|
August 15 Monday Bicycle touring from Sheho Saskatchewan - Roblin Manitoba We (foolishly) wait to eat breakfast until Yorkton. I am starving by the time we got into town. We enquire at an information center where we can find a Bonanza Restaurant. I'm so hungry I'm pretty sure I could eat Hoss all by myself. By the time we find the place it is a little after noon. I am so hungry I can probably eat Hoss and then have Little Joe for dessert. I order the food bar and a chicken sandwich. I eat massive quantities of grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew, orange, kiwi fruit, and watermelon. They have a great whipped pudding. I have massive quantities of dessert ice cream and many glasses of the refillable pop -- so much, I fear I am going to pop. I save my chicken sandwich for later. I write a letter to Heide and Ryan and drop our first roll of slide film in the mail to them. We'll phone them later to make sure the shots are turning out okay. I just bought a new telephoto lens before we left. What good planning. We want to go to Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, so we turn our bicycles and head north on Hwy 12. The first few miles are under construction; there is gravel, tar, smelly fumes and loud machinery to greet us as we pedal by. The road turns into a pebbled surface that for the next two hours tries its best to jar loose any remaining fillings. My posterior hurts just thinking about it. The miles go by slowly and torturously. Finally, we spy a gas station on a corner near Wroxton. We stop. While eating popsicles we listen to the owner and a customer debate on how long it would take to ride a bicycle to Winnipeg. Neither of them ride a bicycle of course. After some questionable math and swatting numerous flies buzzing around the table, they settle on four days. That's probably close. We drag our carcasses back onto our bikes and head for Roblin, just over the provincial border in Manitoba. The pavement improves and the miles slip by quicker. I still don't see anything except scrub trees and fields. Even the houses are far apart now. When each farmer has to have 30 quarters to make a living, there is no such thing as close neighbours. We come over the lip of the prairies and there is a beautiful green valley with a lake at the bottom and reflections of a surrounding small hill. We have hit the Manitoba border. We take a picture to celebrate having survived cycling across Saskatchewan. We zoom down the hill, across the bridge spanning a section of Lake-of-the-Prairies, then laboriously begin the climb out the other side, using muscles that hadn't been tested since Cypress Hills. We cycle into the town of Roblin. I see two women walking down the sidewalk and ask them for directions to a food store. They stare back at me like I am an alien, then, without a word, turn around and go back down the street in the direction they just came from. This is a somewhat surprising welcome to our new province. The Manitoba provincial slogan? "Friendly Manitoba." There is a church just getting out next door and apparently this is where they women had just come from. Sharon tells me they must have used all their goodness up. On the way into town I noticed a sign saying the Co-op was on 2nd street, so we carry on. It is closed. There are two more women walking ahead. Do I dare ask them for directions? I chance it. They turn out to be regular friendly Manitobans and direct us to the nearest convenience store, campground, and pool. We were going to shower at the pool but the ladies tell us the campground has showers. This is turning out to be friendly Manitoba after all. It gets even better. Both the campground and the showers are free. We select a spot overlooking Goose Lake. Only two other campers are here: one has an RV, and the other is in a van near the parking lot. The info booth is located in the same building as the showers. I go in to enquire about the shower hours and they inform me they are open 24 hours. A little old lady and her shaved dog are chatting to the girl behind the desk. She turns out to be the aunt of the girl working at the desk. Aunt Mary begins to ask me questions about cycling. Soon the girl's mom, Nellie, shows up. Both the mother and aunt being firing questions at me like spitfire. They ask me about everything they can think of from biking to life in general. "Don't you get scared?" they ask. "No," I tell them. "I don't watch television very much." They like to watch the news they tell me. In colour, too. I think TV distorts people's view of the world. It focuses far more on evil and violence than on the majority: good people and good things in the world. The newscast proportion is very lopsided. Of course, good deeds don't sell many newspapers or make the nightly news very often. Eventually, the women have to go home. I skip off for a shower and then trundle off to bed. |
