Canada 2016 - Bassano to Brooks

Tuesday - June 28
The county of Newell has done a lot to make it easy for visitors to find their way around.

We thought these ponds were pretty deep until we saw the birds standing in them!

Foreground is the oil and gas wells that we are seeing more frequently. Background is the thunderstorm to the north of us that we are keeping an eye on.

This guy barely slowed down but did call out a greeting as he went by. Downhill and a tailwind must have been too much.

THE BICYCLE LAW OF BREAKING - If you stop in a driveway or small rural road intersection for any purpose (snack, picture-taking, seat break) 60% of the time a vehicle will show up within 30 seconds wanting to use said driveway or intersection. We thought the percentage would be about 1% in the Alberta prairie when we stopped to get a picture of a typical side road off the highway.

Looking south

Does this cell tower mean we are on a high point???? Is it a hill or a bump???

At one point we were able to count 15 wells from horizon to horizon with another one being drilled.

We went from having a very minor breeze to a strong crosswind in a matter of two minutes. It felt a lot like the pre-storm winds and it was. We did get some fine semi truck surfing out of those winds though. About 20 minutes from town we had to don our rain jackets and started pedaling like crazy. About 5 minutes out we started hearing the rumble of distant thunder.

We must have gotten a little ahead of the storm because it stopped raining when we took the exit for Brooks at noon. Tim Horton's has free WiFi along with good sandwiches and coffee.... a perfect place to wait it out.

Hurray for Tim Horton's and good timing on our part. The really serious stuff came down while we were eating lunch (12:35). That included major thunder and lightning right over head.

Thank goodness for Ortlieb gear. The bikes might be wet but all our stuff will be dry. 

Gary and Marcina sat down next to us partway through lunch and started by asking the usual questions. His shirt prompted us to ask some questions too. Turned out that Gary is a bicycle advocate in Calgary. This knowledge led to an hour long, very bike nerdy conversation that we thoroughly enjoyed.

Given the prediction for continued thunderstorm activity we decided to stay in town at a motel instead of camping as we had planned. After checking in, we pedaled to the Brooks and District Museum.

They covered a wide variety of subjects with nice interpretation and presentation. This is a movie theater projector pre-degital.

This made us hungry for real ice cream.

Doug wore ice skates just like these when he was a boy.

This did not have an year of manufacture on it but it is hand-cranked and is in beautiful condition.

Doug used to help his mom make hats out of pheasant feathers similar to this one.

The evening turned stormy again after dinner.

Sunset is at 9:43 now. By coming this far south and east, we have lost about 40 minutes of evening since we left Jasper but that is OK by us!