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August 8 Monday Bicycle touring from Ryley Alberta - Viking Alberta Biking to Viking. Today's headwind is even stronger than yesterday. And we are taking the full brunt without having Vicky to kindly block for us. Today we bike a whopping 50 kilometres. My right calf hurts. We are at a roadside camp area. It once allowed camping but now has signs posted informing us hapless travellers that it doesn't allow camping anymore. Just our luck. It is just before Viking. My thermometer reads 12º C -- before the windchill factor is factored in. It must be close to zero out there. My face, fingers, and toes are tingling. Truly, it feels as if it is going to snow. I carry in an armload of drenched wood and Sharon coaxes a fire to feeble life in the shelter's stove. It eventually takes the chill out of the air. A bird has a mud nest attached to a roof beam and has been making non-stop trips out into the cold to bring back insects to feed her brood of four chicks. Their beaks are as big as they are. Leaving Ryley this morning we picked up a loaf of bread. A guy at the store asked if we were the ones he had seen on TV yesterday. A couple is going for a year. (I wonder when we are going to start telling people we are cycling around the world?) He said he would like to go on a cycle trip like this, but he is too old. Sounds like the same sad old story we hear over and over. If you think you can, you're right. If you think you can't, you're right again. The scenery is nothing to look at. I have taken boredom to new heights. I've been wiling away my time on the bike by counting telephone poles. How many people know there is an average of 12 telephone poles per kilometre? How many care? I'll bet it's even less. And just to add some variety, I began counting fenceposts. There are 20 fenceposts per kilometre. That is the extent of how exciting this prairie scenery is. It is especially so since it is so windy I have my head tucked down between my knees. For many kilometres I see nothing but the pavement passing beneath my twiddling pedals. |
