back on the road

back on the road

It's been a few challenging days. About an hour or so downstream today, I came upon some guys fishing. One of them said that there was some very rough water about four miles downstream, and that the next bridge was about 10 miles down, at Arrowwood. In three and a half days on the rive, maybe 7 hours of travel time total (it took a long time to get my stuff on and off the river every day), I travelled about 30 km.

Luckily, there was a "road" of sorts on the other side of the river near where the guys were fishing. Had it not been for those fishermen, I wouldn't have known about the small cliffs and waterfalls coming up, nor the road. Thanks, guys.

As it happens, where i managed to land the boat was a few hundred meters from the road, which itself was nor more than parallel footpaths. I had to do some exploring to find a suitable route from where all my stuff was through the brush to the road, and on my return nearly got lost. Good thing that my air mattresses are bright orange and that one of them was sticking up through the grass or I would have been wandering around for hours.

I moved my stuff in stages. First, I carried everything away from the riverbank to a clearing where I deflated the boat and air mattresses, and packed everything up. Then I made two trips to move it all from the clearing to the Texas gate in the road. There, I tried to put everything on the bike - all of it, including the backpack. No dice; I succeeded only in bending the rear rack of the bike. So, I had to wear the backpack if I wanted to get anywhere.

It was at the Texas gate, as I was bungeeing everything down, that I noticed I was missing one bungee cord. So, total losses down the river were one bungee and a 1 gallon pail.

By that time it was getting to be 6pm. I took a guess as to which direction to go on the road (which paralleled the river), and went upstream a little bit. I soon found it intersecting with some other similar roads. I just kept following the better road at each junction until I hit gravel, and then pavement. Then I turned East. It turns out that I had started from the river about 8km west of Gliechen. I kept biking east to Cluny, where I grabbed a quick bite to eat and called mom to let her know I was alive. I kept biking until 11pm, when I hit Bassano, and got a motel room for the night.

Ahhhh, a hot shower.

Motels cost me too much money though. I'm going to have to hit truck stops and the occasional campground instead, if I want to make it to Florida.

I left Bassano at 11 am today, and got to Brooks at about 3pm. There I went looking for a trailer for my bike. StarSports, no luck. Ditto Walmart. I had some MickeyDees at the Walmart, then left town around 5 or so. I made probably another 25-30 km southeast of Brooks by 730 pm, then made camp. No coffee or supper tonight, I had plenty to eat at McDs and still have some pop. I'll probably have pancakes and coffee in the morning.

I have been taking it pretty easy, averaging 16 km/h and stopping every hour for 15 minutes of rest. Until I get a trailer, that's the only way I'm going to preserve my back.

I must get a trailer in Medicine Hat. If not, then I will be going so slow that winter will catch me. Any kind of trailer will do, as long as it will attach to the seat post or bike frame so that it doesn't interfere with an empty (except for saddlebags) rear rack.

I figure that I can reach the outskirts of Medicine Hat by 3pm if I leave here at 9am. I'm in the very broad ditch of the TransCanada highway right now, about 30 m from the road and 2-3 m behind a large round hay bale - fairly safe - about 80 km northwest of Med Hat. Once I get there, I'll be hitting the first phone booth I see, and let my fingers do the biking. Gotta get some sleep.