Three Weeks in the Canadian Rockies
While many of us were sitting around in Chicago enjoying Canadian Club on the Rocks, the adventuresome ones were off on a three week excursion through the Canadian Rockies. The western destination was Vancouver, BC.
Hello from Devils Lake, ND. We left St Cloud at 9 am after one of our riders visited a business associate in St Cloud. Small world. It was sunny and cool. Minnesota is quite hilly and very green as we rode northwest toward Fargo, ND.
As you approach Fargo it gets very flat. That's is where all of the flooding was last spring. Food is still a high priority and we stopped for lunch at a small town with a "family restaurant". It was great. Lots of un-healthy food that tasted great. This is quite a group for eating.
The population is quite sparse in this part of the country, so gasoline is something you need to get when we ever start getting low. We pulled into a small town with 1 gas station and a wonderful ice cream shop. I don't know which was more important, the gas or ice cream. We left the town and rode a back road for a while till we got back on the main highway, its 4 lane but has cross traffic. Quite a bit of wind today. The smaller bikes really felt it.
We got to Devils Lake at about 4:45 and took a swim. Felt good. Dinner we ordered in, Pizza and sandwiches. Was good and relaxing. The northern planes that have we have been crossing have vast fields of different crops. Lots of everything. Canola that is flowering right now. Bright yellow fields of thousands of acres. Like a yellow carpet. Wheat, corn and sugar beets. There aren't farms here but ranches. We are 880 miles from home.
Tomorrow off to Moose Jaw, SK. We cross into Canada north of Minot, ND. All is good. All bikes running fine. More tomorrow
Wednesday, July 29
We got up to a gray day that promised rain. That was better than the heat that could have been. After breakfast and loading Drew's bike absolutely wouldn't start. (TROUBLE). After all sorts of try's with the assistants of a local mechanic it was decided that d the four other bikes would take off and Bob and Drew would stay behind. They toe our fingers crossed that all will be fixed and will catch up with us in Calgary. The ride to Moose Jaw, where we are now, is across vast fields of corps. (Canola, corn, flax, wheat) The terrain goes from flat to rolling hills. millions of acres. In the northern corner of ND all of a sudden are oil wells. Seems the farmers have become rich oil barons. When we got to the boarder of US and Canada we sailed through customs except for Shirah. Seems they thought she was an international spy. Kidding but they did hold her up to do some kind of security check. They decided that she was ok to enter Canada and off we went. Lots of scattered showers. Never hard but it did slow us down some. Lots of oil and huge coal strip mines. We arrived in Moose Jaw a little late but a good ride. The hotel is really nice. Big rooms. We all had fabulous massages and relax in this huge roof top mineral pool. Water at 97-104. Really relaxing and fun. No real dinner but Nancy still some Vienna salami sticks. That seemed to be enough for all. Bed early and today off to Medicine Hat, AB.
Thursday, July 30
Here we are in Medicine Hat, AB after rather easy ride of 250 miles. They are getting shorter as we approach Calgary. Tomorrow we get there and Bill and Alisa join us. Presently we are 1,600 miles from home. Bill's bike is there already and awaiting his arrival;. We will get there late morning. We hope that Bob and Drew will be able to catch up with us in Banff on Sat. Today's ride was across vast open plains. Some were planted and others were for grazing. There were lots of cattle. The terrain was from flat to rolling hills. We are at 3,000 feet as we approach the Rockies. Everyone is getting excited and ready to really start our adventure.