Canada 2016 - Morris, Manitoba to Drayton, North Dakota

Tuesday - July 19
The headwind did show up today so we got an early start as the wind tends to strengthen as the day goes on. It didn't take very long at all to be out of town....about 3 minutes.

Seems a little weird to be going south after all these weeks of traveling east. Donna got a flat front tire from a piece of glass that slowed our progress. She had to straddle the bike while Doug fixed it so the bike wouldn't blow over.

Just a little construction. Since they were working on the shoulder we had the right hand lane to ourselves until we got to these trucks. This was the 3rd one in the line. We rode past the first 2 but this one was just a little too close to the edge.

As if we didn't know it was windy already, this big wind farm showed up.

A lane for trucks, a lane for cars but no lane for bikes. Guess they aren't expecting us.

Goodby Manitoba and Canada. We have had a wonderful visit.......even with all the thunderstorms. 

We thought the car lane would be most appropriate. We aren't quite tall, long or heavy enough for the truck lane.

It took the customs agent awhile to process us because his computer wanted a license plate number and we didn't have one. We offered to give him the one from our Subaru but he didn't go for it. We felt sorry for the cars behind us because we bet they thought we would just get waved through.

Now we can think in miles instead of kilometers! (doing the math in our heads was good exercise however) The road becomes a freeway south of the border with a really great shoulder.

Pembina just in time for lunch...yay!

The first thing we noticed was there are overpasses. There weren't any on Highway 1 across the prairies in Canada, except in the cities. They are good for shade breaks but also acted like a wind funnel with this SSE wind.

Yes, it is starting to look just a little stormy behind us.

If it's possible though, it seems to be moving a little bit slower than we are.

We are wondering if this billboard is especially for us.

We are so happy to see this sign. The last 5 miles just seemed to take forever and it is almost 5:00.

The thunderstorm was looking so eminent that we just checked in, put everything in the room and walked right over to Hastings Landing for dinner. The approaching storm was THE topic on the TVs. We had just finished eating our excellent meal when it started raining so we got a little wet on the way back. Sheet lightening started flashing about then too.

This is what it looked like 15 minutes later. We checked Accuweather, which reported winds of 32 mph with gusts to 47 mph. 

By 8:30 the sun was shining again. The most severe part of the storm passed to the west and south of here. The woman that checked us in had heard that she lost another tree at her home near Grafton and had water in the basement. She said a neighbor lost 120 big cottonwood trees to thunderstorm winds in June. They are used to thunderstorms here but this has been an unusually wet and windy 2 months and they are ready for it to stop. She said it has been especially hard on the trees. What a day this has been!!