Day: May 21, 2015

Day 20 – Bowbells

Day 20 – Bowbells, ND (Thursday May 21, 2015)

I took down my tent, packed up and was on my bike by 7:15am. I stopped down at “Sista’s” restaurant for french toast and discovered that the service hadn’t got any better overnight.

I had a second breakfast in Estevan in good time at 10:30am.  Although there were “local” choices I picked Dairy Queen. I wanted to count on quickness, cleanliness and a smile.

I crossed the border into North Dakota at North Portal SK at about 1:30pm.   The border guards were good guys and were curious about a crazy old man riding across the country on his bicycle. They asked what I had in my panniers and I made the mistake to list my food items. Apparently my rice was not allowed into the US and was confiscated.  Who would have thought?  My wife Ann packed that rice. It was healthy nutritious brown rice. Don’t tell Ann but I didn’t like that rice. It made eating my camping meal a chore and I am glad it is gone. Now I can go and buy some white rice with impunity.

It may be important to note that the stretch of east bound highway on number 5 doesn’t have much of a shoulder.   Typically the shoulder would be described thus from right to left: there’s a white line, then about 12 inches of a rumbles strips, then a strip of about 4-10 inches of good pavement intended for bicyclists like me, then about 4 feet of gravel.  The strip of good pavement for bicyclists varied in width depending on the whim of the highway builders. On highway 5 to boot here is one lane of traffic in each direction with a speed limit of 65 miles per hour.

There a number of things I learnt when riding on a narrow strip of pavement:

  1. You get better at riding in a straight line.
  2. Your grip gets stronger.
  3. Rumble strips act like brakes.  (So does gravel)
  4. Livestock trucks push the most wind.

I gave up travelling on this thin strip of due to difficulty and decided instead to use the road when there was no traffic. I started thinking that avoiding Ontario’s highways north of Lake Superior by traveling in the US was a dumb idea.

Luckily the traffic was sparse, the drivers gave me the next lane (when they could) and the highway improved significantly to 9 feet of paved shoulder once the highway headed south to Bowbells.

There are no campground in Bowbells.  I am staying at an acceptable motel with a shower, laundry and a bed. Isn’t quite as good as the tent but it will have to do.

An iconic prairie house. 3:23 pm 2015/05/21
Benson and a ubiquitous ‎prairie grain elevator. 8:57 am 2015/05/21
Benson and some old farm buildings. 8:58 am 2015/05/21
Someone running a junk yard looking for amusement. 9:53 am 2015/05/21

BikeTracking, BikeRoute

Day 19 – Stoughton

Day 19 – Stoughton, SK (Wednesday, May 20, 2015)

Although I didn’t see downtown Regina it seemed from the ourskirts that Regina was a busy town like any other busy town. Perhaps it was trying to be like some other city in Ontario.

I stayed at Days Inn. It was like any other Days Inn with a pool, cookies and a hot breakfast. But I really miss sleeping in a tent.

I took advantage of the “hot” breakfast which made me later than usual and set my new course south of Superior.

I had a good day bicycling, again not a cloud in the sky and the wind was finally in my favour. I hit 38km/hr in the flat but other than that the day was generally unmemorable.

I can guess why people from the prairies are so serious. There is nothing funny about living here. The winter is brutal, the spring is filled with bugs, the land and the sky are all you see without variation, and up until recently everyone was dependent on the rain for their livelihood.

The new route – highway 33 – runs right beside the railroad tracks. The grain elevators were built at regular intervals about 20km apart. One of the guys I met in Stoughton said there has been a lot on consolidation but they are still the most distinguishing land feature.

And then there are oil wells. Lots of them. They are marked by machinery moving slowly up and down resembling a nod of some prehistoric animal.

It seems like much of Saskatchewan is in some sort of disrepair.  Despite this people are still eking out a living. Beats me how! This may be the slow route to prosperity. Or maybe not.

When I arrived in Stoughton I found a nice campground and left to look for a place to eat. Someone pointed out a corner where there was a restaurant. It’s called “Sista’s” they said. “The have pretty good food there.” So I went to the corner where there was a typical prairie building with aluminum siding and minimal windows. There was no restaurant sign. There was no “Sista’s” sign. They were (or I was) lucky I was on my bike or I would have kept going. The food was ok but no-one really knew how to wait on tables. The waiters were nice enough but were much more interested in chatting with the locals. Somehow this seems typical.

I pitched my tent which was still wet from the snow at Eagle Valley. I looked forward to finally sleep in the fresh air again.

An old building in a small hamlet on the way to Stoughton. 2:02 pm 2015/05/20

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