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July 11 Monday Bicycle touring from Stettler Alberta - Drumheller Alberta There is a noisy crash this morning when the garbage collectors empty the metal dumpster. Later, music wafts from the school's outside speakers. I have my earplugs in and it is muted. I get up at 8 and pack up. Sharon is worried that someone might come out of the school and take exception to us using their gazebo as a freelance camp shelter. I hope someone will come out of the school, so I can ask them for a shower. As we head for a store to buy breakfast, Sharon notices a sign pointing to the local swimming pool. We go there and I ask the chap on duty if he has free showers for cross-Canada cyclists. He says sure. It takes a while for the water to warm up, but once it does it feels terrific. A while later the chap comes in and says a bunch of kids are coming in for swimming lessons in 5 minutes. I am pretty much done -- just standing there enjoying the pulsating massage on my stiff muscles. I wash my clothes in the sink and then bungee them as inconspicuously as possible to my rear rack, placing my towel over them. We buy fruit. I have an awful-looking cold sore, so I buy some rubbing alcohol to treat it with. Susan is calling me Mick, as in Jagger, since I now have lips as big as he does. Too bad I can't sing. We head for the Red Deer College outpost where we had seen picnic tables. The weather is once again threatening rain. The temperature has been alternately cool in the cloudy bits, then scorching hot when the sun breaks through. We head out of town, south to Big Valley on Hwy 56. We stop at a place where there is an artesian well flowing at a good amount and refill our water bottles and soak our bandanas to cool down the back of our necks. Big Valley is two kilometres off the main road. It is time to eat so I convince Susan and Sharon we should go there for fudgesicles. There is a concrete structure to the side of town that looks like Roman coliseum ruins. Big Valley has a country jamboree each summer. A small tourist plaza with an old west theme has sprung up in town. An old work boot has been made into a planter. Maybe I can do the same with my old cycling shoes? Chairs are made from old whiskey barrels. We buy carrot cake at the bakery to go with the cinnamon buns we bought at the bakery in Stettler. We walk to the train station across the street which is now a museum. It is closed. I take a long gander down the track. There is a huge tree on the edge of the railway yard, giving the place a tranquil back-in-time Huck Finn quality. We eat our lunch while lounging on the grass in the secluded railway yard. Cottonwood tree fluff falls like a surreal summertime blizzard. The sun is hot even though a slight breeze is blowing. As we head south the wind begins to howl like a banshee and pushes us quickly toward Drumheller. I sprint a distance, spinning like a mad man on my fully loaded bike at 32 mph. It is fun cruising along at speed. Dark clouds blow in. We try to outrace the storm but fail. We get soaked on three separate occasions. My shoes are totally soaked. Even my brand new socks look old, clogged with mud-splattered water. The road turns into a construction zone for fourteen gooey kilometres. The pavement is grooved and bumpy. Getting me ready to cycle the cobblestones in Europe? A truck with Saskatchewan plates honks as he goes by and causes us to nearly jump out of our skin. Rednecks. I would flatten his tires if I could catch him. (Earlier, a rig driver had crept up behind us so quietly that we didn't even know he was there until he pulled around to pass us in a safe spot. We waved as he went by and he flashed his backup lights at us.) The wind is blowing from a south-easterly direction and is pushing us pretty good. Susan, being a lightweight cyclist, is tossed around on the road by the wind gusts. She says this is the most wind that she has ever ridden in and finds it downright scary. The 108 kilometres we cover today goes by quickly. In Drumheller we stop at the first campground we come to. The lady wants $10 ... each! We leave. The next place wants $15 ... per tent. We have two. The look on Sharon's face must have convinced the fella that we wouldn't be staying at that price, so he amended the price to $15 total, since we have such small tents. They have showers. We want to get the muck off us and warm up too. It has rained quite a bit. We check out the muddy sites along the Red Deer River, then choose one back up on top under some trees. It starts to downpour and our tree cover begins to leak. We quickly set up the tents and then go to check out the Bakery sign splashed across the awning of the office. There is no bakery. "That's a fake bakery sign," I say to the kid behind the desk. "Well, it came from a real bakery," he responds. I tell him we're looking for real food. "Dinny's store is only a block away," he says. "Go a block out, then turn right and go a block, and then take the alley for a block." "That's three blocks," Susan says. Kids these days. The amount of water gushing down the curbsides is unbelievable. I think this must be one of their summertime freak storms -- Drumheller is usually a bone-dry type of place. We buy macaroni and then go to the visitor's centre. We walk downtown to locate a laundromat. Not finding one, we head back to camp and cook supper. Our Whisperlite stove is great in the fast boil department. As two convinced supporters of Coleman Peak One stoves, it hasn't taken long for this little puppy to win us over. Exhausted, we hit the sack. In the early morning a loud bang, resembling a gunshot, occurs. Susan says it sounded like a sonic boom. It is loud even with my earplugs in. A transformer, directly across from us on an electric pole, blew up. Soon, two workmen with a caterpillar and backhoe arrive on the scene. Every camp spot we have stayed at has had its requisite loud noises. |
