The word of the day is wind. We left Winnipeg around 7AM, at 48 degrees and headed back out on the TCH. We had some gas left so we decided to ride for a little while and grab gas & breakfast together as previously we had breakfast in the hotel each day. As I said yesterday this is the prairie area which is farmland, with numerous crops such as alfalfa, hay, some type of yellow top plant and soybean. The road is flat & straight as far as the eye can see. The difference is there is nearly a constant 15 - 20 mph cross wind coming out of the north. You find yourself riding leaning about 5 -7 degrees into the wind and getting blown sideways 2 -3 feet when there’s a gust or passing trucks. We actually watched a bird trying to fly across the road into the wind and was not moving! You have to be ready at all times when riding through here.
One thing I haven’t mentioned so far is wildlife sightings. There are signs all along the road cautioning about moose/deer jumping out. We’ve seen quite a bit of road kill, mostly deer and raccoon but Tom got 2 birds yesterday. I got my own road kill today when I was leading the group and a prairie dog hesitated crossing the road. As for the wildlife sightings, the totals as of today, we have 3 moose, 4 deer, and a bunch of prairie dogs. Oh I forgot to mention about eleventy billion dead bugs on our bikes!!!!!!!
We arrived in Regina around 3:45 thanks to our second time zone change. The temp had warmed up to about 75. We are heading into Calgary tomorrow and because the Stampede starts tomorrow we decided to book our room today ( we have been just getting a room when we ride in) and as expected a room was difficult to find but we got one at one of the airport hotels. We also got our Stampede tix for Friday as well.
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