Once Upon a Time
In this land far far away, there was an idea to try and adventure to be had. This is that story.
On Tuesday at roughly 7:30am I rolled off my Aunt and Uncle's driveway in Cochrane Alberta. Not even off the block and the trailer wheels were rubbing my bag, that was just the beginning. My goal for the day was Bottrell, well by 10 the handle had broken on the trailer but I got it working by rigging it with a tarp strap. The wheels still needed adjustment every few minutes or they would have been bald even quicker. I made it to Bottrell by 11am and decided to go to Cremona to see if I could maybe get the trailer welded up solid. On the way I had a farmers dog follow me for a bit down the highway and was trying to ignore it when all of a sudden I heard screeching tires and looked just in time to see a motocycle swerve narrowly missing the dog. Needless to say he was not happy, but hey it wasn't my dog. A trailer tire blew out even before getting to Cremona so I just kept going with the flat and trashed the trailer in Cremona. I rolled into Cremona around 1pm, had a nap and then left for Carstairs, another 30km away. My estimate of 10km/h was pretty accurate cause by 5 I was in Carstairs, AB. I treated myself to Chinese buffet and had the entire restaurant to myself. That evening I watched some baseball.
I was pretty happy with my first day progress although Cremona to Carstairs was a lot harder cause my pack was on my back instead of on the trailer. I had biked/walked approximately 80km in 8 hours. I knew by then that biking all the way to Manitoba would not happen but I wanted to keep going anyway.
Day two I left Carstairs at 7am, by 8 I was past Didsbury and almost to the #2 heading east. The reason I was going north first was I wanted to go to Saskatoon to visit a friend, ride the park, and it's on a major highway making hitching more probable. The biking was way harder due to the wind as well as there being less hills to roll down. I even had to pedal down some of the hills cause of the wind. Anyhow I passed one dead skunk, visited one cheese factory that wasn't open, and got pretty close to a badger before it ran off. Quick little creatures those badgers. By 10am my routine went like this; ride sitting till my ass really hurt (about three minutes), ride standing till my legs got tired (about five minutes), and then walk until the blood was flowing properly again (another five minutes), extremely slow and painfull but not exhusting. I rolled into Linden at 2pm and stopped there cause the next town was at least a days ride away. Besides I had biked probably 60km already. In Linden I found a little coffee shop that had internet access so I emailed my folks. On my way out I noticed a for sale poster for a van only $450. By this time I was up for anything but another day with my pack pushing me onto my seat. So I gave the guy a call and he was like "yeah I'd take $200 but it's got a major oil leak so it may not make Manitoba" I told him I'd think about it and get back to him the next day. I bummed around town for the next couple hours, had a bagel and sardines for supper and was working out the situation sitting at my campsite listening to music. Suddenly the music quit.........my ipod was not responding, my new ipod with all my music that I had just bought was frozen. I tried everything short of reseting it, nothing worked. Right there was all the reason I needed, I had to go back to Calgary, back to Future Shop and to Cochrane to get all my music again. I called Melissa, which sadly wasn't even long distance, and was gonna bike down to Irricana the next day so Melissa didn't have to drive far to pick me up but that didn't work for her, cause she's leaving for camp the next night (tonight) so she agreed to come to Linden in the morning. The next morning, I figured I'd check my ipod again, during the night it was still frozen, and sure enough Murphy's Law returned, my ipod was working. It was too late to call Melissa so that was it. No more biking to get places, not in Canada at least, time to move on a little quicker.
Here's what I was gonna post yesterday right after stopping for the day.
This whole biking to Manitoba idea is retarded.
These are my reasons:
1. My ass is hurting...... a lot
2. My back is hurting
3. My bike is absolutely not meant for this sort of transportation
4. My backpack is too heavy
5. I shouldn't even be wearing a backpack
6. The wind, oh the wind
7. It's costing me money and I'm not getting anywhere for it
Reasons I want to keep going
1. I'm an idiot
2. My legs aren't thaaat tired
Anyhow I'm gonna leave on a bus for Austin just after midnight tonight, I've had my fun, Manitoba here I come.
On Tuesday at roughly 7:30am I rolled off my Aunt and Uncle's driveway in Cochrane Alberta. Not even off the block and the trailer wheels were rubbing my bag, that was just the beginning. My goal for the day was Bottrell, well by 10 the handle had broken on the trailer but I got it working by rigging it with a tarp strap. The wheels still needed adjustment every few minutes or they would have been bald even quicker. I made it to Bottrell by 11am and decided to go to Cremona to see if I could maybe get the trailer welded up solid. On the way I had a farmers dog follow me for a bit down the highway and was trying to ignore it when all of a sudden I heard screeching tires and looked just in time to see a motocycle swerve narrowly missing the dog. Needless to say he was not happy, but hey it wasn't my dog. A trailer tire blew out even before getting to Cremona so I just kept going with the flat and trashed the trailer in Cremona. I rolled into Cremona around 1pm, had a nap and then left for Carstairs, another 30km away. My estimate of 10km/h was pretty accurate cause by 5 I was in Carstairs, AB. I treated myself to Chinese buffet and had the entire restaurant to myself. That evening I watched some baseball.
I was pretty happy with my first day progress although Cremona to Carstairs was a lot harder cause my pack was on my back instead of on the trailer. I had biked/walked approximately 80km in 8 hours. I knew by then that biking all the way to Manitoba would not happen but I wanted to keep going anyway.
Day two I left Carstairs at 7am, by 8 I was past Didsbury and almost to the #2 heading east. The reason I was going north first was I wanted to go to Saskatoon to visit a friend, ride the park, and it's on a major highway making hitching more probable. The biking was way harder due to the wind as well as there being less hills to roll down. I even had to pedal down some of the hills cause of the wind. Anyhow I passed one dead skunk, visited one cheese factory that wasn't open, and got pretty close to a badger before it ran off. Quick little creatures those badgers. By 10am my routine went like this; ride sitting till my ass really hurt (about three minutes), ride standing till my legs got tired (about five minutes), and then walk until the blood was flowing properly again (another five minutes), extremely slow and painfull but not exhusting. I rolled into Linden at 2pm and stopped there cause the next town was at least a days ride away. Besides I had biked probably 60km already. In Linden I found a little coffee shop that had internet access so I emailed my folks. On my way out I noticed a for sale poster for a van only $450. By this time I was up for anything but another day with my pack pushing me onto my seat. So I gave the guy a call and he was like "yeah I'd take $200 but it's got a major oil leak so it may not make Manitoba" I told him I'd think about it and get back to him the next day. I bummed around town for the next couple hours, had a bagel and sardines for supper and was working out the situation sitting at my campsite listening to music. Suddenly the music quit.........my ipod was not responding, my new ipod with all my music that I had just bought was frozen. I tried everything short of reseting it, nothing worked. Right there was all the reason I needed, I had to go back to Calgary, back to Future Shop and to Cochrane to get all my music again. I called Melissa, which sadly wasn't even long distance, and was gonna bike down to Irricana the next day so Melissa didn't have to drive far to pick me up but that didn't work for her, cause she's leaving for camp the next night (tonight) so she agreed to come to Linden in the morning. The next morning, I figured I'd check my ipod again, during the night it was still frozen, and sure enough Murphy's Law returned, my ipod was working. It was too late to call Melissa so that was it. No more biking to get places, not in Canada at least, time to move on a little quicker.
Here's what I was gonna post yesterday right after stopping for the day.
This whole biking to Manitoba idea is retarded.
These are my reasons:
1. My ass is hurting...... a lot
2. My back is hurting
3. My bike is absolutely not meant for this sort of transportation
4. My backpack is too heavy
5. I shouldn't even be wearing a backpack
6. The wind, oh the wind
7. It's costing me money and I'm not getting anywhere for it
Reasons I want to keep going
1. I'm an idiot
2. My legs aren't thaaat tired
Anyhow I'm gonna leave on a bus for Austin just after midnight tonight, I've had my fun, Manitoba here I come.
posted by Anonymous | 7:35 PM
4 Comments:
CRAZY!!! you should use your money for your travels to cool places, not manitoba!! but while you're at it....you might take a detour to camp arnes??? :) miss you
yay! you're okay! and you're on your way HERE!
where are you? you should be here...
Well done, I never would've gotten past 5 km out of town. Thanks for visiting our little town of Linden. It's wierd to read this cause I live almost right next to the camp ground and my friend owns the internet cafe. I'm probably related to guy with the van!
Post a Comment
<< Home