Canada 2016 - Brooks to Medicine Hat

Wednesday - June 29
Our route out of town took us downtown where we discovered these murals. We also found the post office so we could mail some postcards to our kids and Donna's mom.

That long straight line on the horizon is the historic Brooks Aqueduct. It is 2 miles long  about 60 feet high, and was used for irrigation from 1912 to the  1940's. It is now a National/Provincial Historic Site.

This is where we had planned to camp. It looks like a nice park but we were very happy with our decision to stay in town last night.

We have a lonnnnnng day ahead of us.

This facility was a lot closer to the highway for a picture. We are wondering how they even knew there was all this natural gas below.

Not the wildlife the signs said to watch for (elk) but definitely a wild coyote.

We are sort of glad these huge things are sitting still. A trucker told us they have been sitting here since yesterday. One of them will pass us later today, just before we reach Medicine Hat. It took the whole road but left us the shoulder.

We have seen quite a few prairie dogs but usually they are too fast about hiding to get a picture. This time Doug didn't do his hawk whistle. Maybe that helped?

Not wild but Alberta is proud of its beef.

Ah Ha...the answer to our question. Canadian Pacific Railroad found the gas when they were drilling for water!

They mowed down our wind vanes!

It gives the locals some free hay.

Suffield lost their only restaurant in January. The building is even gone. We were sitting on a bench by the Community Hall eating the sandwiches we had packed from Brooks when Ernest drove up and asked if we needed water.

What we really wanted was a bathroom so he pulled out his keys and opened the building to our use. We whipped out the Angel of the Road card!

Then he showed us their small museum and we talked cameras. He has 200 cameras in his personal collection. The oldest is an Eastman Kodak Screen Focus from the late 19th Century. It was such an unexpected and delightful encounter.

These guys did their best to entertain us too.

Farewell Suffield. It is 13:00 and we've pedaled 40 miles already but have about 25 more to go.

The light tailwind is holding and the clouds are giving us some welcome shade periodically as it is quite warm now,

We stopped for ice cream in Red Cliff, just about 5 miles shy of our destination.

It might be the city limits but we can still have miles to go when it is the prairie.

Now Medicine Hat is in sight. We just have to cross the river.

South Saskatchewan River

We are only about a mile from the motel and Doug has a flat tire.

Our longest day so far just got a little longer. The rim was actually bent by whatever caused the pinch flat.  We can almost see the motel from here so we could walk if we had to but the wheel still worked well enough to get us there. There is a bike shop in town that is open at 9 tomorrow morning so we decided that we would spend the rest of tomorrow exploring Medicine Hat. Doug is bummed but this was the best place this side of Calgary to need a bike shop so we are still lucky.