolate.” But he did use his head and do this: he got a twenty pack of peanut butter cookies and a jar of Nutella. KILLER! He pulls out two plastic spoons and we dig into the Nutella like starving souls on a desert island, taking these huge spoon fulls of goop and drenching the cookies with it, like a child over frosting a cake, subsequently downing them one after another, again and again.

         So as we’re devouring these Nutella-peanut butter cookie cakes, Pastor Dallas pulls in to see how were doing, in mid bite, both of us. We offer Dallas a Nutella drenched cookie. He accepts, and sits down on the concrete entranceway with us and we all just chat away. He had stopped by to see how we were doing. Dallas just has one of these sugar spikes, as we’re downing them one after another. He asks if we’d like to use the facilities before he leaves, and we of coarse accept. Afterwards we say goodbye to another wonderful person on our voyage.

         Afterwards Ryan and I both are so touched by this man just stopping by to check on us, and open the church back up so that we can use the facilities. This is the kind of hospitality we’re experiencing on a daily basis, in darned near every town and city we go to. It’s quite an awesome experience. We’re both so happy that we chose to do the Trans Canada. Not to knock our own USA, but this is such a rewarding experience!

         We safe about 6 cookies for breakfast and hit the hay, in the daylight, at 10pm. Ryan is up at probably 5am, makes some hot water for the instant coffee, and then rousts me at about 6:15am. He hands me a cup of coffee through the vestibule, and I get to packing my gear as fast as possible, sipping coffee, and listening the morning CBC news out of Edmonton. We’re packed and ready to roll at 7:20am, and then I take another 10 min to eat 4 of the cookies for breakfast. And we’re off.

         We’re out on Rt 16 east again, and get into a rhythm, I slowly pull ahead of Ryan and just get into a good groove. Every time I pass a sign giving distances to the cities, I just turn my head. I hate playing that game, especially when these signs pop up every half hour. And I’m not going to let the numbers get in my head for a 90+ mile ride today. So I’m consistently turning my head every time the big mileage sign pops up on the side of the road.

         Now the air is still and the sky is cloudless to start, and I’m averaging about 14-15 mph. But then, around an hour in, the wind starts to pick up ever so slightly, and gives us a gentle tailwind. And the average picks up to the 15-17 mph range. Now Dallas had told us that the ride to Loydminster was hilly, and to a point it was, but not the kind of hilly I was used to. These hills are long and gently, and undulate for miles and miles on end, far off into the horizon. Only once did I have to get out of the big ring and into the middle cookie. The rest of the time it was an out of the saddle affair in the big ring when I came to a long, gradual hill.

         And the tailwind continued to pick up just a tad, but enough to get me into the 16-19 mph range. And once every hour, I’d check my average speed and continue to watch it get bigger and bigger. Three hours in the clouds start to pop up all across the sky. This coupled with the long, neverending landscape makes for some amazing riding. It’s almost surrealistic to ride through the vastness of such a landscape, gazing in all directions at the miles and miles of cropland, graze-land, and the shimmering ribbon of highway just rolling off into the distance forever.

         Four hours in and the average is at 15.8. I look back to the west and see that it’s pretty black in the distance, possibly way back in the Edmonton area. This makes me want to kick it in just a little bit more, hoping to not get caught in one of those famous Great Plains storms with the golfball-sized hail, and the horizontal rain. I jump on it harder on the climbs, and really push the long, gradual descents. Now I had intended on stopping at a gas station or something along the way to pick up a coke and wait for Ryan, but each of the towns we were passing were 1-5K off of the 16, and I just didn’t want to stop on the road and wait with nowhere to park my bike, and just standing in the 85-degree heat. So I just keep going. And I’m like, “hell I’m just going to ride 90+ miles on 4 bloody cookies!” So it was at 4 hrs in that I decided to just take it home in one fell swoop.

         Now I see a mileage sign coming up, and I’m 4:10 hrs in, and this time I look……..43K. Yes. No problem taking it home with 40K. I looked back at the storm, and it looks like it’s slowly moving east, but I’m making time on it, so my feet stay pressed hard to the pedals with a pretty big gear. Next mileage sign: 23K. Then I hit 10K, and I’m sweeping out towards the left hand part of the berm to pick up these awesome drafts from the trucks just to bump that mileage up a bit more. And finally, there it was, Loydminster. I looked down at my trip time and it registers 5:40, and my average is 16 mph. So I roll into the city and look for…………Subway. I know that Ryan will stop there, as that’s been our first stop for the last three or so days.

         I get my usual 2 12-inch subs with a 32-oz fountain coke. I down about 20 oz of coke, right there, refill and go back to my table. The subs are gone in about 10-15 min. Another 32-oz refill on the coke, then 3 32-oz waters and I’m feeling content. Ryan rolls in about 38 min later, a fantastic time, as he’s getting more and more fit as we continue this trip. I go out and sit on a bench in the sun while Ryan does his thing in there. We find out about a Starbucks and wifi just a block away, and that’s were we go.

         After about 20 min of messing around with try to log in, we get a wonderful young lady by the name of Malery to help us log in. Now not only does Malery help us get logged in, but she let’s Ryan use her computer, she calls her mom in Saskatoon and gets us a place to stay on Sunday night, and gives us a list of pubs near her mom’s house that we can visit for a brew and burger. Again, the people of Canada are just incredible! So I have about 32 min left here on my daily 2-hours of Starbucks wifi., so I’m going to post this and then recheck my emails for any other client questions.

         It’s been a fantastic day on the plains, and Ryan has us to spend the night at a house that’s being built – he asked a contractor if we could stay at a place he was working on, and the guy said no problem. So we have proximity to all of the stores and eateries here in town. Heck, I’m looking at the house from Starbucks here where we’ll be camping. All the best to everyone out there, and thanks again for tuning in and/or sending us your emails. And to those of you who we’ve met here in Canada……..we love you, you’re awesome!!!!!!!! ……………Pete