The Road Less Graveled

How does this happen? Four coffee addicts go on a vacation with more food and belongings than they can possibly use and there is no coffee anywhere. I think that when Barbee did the final shopping, she saw the large Tim Horton’s coffee can in the back of the truck and assumed we were covered. The can was in fact my emergency potty cuz we don’t buy ice cream and have no pails. Not having used it in the night, I took the lid off and sat and inhaled deeply with my face in the can. I think smelling but not being able to drink was more torturous than anything.

Day two we hit the road in search of the nearest coffee shop or restaurant. It just so happens they serve swamp water in mugs and call it coffee for $2.00 a cup.

After nearly dumping the bike in the deep gravel of the first night’s campground Albert decided that from here on in we’d be taking the road less graveled.

Our red flashing idiot light telling us we were nearly out of fuel came on long before we reached Rocky Mountain House. Apparently the bike can only go 340 km on a tank. Our guardian angel pushed us up to the first gas pump where, looking into the tank, Alb could clearly see the dry bottom. We put 22 litres into the 20 litre tank.

Today was quite a bit hotter and we shed pieces of leather as we went along. Alb got a pretty good burn on his arms even with 30 spf sunscreen. We spent an extraordinarily long time in Red Deer trying to get out of Red Deer. After sitting in the Futureshop parking lot where we could get internet connections, using the Megellan GPS, scouring a map and my Canada Guide without success, Albert took the only other option we had: walk up to a trucker and ask him where we were and how do we get to Drumheller. Turns out we were only a block or so from the road we needed.

The badlands are amazing. It’s like turning a corner and entering a different land.

Taking the secondary roads gives you a good glimpse of the way of life in the area. Whenever there are crossroads where the farm vehicles come onto the highway we would get sandblasted. You couldn’t actually see the dirt and dust but we sure felt it on our bare-skinned arms.

We made it just past Brooks to Tillebrooke Provincial Camp and called it a day. Only 510 km today, with a nice sleep-in, our breakfast in a slow restaurant, and our unintentional detours in Red Deer.

BBQ steak, a bottle of wine and air conditioning, does life get much better than that when you are trying to hide from a gazillion mosquitoes?

We aim for Manitoba tomorrow.