PowerCycle

06/30 There are certain guarantees in life. One is that if you drop a motel in front of me after a long, hard day on the road I’m going to stay in it. So that was the case today. After dealing with a relentless headwind that had me cursing at it all day I landed here in Grande Cache at the Big Horn Motor Inn. The owner probably dislikes me because I talked him down to $60 a night. At one point he laughed to himself so I asked what was funny and he said he hasn’t charged someone that low of a rate in years. Well I’m glad I could be the first. AMEX isn’t so popular up here either. I guess their merchant fees are higher so people are reluctant to take it. VISA charges me a 1% currency conversion fee per transaction so I hate using it (AMEX doesn’t).

Yeah, so today had me thinking about buying a $500 truck and driving the rest of the way. I never would but it was fun thinking about it. These last two days have been the toughest so far (even harder than the Katy Trail). Just hill after hill and that damn cold wind just never stops. I had to find a ditch at the side of the road just so I could be out of it while I was eating lunch. Finally I get to the city and there’s a massive hill that needed climbing before I could get to it. Brutal. Even more brutal was the sharp pain that I keep feeling in my neck while I’m hunched over for any length of time. I finally got mad and punched my neck a couple times and it actually helped.

The winds are supposed to shift to a more favorable direction on Thursday so I’m going to stay here tomorrow and celebrate Canada Day in style–in a motel room with beer and Bridge Mixture. Speaking of lonely, today was the first time where I didn’t talk to a single person all day up until I got to the motel. I should probably start getting used to that.

Had a great dinner at the restaurant next door. One 12″ ham/pineapple pizza fell to my protein-starved body in record time. Got to watch Lloyd Robertson on CTV for the first time in many, many years. He’s now the longest-serving network news anchor in television history according to Wiki.

Read in the paper here that a motorcyclist from Jupiter, Florida died on the road I was on today (happened yesterday–now I know what the helicopter was doing). Was sorry to hear it. I always end up talking to those guys if we spot each other at stores or at the campgrounds. They are the 2nd toughest group of people out on the road so they always have good stories and info. Hwy 40 is not in good shape in a lot of places. I could easily see a bike swerving to avoid a rough patch and losing control. The speed limit is also high (100 kph/62 mph) which doesn’t help.

Update: Just read this on NPR. Hiking the Appalachian Trail was one of my original plans. Sounds like many others thought a reboot would be a good idea too. Great read.

GPX Track

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Leg 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.