Managed to cycle UP one entire big hill without walking it. Getting stronger!
Everyone tells me what a rainy summer it has been, including the people back home.
It's my understanding that all of Canada has had their parades rained on this year.
Lovely village, Mervin. Stopped in when I saw a highway sign for a tearoom, even though I had made green tea before leaving Turtleford.
Children are out playing and riding their bikes freely here.
I remember back at Elk Pt., Andy, the motel owner, saying that their town was crime free! I've been leaving my bike unlocked lately. It really is a safe area in all this mid-north.
Jeff and Tam own Bumbleberry's Tea and Coffee House and are very interested in organics. Apparently, Tam started out making Smart Snacks for friends. Her baking is superb using as much organic as ingredients as is possible.
Jeff and Tam, Bumbleberry's Tea and Coffe House, Mervin, SKHad organic orange juice, and the best homemade whole-wheat toast n jam. Most of the food is organic, and I tell Jeff about 'Vickie's Veggies' so he can contact her through Google to find out more about the organic foods Vicky is growing here in Picton.
Tam has the best Bearington Bears collection I've ever seen, which makes the tearoom so warm and friendly. Later, when I find Sassy, I wonder if I should send her to Tam, but Sassy still sits on my dresser here at home.
Tam's lunch menu is unlike any I seen yet, and one I would normally have never missed except that I was given the chance to use a computer across the road to catch up on my blog here and became obsessed with finishing that I've missed lunch.
Jeff lead me to a hose at the side of the tearoom, where I washed off most of the clay from the trail that was still stuck to the spokes, fenders, wheels, and frame. The mud made the bike that much heavier and it's so heavy as it is that is has probably discouraged any potential bike thief. I mentioned that my helmet needed replacing because the padding inside it is loose, and he gave me the name of a good sports store in Saskatoon. No bike stores in the prairies. Now that Ontario people are also moving to SK, maybe that will change soon. After all, there are excellent tearooms there now.
Thanks to Laura who works in the municipal office for allowing me 3 hrs., more had I wanted it, on Mervin's library computer.
Behind me, in the municipal office, I heard someone say 'I hear we have a celebrity in our midst' and Lois comes over to the computer desk, wearing a yellow Revelstoke t-shirt with a bear on it, while I'm typing, and introduces herself. When I remark about her t-shirt, she tells me of her encounter with a grizzly.
She and a friend were walking a trail, I believe in Banff. Lois had a walking stick with her when they happened upon a grizzly bear.
She hadn't noticed it but suddenly, her friend says, 'Don't move'.
She didn't.
The grizzly approached them and sniffed them all over. It even chewed on her walking stick, and was drooling so much so that Lois wondered then if it is her that the bear has in mind for lunch.
Apparently, if you stay stock still, bears will usually (or is that often) leave you alone - not always but most times so don't press your luck. Have bearspray.
I wonder if she knows the story of the Revelstoke grizzly that attacked a girl on the beach of a campground many years ago.
She screamed and screamed and a young man came running to her rescue. The grizzly then attacked him, and injured him seriously, taking off most of his face.
My cousin, Judy, was one of his nurses at the Revelstoke hospital before he was air-lifted to Vancouver.
As soon as she mended enough, the girl followed him to the hosp. in Vanc., and after months of re-couperation, they were married to each other. The following year, Queen Elizabeth came to visit Canada, and made a point of meeting them.
See, those happily-ever-stories of a prince on a white horse that we grew up with in the 50's were believable.
Of course, nowadays, Munch's 'The Paper Bag Princess' is more plausable. Sorry, just had to add that, heehee.
Lois left me 2 energy bars. I was down to 2 and a bite, so now I have 4, and a bite.
Comment on blog: 'July 28, 2008 3:30 PM ME said...So what is Saskatoon like? I'm guessing you made it there today, or will tomorrow. Hopefully you can use the library there somewhere!'
Comment from me: 'Read on. It's a wonderful province.'
Today's entries may be different from those that were text messaged in, but the wonderful job that my daughter, Josie, is doing putting the text messages into this blog is so deeply appreciated. Can't wait to have the time to read them more carefully.
Guess I'd better hit the road, though I may go see if Bumbleberry's still have any lunch left. Not likely as it's 2:33. I told Jeff about Vickie's Veggies so I'm sure he's going to look that up on the net as they, Tam and Jeff, are really into organic.
As you can see, I didn't leave then. At 3 o'clock, Laura calls out, 'Do you want to come over to the tearoom for a break, Karen?' and I sure do. When I get to the tearoom, she is sitting with friends and calls for me to join them.
Some of the names I also remember are Marianne Little whose son loves to read and wants a book, Linda, and Brandon. As I answer questions, and joke about some of my experiences, I hear a man named Ed say to the 3 ladies at his table, 'I'm going over there. It sounds like fun.' and over he comes to join us.
My one big regret on the whole trip is that I didn't go over and invite the other 3 ladies to join us, too. What a miserable oversight on my part. Ed pointed his wife got up and left the restaurant. However, the dynamics just didn't sink in my brain until later when I was coasting along the highway. It would have been so easy to put another table up beside ours.
When I went to pay, Tam told me Laura had already done so, treating me to Bumbleberry's bumbleberry/rhubarb pie and homemade iced tea - memorable!
Tam, you make the best pie ever.
Mary Esta is mapping my progress but everyday I have something so worthwhile to stop for, it may take me a millenium to get home.
Bye for now and Love, K
Comment from Paul: The rough spots are part of the adventure":
Comment from me: The rough spots are most of the adventure!!!
Comment from Mary Esta: Hi Mom! That pic with your bike on the trail is great (showing kickstand back in working order). I think I'd like Sask-cycling too - the mountains in Sask are a perfect size! :P
Comment from me: the mountains in Sask. are sometimes 4 miles long, going gradually up and up and up. You look up and see the top ahead and feel encouraged, until you reach the top of the rise, see that it flattens only a bit for a ways, and you see another hill rising above. This goes on and on.
I had a good laugh today.
As I was cycling, I pictured myself in a senior's home a year from now.
Josie and Mary Esta come to visit me.
Josie asks, 'How are your knees today, Mom? Are your legs still cramping?'
Mary Esta retorts, 'It's probably from doing The TransCanadaTrail last year, right, Mom?'
I can see myself answering with, 'What trail? Who are you?'
I burst out laughing on Hwy. 26 and chuckle for miles.
uhad2bethere. Trekking alone can 'drive' you loony.
I got to Meota around 9 pm. Why do I drive myself so hard, I wonder.
Not quite sundown because the prairie sun, esp. up north here, doesn't go down until nearly 11 pm.
There were no sites available so I pitched/squatted my little tent amid thousand of mosquitoes in a non-site corner of the park surrounded by cedars.
I am too tired to go down to the washrooms so I look in my pannier for my toothbrush and dry-brush my teeth beside the bike. A little while later, I see 4 children, about 10 - 12 years old, coming up from the beach. They walk near me on their way to the trailers. As they do, one of the girls says, 'That old lady was brushing her teeth right there.' And probably thinking 'how gross is that.'
I'm thinking, 'I wasn't spitting. Maybe I should have. How did I go from being a 'celebrity' to 'an old lady' so fast, all in one afternoon?'
Meota Swimming 'Pool'
The town decided to build that wall/dyke around a big area on the shoreline for a swimming area, and put in the fountain and tons of sand, et voila, a wonderful local beach that cyclists from Ontario can also enjoy, for free, except for the cost of the camping. Upon seeing it, I decide to stay over an extra day.
The swimming that morning was so refreshing, before the crowds came.
I sit at a picnic table on Jackfish Lake eating the fresh Bing cherries that I bought 2 days ago. The bad ones I throw to my friend, Keehar. The other gulls long ago gave up on me and left. Keehar promises not to tell on me.
In the morning, I head over for a wonderful, refreshing shower. I get all my stuff organized by the shower, my dirty clothes off and my clean clothes folded on the bench beside with my towel and face cloth, and get my loonie out, and it won't go into the box because, I assume, the money box is full.
I get dressed again, and just as I am ready to go into the other shower, someone else comes in and gets there first.
Had lunch at the canteen on the other side - choice of hotdogs, hamburgers, sandwiches, drinks, junk - and tell them about the money box being full.
The only thing I have stolen on my whole trip is here. My 2 litre water bottle! I figure someone picked up an order and thought it was theirs. I had been drinking from it, though.
After lunch, I on my blankey on the grass by the beach watching people.
Later, I fell asleep there, under a poplar tree, and awake to a couple of senior teens, a girl and a boy, playing volleyball right beside me. Not once does the ball bounce off my head.
The lake has been shrinking for a while now people tell me. Years ago the water came in 50 feet closer. In fact, the Women's Institute in town built them a 12 foot high, maybe 60 or 70 foot gigantic slide that would slide you down right into the water. I met a young couple sliding down it with their kids. The woman used to play on this slide when she were young, and she says it was old then. Now you slide down onto the sand but they were having a ball anyway, the whole family.
You can see the regata out there on the lake. They had races both days that I was there. People, mostly young boys, fish from the bank of the swimming pool into the lake. The shore is grassed and also has benches. People spread out their blankets along the lawn, mostly.
Midnight! Hiding in the washroom from a potential twister. Drying out all my clothes, sleeping bag, etc.
I was already asleep when the storm hit. Someone earlier had mentioned that there is a twister warning. The storm came up so fast and bad and with fierce winds that terrified me, pouring rain, thunder and lightning that I just grabbed a plastic bag, tore holes for my head and arms and put it on. I grabbed the nearest stuff that seemed important, esp. my sleeping bag and stuffed it all into my pillow case. My 'pillow' is a 2" piece of foam, 12" square, so there was lots of leftover room in the pillowcase. The bike wasn't locked, which was unusual, and I pushed the bike down to the washroom, with my pillowcase swinging heavily, into the driving rain and wind, getting soaked anyway. The building is made of cement blocks so I'm thinking that this might be the safest place. I forget to grab my glasses, though, and it's so dark I can barely see, esp. with the rain being driven into my face.
I push open the bathroom door, and take the bike in, too. Luckily, the panniers are on it, as my reading glasses are in one of them.
The floor in there is now muddy from me and the bike so I use up most of the rest of their paper towels mopping it up.
Then I hang up all the wet stuff on the stalls, as you see in the picture. It's relatively warm in here, compared to outside so I'm hoping things will dry, esp. the sleeping bag, or how will I sleep. Hopefully, it won't have to be in here on the cement floor.
I wonder if Mr. Tent will make it through this storm, or blow away to Ontario.
Thank goodness Sudoku is in one of the panniers. I brought a book of the puzzles that Des gave me - for emergencies - which this is.
At 11:15, I got real nervous when I heard a man's voice nearby, but then Chrissie from North Battleford comes in. She's surprised to see me. She and her significant other are also camping but at least they have a car they can jump into. Everyone else in the campground is in a trailer, 5th wheel, or motorhome. Lots of western music here today, earlier, on the beach. Most of them are here to attend a huge family reunion and the signs are up welcoming them.
Chrissie says that my tent is still up. I decide to stay a while longer to dry things out because I have now found a plug-in for my dead cell phone. It needs at least an hour.
Luckily, earlier today, I had a couple of naps, and Sudoku always keeps me awake.
At 1:15, just as I was about to leave the washroom, I hear a car pull up to the parking area outside. Cars have been going back and forth all evening, slowly, and I've been wondering if a perv is out there cruizing. I have forgotten about the reunion, so I am pretty nervous about this car, esp. when the person gets out, and I hear him coming up the walkway and he doesn't stop at the men's room.
I grab the bearspray and decap it immediately.
In bursts a woman on the run. She stops, sees me pointing that spray can at her, and screams, and I almost scream, too. Then she rushes into a stall but I have to grab the blanket off the stall door first.
Party girl! Sick!
Luckily, I can leave now.
It is no longer raining out there. I can avoid the puddles because they are the shiny spots. Anyways, I'm wearing sandals so it won't matter. I can't really 'see'. I have to walk very slowly so I don't trip over anything.
Yep, my tent is still there, it's dry inside and so are my glasses. I climb in with my pillowcase stuffed with my damp but almost dry stuff, re-distribute it all, and somehow manage to get to sleep anyway.
Happy Trails, folks.
Remember, the more you cycle, the more you want to cycle more. Except in the rain, maybe.
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