Calgary to Okotoks (Oak a toques)

Friday - July 19 - Breakfast brought us more information. The motel clerk called her colleague in High River and confirmed that there is NOTHING available there. All the motels south of here are filled with displaced flood victims and/or relief workers and are not taking anyone else. She also confirmed that the campground in Okotoks was damaged by the flood and is still closed. 

We went back to our room and fired up the laptop and the smartphone. We finally found a bed and breakfast that was available in Okotoks and was close to our new route south.

We got on the road about 9:30. Calgary has done a fine job signing their bike routes.

Looks like we are headed to downtown as we cross the Bow River.

Yep...right into the heart of the highrises.

The route took us right by the Canadian REI. We didn't stop as it would be too tempting to oogle and we really didn't need anything or have space for more stuff.

Does a Tim Horton's goodie at this gas station count for breakfast #2?

Doug's GPS on/off button broke several days ago. It was fortunate that Donna figured out how to get the bike route on her phone and available offline and that it had GPS. Otherwise we might have wandered around Calgary for many hours or until another Angel of the Road showed up.

Another bike/pedestrian bridge over a busy 6 lane thoroughfare. Hurray for Calgary!

Still in Calgary. The route took us through many very pleasant older quiet neighborhoods. This was not a part of Calgary we saw when we came through by car several years ago. It gave us a much better sense of the city as a whole.

Finally after 20.5 miles and 4 and half hours later we have reached the Calgary city limits.

Highway 2A is our route south for today.

A local guy flagged us down just outside of town because he was concerned about us having a place to stay. He was glad to hear we had accomodations for the night. It was 3:30 and we stopped for a Blizzard and to pick up a dinner since the B&B was about 4 miles out of town. A very loud and wet thunderstorm kept us hunkered down in the store until it blew over.

What our host did NOT show on the map was the very steep hill that we zoomed down into the coulee before going up to their place. Their 3 Appaloosa horses greeted us as we walked our bikes UP the driveway. The guest room is on the bottom floor of the house. This is the view out our patio door.

What you can't see is the shower that can become a sauna. This was way more luxury than we ever expected. We also had a small kitchen at our disposal and they let us use their computer to print out some maps of our new route. About 11 another thunderstorm struck and we were glad that we weren't camping tonight. In the end, sometimes things really do just work out for the best!