Mel: Up at the crack of dawn to make up for some lost kilometers! We biked the 50
km to Drumheller, feeling great the whole way because Lois was h
ealthy, the sun was shining, and the prairies look
ed beautiful! The badlands were quite the site as well, with their moon-like terrain.
We heart HWY 9 (except for the construction bits)
Dream
Team in Drumheller, before the volunteer swap
Badlands on the way into Drumheller
Up at 6am, ready to go after coffee.... do we look awake?
Prairie skies, blue all around!
Meg (a co-worker of mine at Filterboxx) and her man Nick met us in Drumheller - t
he town where, in my opinion, there are more papier-mâché dinosaurs than people. We said goodbye to Tiff (what a trooper of a volunteer, who roughed out “Gong
Show Days 1 and 2” with a smile), bought some supplies, and were off on our bikes for another 45 km to Handhills Hideaway Campground, between Michichi, AB and Delia, AB. The campground owners, Barry and Glenda, were very accommodating. It was Nick’s first time camping and he decided that his mission was to roast 20+ hot dogs on the campfire. He literally sat and ate hot dogs the enti
re night like a champion! We enjoyed our time with Meg
and Nick, and ate more pasta than we could h
andle (well I did, anyway).
Nick holding Meg in one arm and hot dog # 19 in the other!
Day 21 - Blue Skies and Cows Galore -
Onward to Cereal, AB
Mel: The day started out sketchy with rain clouds looming, but we avoided every drop and biked a total 115 km, our biggest distance so far! Meg and Nick were our mos
t confidence boosting volunteers ye
t, always acting surprised at how “fast” we rode between breaks. There were plenty of cows to moo at, some ran away in a stampede fashion, others stared as we rode by. Meg and Nick left us in the village of Cer
eal, AB in order to get back to Calgary that night.
Waist-high in wheat, getting my bike out of Lois.
Since Cereal was lacking in the campsite department, we continued East to the town of Oyen, population 1100,
where we got ice cream at the local convenience store. The locals say that farming wheat is the main industry of the town, and there is a surprising abundance of “well-to-do” people in Oyen. It was apparently suiting to see a yellow mustang convertible slowly driving
up the deserted Main St. of the town that afternoon as we ate our ice cream. We camped at the regional site next to some ball diamonds and enjoyed campfire-cooked pizza.
It was the first night of the trip without a volunteer.
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