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August 19 Friday Bicycle touring from Minnedosa Manitoba - Carberry Manitoba We eat breakfast with Jerry and Ruth. We talk to Jerry about his pride and joy Harley. Jerry tells us he was adopted and used to do slave labour on a farm. He used to be in the Winnipeg motorcycle gang, the Marauders. He was a guard for Stony Mountain penitentiary. He has a two hundred gallon aquarium downstairs which he built into the wall. He has a $3000 turntable. He parks his bike in the living room over the winter to work on it. He and Ruth rode their Harley in the US for a couple of months. They ran out of money in Arkansas. Jerry figured he could earn a tank of gas by throwing bales for some farmer for a day. They went into a McDonald's to eat and with their last two dollars get a salad and a burger. "How come I only get a salad and you get a burger?" Ruth asks. "You only have to sit and watch the bike while I work throwing bales" Jerry tells her. She agrees. Just as they are finishing a guy walks in and asks Jerry if that's his bike. He says it's the best he's ever seen. Jerry decides this would be a good time to begin networking and asks him if he knows any farmers who need a hand for a day or so. "Why?" the guy wants to know. Jerry explains he is out of money. The guy says he has a better idea and goes out to his wife in the pickup. "Yep," he says when her returns, "I just checked with my wife and she says it's okay for you to come on over to our house." They stayed three days and when they left the guy gave them $40 to buy gas. Ruth and the fella's wife were pen pals for years, but then she went to England and they have never heard from her again. Jerry was at a bike rally in the States. Some other big fat bikers were rousing the Canadians saying what wussy riders they were. When the biggest fattest guy got on his Harley to do a beer run, Jerry got behind his bike and lifted both this big fat guy and his Harley right off the ground. The guy was revving away but not going anywhere. When he looked behind and saw Jerry holding up his bike he was so surprised that when Jerry let go he went a little ways in the sand and then toppled over. "I thought you were telling me what a good rider you were," Jerry said to him as he was laying there. Jerry figures the guy would have killed him in a fight, but his friends starting laughing and then he did too. Jerry used to do lots of weightlifting and working out when he was a guard. For fun he used to pick up the rear end of a Pinto. Another rally in Texas they are razzing the Canadian guys again about not being able to ride. Jerry told him he had ridden down from Canada. "Naw," the guys say "in the snow?" "Yep. How's that for riding?" Jerry asks as he rides off. We finally get away at 2:30 PM. The oxbow lake on the edge of town looks interesting when we catch a glimpse of it from above on the road. There are horses and colts going down for a drink. Hwy 10 is busy, but traffic has been pulling around us. We stop at the edge of Brandon before going onto the ultra busy Trans Canada. It turns out there is four lanes but no paved shoulder. We fervently survey our rear view mirrors as major traffic sweeps by in waves. After 40 kilometres of steady dodging we turn off onto Hwy 351 and spend the night in Carberry's fairground. Don't ask me why, but Sharon wishes she had a baked potato. |
