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August 9 Tuesday Bicycle touring from Viking Alberta - Amisk Alberta This is amazing. It is even windier today. If this keeps up it will be blowing us backwards. I think for every three pedal strokes forward I am blown back two. We stop at the bakery in Viking and pick out six apple strudel. Then we eat at the Motor Inn (even though we motored in without motors) to get out of the relentless wind that blows in our ears. If we keep eating in restaurants, I think it will be difficult to stick to a budget of $13 a day like the French couple we met last summer. We read in the newspaper about a girl who had cycled around the world on an average of $15 a day. I don't think they were eating in restaurants in America or Europe on that amount of money. Maybe it averages out if you spend six months cycling around India? From Viking we pedal south on Hwy 36 in an attempt to cut down on the east wind. I get a flat. I put on a new tire, along with a new flat-proof tube and install a Mr. Tuffy tire liner. That should solve the flat problem for a while. It has been sprinkling on and off today, but the temperature seems a little warmer than yesterday. Lots of farmland Many grain elevators. Lots of trains, too. We stop at Lion's Park in Lougheed and eat our strudel. I don't know why I buy these pastry things. Far too waxy. The chocolate milk is great for washing them down. In Amisk we talk to Mary, the owner of the convenience store. We buy cucumber, tomatoes, cheese, and ham for sandwiches with mushroom soup and apple cinnamon tea. Mary gives us a business card with the store phone number. I wonder if they deliver? We cycle to a ball diamond. The park is in a dilapidated state with loads of weeds growing in the infield. I can't even describe what the outfield is like because I can't see past the infield weeds. There are a couple of picnic tables. One table is completely covered with flies. We choose the other one, out in the open. There is a pull handle spigot for water. We decide to camp here. Someone across the street is having a barbecue. It smells great. We should buy a steak and go over to introduce ourselves. We fire up our Whisperlite Pyro Inferno with a tad overflow of the fuel cup. The entire picnic table is on fire. It finally simmers down; I'm worried for a couple of minutes that the volunteer fire department is going to show up and hose us down along with the picnic table. I make the soup while Sharon makes the sandwiches, then I put on a pot of water to boil. Just as I am putting the tea bag into the boiling water a young fella and a woman walk over to check us out. Their names are Mark and a friend, Jeannette. They biked together to Cypress Hills a couple of years ago. They say it was 34º C and smoking hot. Pretty much the opposite of today. Jeannette wants to go to Winnipeg next. I invite her along. Mark invites us over to his mom's house for hot chocolate. He works in Provost at the Ford dealership on an apprentice program. He is in his third year at Vermilion College. His mom, Luella, went in to Edmonton today to take a lady for a chemo treatment. Mark has a Volkswagen Beetle that he rodded out for a school project. It has a stinger tailpipe. He was telling us about one time he was at a light and a Camaro pulled up alongside him and revved its engine. Mark revved the Volksie; it backfired so hard that flame shot out the stinger! Mark says he had the guy beat without even having to race him. |
