I can say there is no better place
Than standing up in the falling down
In so much rain I could almost drown.
It's raining again
A crack in the clouds reveals blue skies
I've been feeling so low(low)
But now everything is on my side
The sun and the rain.
Walk with me fill my heart again
- The Madness - "The Sun and the Rain"
Craik to Regina - 124 kms / 77 miles
I woke up that morning trying to figure out if I’d slept through the storm or if, in fact, Tent City had managed to completely avoid the storm which had sounded inevitable the evening before. Whilst it wasn’t a sunny morning, it wasn’t raining either which was somewhat of a blessing and my tent was only damp from the dew. I’d hoped that my good weather luck would continue. A great breakfast was served by Brendan and Andew’s galley Crew and everyone headed out by about 7:30 for an early start in an attempt to avoid the rain carrying clouds which were quickly rolling in. I’ve learned to ‘read’ clouds and these definitely read ‘RAIN’ and lots of it. Oh dear.
Sure enough, by the time the camp clean up started the heavens opened and the rain started pouring down. The Galley Crew and some of us who’d stayed behind to help with the clean up quickly grabbed the bags, threw them into the truck and tried to get things organised as quickly as possible. This was my first proper encounter with rain on the trip and I wasn’t looking forward to starting the day off cold and wet…! When everything was cleaned up we noticed that some blue sky had begun to peek through the cloud and realised that the storm was only a passing one… in a way, we’d been lucky to have had the truck and the campground facilities to keep us dry (well, me anyway as I hid from the rain in the washroom…).
We headed out of the campground at around 9am and encountered the first of the headwind… Headwind was also new to me as up until today, Day 20, we’ve had nothing but glorious, wonderful tail winds (more or less). So, headwind was a new challenge and Andrew and Brendan quickly enlightened me on the art of spinning in the small cog in an easy gear into the wind (as opposed to the big cog and hard gear which I cranked in for the first 20 kms..!!). It was tough going but I can definitely feel myself getting stronger and began to appreciate the ‘mental’ aspect of biking against the wind. If you don’t think about the fact that you’re working super hard but still going painfully slow then you’re ok. It takes a certain discipline to ‘not think’ about the amount of energy expended compared to the soul-destroying pace that you’re going. I have found that singing Abba songs at a very high decibel definitely helps… (no one can hear me anyway because of the wind although Andrew did call me ‘old crow’ at one stage). Mamma mia…
We took a break on Highway 11 at a very small rural town called Chamberlain. In the cosy little diner I joined the ranks of ‘Double Breakfast Hungry Man’ club. I had my second breakfast here and realised how much m
y appetite has grown… I eat like a man!! I had 2 pancakes, 4 eggs, 4 pieces of toast, hash browns, 3 cups of coffee AND a chocolate bar… AND could easily have eaten another few pancakes if given the chance. It was pretty crazy and I am again astounded at how much I am eating. The wind was definitely helping to burn calories at an alarming rate.
The route today is a n
ice one as we pass through a number of relatively small towns of rural Saskatchewan. They’re all spread relatively far apart and are made up of a few relatively small homes, a grain elevator, a gas pump and a well stocked co-op. We took a side of the road break to indulge in a litre of chocolate milk (each) at Bethune and suddenly realised that the sun had finally decided to appear and that it was now actually quite hot as well as windy..! It was already relatively late and we’d not even cycled 60kms. Ugh..! We still had another 60kms left to go.
In Lumsden Andrew and I realised that we’d lost Brendan and Ian (they’d sped off ahead – perhaps frightened off by my singing and rendition of ‘Voulez vous’…) and we decided to make a pit stop in the friendly town of Lumsden where we indulged in a late lunch, a chat with the locals about the history of the Qu’appelle Valley, tips on Regina night life and then headed out for the final kilometres into Regina.
I was sooooo tremendously happy to see the ‘Welcome to Regina’ sign. It made the following day’s rest day seem even closer and I was happy that the clouds had now completely dissipated to reveal a clear blue sky. Unfortunately the wind had only gotten stronger gusting at times up to 35 kms / hour into our faces but by this stage it was about 5:30 and we knew that the camp was only precious kilometres away and were far too tired to complain. We were nearly there and I was really looking forward to seeing Regina – a city I’d always been curious about and had never visited.
A huge round of applause greeted us when we finally pulled into camp officially marking the start of our ‘1 day weekend’. Brendan and I combined laundry, I showered and was socialising with everyone huddled in the laundry room when Brendan came in and warned me of the black sky which was quickly rolling in... Oh dear… another storm..!! I ran to our campsite and put up my tent in record time just as the first drops began to fall. Looking at the color of the sky and the cold feel of the wind I realised that this was more than a local shower and readjusted my tent pegs. It was time to put the tent to the test.
Andrew quickly rounded up the troops (some even pulled from washrooms and showers) for a field trip to an Irish Pub called 'O'Hanlons' http://www.weareirish.ca/dynpage/142 which had been recommended by the Lonely Planet (apparently they have 60 kinds of beer!!) A group of us headed out in 3 cabs ready to rock in rainy Regina…! The atmosphere at our long table of bikers was great – everyone laughed and joked about the challenging day we’d just survived and everyone was looking forward to the coming rest day. As much as we all complain and curse the weather it does give us hours and hours of conversation and many, many laughs. The laughing generally comes once we’re out of the rain, our stomachs are full and a cold drink is in hand.
As we left the pub we had a run in with a celebrity – the cast from “Corner Gas” (http://www.cornergas.com/) – a popular television programme about small town life in Saskatchewan which is filmed in Regina. They wished us luck on our journey as we ran from the pub into the rain and piled into the cabs which took us back to the campground.
I woke up that morning trying to figure out if I’d slept through the storm or if, in fact, Tent City had managed to completely avoid the storm which had sounded inevitable the evening before. Whilst it wasn’t a sunny morning, it wasn’t raining either which was somewhat of a blessing and my tent was only damp from the dew. I’d hoped that my good weather luck would continue. A great breakfast was served by Brendan and Andew’s galley Crew and everyone headed out by about 7:30 for an early start in an attempt to avoid the rain carrying clouds which were quickly rolling in. I’ve learned to ‘read’ clouds and these definitely read ‘RAIN’ and lots of it. Oh dear.
Sure enough, by the time the camp clean up started the heavens opened and the rain started pouring down. The Galley Crew and some of us who’d stayed behind to help with the clean up quickly grabbed the bags, threw them into the truck and tried to get things organised as quickly as possible. This was my first proper encounter with rain on the trip and I wasn’t looking forward to starting the day off cold and wet…! When everything was cleaned up we noticed that some blue sky had begun to peek through the cloud and realised that the storm was only a passing one… in a way, we’d been lucky to have had the truck and the campground facilities to keep us dry (well, me anyway as I hid from the rain in the washroom…).
We headed out of the campground at around 9am and encountered the first of the headwind… Headwind was also new to me as up until today, Day 20, we’ve had nothing but glorious, wonderful tail winds (more or less). So, headwind was a new challenge and Andrew and Brendan quickly enlightened me on the art of spinning in the small cog in an easy gear into the wind (as opposed to the big cog and hard gear which I cranked in for the first 20 kms..!!). It was tough going but I can definitely feel myself getting stronger and began to appreciate the ‘mental’ aspect of biking against the wind. If you don’t think about the fact that you’re working super hard but still going painfully slow then you’re ok. It takes a certain discipline to ‘not think’ about the amount of energy expended compared to the soul-destroying pace that you’re going. I have found that singing Abba songs at a very high decibel definitely helps… (no one can hear me anyway because of the wind although Andrew did call me ‘old crow’ at one stage). Mamma mia…
We took a break on Highway 11 at a very small rural town called Chamberlain. In the cosy little diner I joined the ranks of ‘Double Breakfast Hungry Man’ club. I had my second breakfast here and realised how much m
y appetite has grown… I eat like a man!! I had 2 pancakes, 4 eggs, 4 pieces of toast, hash browns, 3 cups of coffee AND a chocolate bar… AND could easily have eaten another few pancakes if given the chance. It was pretty crazy and I am again astounded at how much I am eating. The wind was definitely helping to burn calories at an alarming rate.The route today is a n
ice one as we pass through a number of relatively small towns of rural Saskatchewan. They’re all spread relatively far apart and are made up of a few relatively small homes, a grain elevator, a gas pump and a well stocked co-op. We took a side of the road break to indulge in a litre of chocolate milk (each) at Bethune and suddenly realised that the sun had finally decided to appear and that it was now actually quite hot as well as windy..! It was already relatively late and we’d not even cycled 60kms. Ugh..! We still had another 60kms left to go.In Lumsden Andrew and I realised that we’d lost Brendan and Ian (they’d sped off ahead – perhaps frightened off by my singing and rendition of ‘Voulez vous’…) and we decided to make a pit stop in the friendly town of Lumsden where we indulged in a late lunch, a chat with the locals about the history of the Qu’appelle Valley, tips on Regina night life and then headed out for the final kilometres into Regina.
I was sooooo tremendously happy to see the ‘Welcome to Regina’ sign. It made the following day’s rest day seem even closer and I was happy that the clouds had now completely dissipated to reveal a clear blue sky. Unfortunately the wind had only gotten stronger gusting at times up to 35 kms / hour into our faces but by this stage it was about 5:30 and we knew that the camp was only precious kilometres away and were far too tired to complain. We were nearly there and I was really looking forward to seeing Regina – a city I’d always been curious about and had never visited.
A huge round of applause greeted us when we finally pulled into camp officially marking the start of our ‘1 day weekend’. Brendan and I combined laundry, I showered and was socialising with everyone huddled in the laundry room when Brendan came in and warned me of the black sky which was quickly rolling in... Oh dear… another storm..!! I ran to our campsite and put up my tent in record time just as the first drops began to fall. Looking at the color of the sky and the cold feel of the wind I realised that this was more than a local shower and readjusted my tent pegs. It was time to put the tent to the test.
Andrew quickly rounded up the troops (some even pulled from washrooms and showers) for a field trip to an Irish Pub called 'O'Hanlons' http://www.weareirish.ca/dynpage/142 which had been recommended by the Lonely Planet (apparently they have 60 kinds of beer!!) A group of us headed out in 3 cabs ready to rock in rainy Regina…! The atmosphere at our long table of bikers was great – everyone laughed and joked about the challenging day we’d just survived and everyone was looking forward to the coming rest day. As much as we all complain and curse the weather it does give us hours and hours of conversation and many, many laughs. The laughing generally comes once we’re out of the rain, our stomachs are full and a cold drink is in hand.
As we left the pub we had a run in with a celebrity – the cast from “Corner Gas” (http://www.cornergas.com/) – a popular television programme about small town life in Saskatchewan which is filmed in Regina. They wished us luck on our journey as we ran from the pub into the rain and piled into the cabs which took us back to the campground.
I found myself at 12:30am in the laundry room at the campground eating McDonalds fries with the rest of the gang and trying to finish laundry...! We'd accidentally put our dryer on the 'cool' setting so our wet lycra was now cold, damp lycra. Niiiice... thank goodness a few loonies and quarters sorted that out.
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