Canada 2016 - Broadview to Moosomin

Sunday - July 10
The birds and the sun woke us up at 5:45. We didn't have many mosquitos when we went to bed last night but at least 30 of them came in the tent when Doug got up in the middle of the night. It took us 10 minutes to eliminate them!

 It never did rain but that grass was wet and everything feels a little moist.

Breakfast #1 - muffins, cheese, and melon

The other nice thing is there is no wind this morning.

Breakfast #2 in Whitewood - pie and the last 5 km of Stage 9 of the Tour de France. It was pouring rain at the finish line in Andorra.

Sheri, from Squamish, BC, was waiting for us on one of the roads that join the 2 sides of the highway. She is headed west and started in Halifax. Her son graduated from college back east and she decided to ride home! We talked for at least 20 minutes. She told us that the shoulders in Manitoba will be fine at least as far as Winnipeg. We really enjoyed our visit and are glad that she stopped. With the light breeze and early start we are making good time....it is 10:50.

It is 11:40....flat tire #3 of the trip and about a mile from where we planned to have lunch. Doug is starting to suspect that this is related to flat tire #1 on the bridge in Medicine Hat.

The only restaurant in Wapella is closed on Sundays and the gas station is only a card-lock type with no convenience store attached.

Of course we always have spare food for such occasions and this nice Centennial Park has shade and a place to sit. A train went by and Doug counted the cars....166!

The gazebo was also just right for fixing flat #4    $@#^$%&%$&
It took 3 tries. It turned out that the replaceable stem had gotten loose and would randomly let out air if it got jostled just the right way. Doug also found a sharp spot inside the rim of the new wheel that could have been resulting in the holes we found in 2 different tubes. He smoothed it off with patch kit sandpaper and we're hoping that fixed problem.

Earlier, we thought we would be in Moosomin by 3:00 but we didn't leave Wapella until 2:15 with at least 10 miles to go.

A bit of  an afternoon headwind didn't help matters either, We finally got to the Dairy Queen in Moosomin for a much needed Blizzard at 4:00.

That evening we walked a few blocks to dinner. Our table just happened to face a TV that was showing  an earlier part of Stage 9 of the Tour! As we prepared to leave, a thunderstorm arrived and buckets of rain were blowing sideways. We waited it out and only got sprinkled on going back to the motel but there were more intense episodes the rest of the evening.