After wrapping up the breakfast, since we were on cooking duty, we set out of camp at around 8.45 am with Michael, Ron, Keith, Jack, Marg, Byron and Trevor. It was raining in the morning and all the roads were wet which added more difficulty once combined with the winds. We started a double pace line and soon everyone had a decent pace of 21 km/h. About 8 km in to the ride, Marg had a flat which Jack fixed in less than 8 minutes and we were back on the road. With winds and wet roads, we got splashed on pretty badly today.
Our first stop was in the town of Neepawa, where former of
author Margaret Lawrence was. We stopped in to McDonalds and I had a coffee,
muffin and 4 potato hash (patties). It was warm in there and everyone cuddled
in there for close to an hour. We went to see the tourist attraction, Margaret
Lawrence’s house, but there was an entry fee of 5$ to take a look around and
not many were interested nor was there any time left as it was approaching noon
and we barely did 35 km.
We rode in pace line whenever possible and had our 2nd
stop was for a lunch in town of Gladstone which was supposed to have a bakery
but it was closed on Sunday as we later found out. It had stopped raining by
now and it looked to get better. I had a chocolate milk shake and homemade
spaghetti fries, really thin curly fries, and a PBJ sandwich. We left after
another 1 hour break and we were sure that it would be a long day on the road.
Just 10 minutes after leaving it started raining, then heavy in your face
raining and then it started hailing. It was very difficult to see anything 10
ft in front of us but we had no other choice than to keep going. Just past Westbourne
Keith and Michael stopped at an army surplus as they were feeling cold and
needed extra layers. Since Michael had taken a fall earlier in the day and
injured his shoulder he and Marg took a ride in the owner’s pickup truck.
Keith continued on his own as he was getting cold just
waiting while Ron, Jack, Byron and I formed a pace line to get into camp. The
last stretch of route on highway 1 had no shoulder and we had a tough time but
decided to ride on the paved road with traffic. Cars were very polite and gave
us more than enough room when passing. We rode in to camp around 6.45 pm and
had a wonderful dinner bean stew, salad and marshmallow squares for desert. I
spoke with my parents and soon it started raining around 9.30 pm. It was a long and exhausting day today and I
crashed in to bed pretty soon thereafter.
Due to the rain forecast i didn't have my camera with me today. The scenery today was mostly of prairie farm, flat land and head winds. I have a pic from Margaret Lawrence's house which i will post later.
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