May 27, 2012
Chaplin - Moose Jaw
This morning I woke up and I could see my breath lingering in the air when I breathed. And it was raining pretty good. And I had to pee. Not a good start. It was 7:34am when I turned on my phone and saw the text message from Matt saying that he had left at 7:30 to brave the day because he wanted to make it to Regina. Yah, right. I got up and packed up. I slept in all my clothes so it didn't take me long at all to pack. Plus, I wasn't planning to squat in this random campground with no washrooms when there was a cafe right outside the campground. The campground was strange. There was no one running it, and no where to pay, so I didn't. I figure if I pay $20 for campgrounds with showers washrooms and laundry, this campground was maybe worth $2. So I packed up and ran over to the cafe for breakfast.
Breakfast consisted of warmed up pizza from the night before and delicious tea. The waitress from the night before was working again in the morning so when I dropped my stuff off at the booth and ran to the washroom, I came back to tea with milk and sugar just like I had gotten last night. Super nice girl. And i played peekaboo with a toddler. Except she was doing the hiding and I was the one being surprised. It was too cute, I loved every second of it. At breakfast I ran back into Annie and we stayed together for the day.
After breakfast, while I was paying, I met Karol (Carl. Karol, if you read this, you made my day. Let me introduce Karol to everyone. Karol is a truck driver, who has a very generous heart. We had a very honest chat about hemp (or the "bad" name for it is marijuana as he said) and it's medicinal values, but that the government won't let us use it. Karol wanted me to keep an open mind about marijuana, and it's powers. He was not impressed that there were medications for cancers that doctors weren't allowed to use. When I explained that I was from Kimberley BC, and in order to live there you had to be open minded, he was absolutely thrilled. Karol ended up donating $20 to Prostate Cancer Canada, and $60 to me to get food and shelter with. Once again, this was definitely a highlight of the trip. It made me laugh.
Today was the worst day yet. I think I have said that a few times now, but I really don't think I can mentally or physically take any worse than today. It was freezing cold, pouring rain, and we had a 30-35 km head wind. We were going on average 9 km an hour, with moments that were 5km an hour. That's the speed of the 8.5% grade on the Coquihalla. I would do the Coquihalla 10 times over if I would be promised to never have a day like this again. For 5 km the shoulder was gone so we were in the lane. Then the shoulder got good, so Annie went side by side to chat to get our minds off the situation. With the constant rain and spray from the semis the visibility was terrible. We were a good 2 -3 feet away from traffic and safe, but because we were going so slow we were unstable. Then, a semi passed, which pulled me into the highway from his wind. I almost got hit by the truck following him. He probably didn't see me until the last second because of the spray. He swerved and missed me by about a foot and a half. I was freaked out. Not to mention, my fingers were frost bitten and frozen from squeezing my handle bars. I was completely frozen and soaked to the bone; I couldn't feel my face, hands or feet. After the semi incident I called mom and got her to come get us. It was too much. It was dangerous. It was truly insane. I've had hypothermia before, I've done swift water rescue courses in the beginning of May in a glacier river in a blizzard, and I've never been that cold. It was all in the hands, feet and face, and when that part of your body gets cold it shuts it down to warm your core. It was terrible.
Annie and I got to Parkbeg, 65 km out of Moose jaw when mom got us. We had never been so happy. We loaded the van and warmed up. Mom had it cranked! It was amazing! I quickly changed so I wasn't soaking, and we got warm drinks.
We were leaving my bike with the fire fighters in Moose Jaw. They helped us unload everything, and we stayed and chatted with the guys for a long time!
They are super nice there we had a good chat. A few of them boarded, and knew Kimberley, we talked about the bike trip, and life in general. Rob, who knew my dad, talked about planning for when I come back on Wednesday.
Josh, who also chatted with us the whole time, was super interested in the trip. Really nice guy! Ummm, and was in the fire fighters calendar for May. Haha I met a local celebrity.
Then Annie, mom and I ate a free meal at Smittys! One of the firefighters owned it! It was delicious.
And then we dropped Annie back off at her bike at the hall and witnessed the photo shoot for the fire fighters calendar! Yesss!!!! God, today turned around fast! Haha what a great moment!
Then we visited family, which was amazing to see everyone, and mom and I drove home to Saskatoon. It is so nice to be home. I can't even explain it. I have constantly been in new places every day and I have never felt so far away from having a home, this is incredible. So excited for the next few days.
I want to say a quick thank you for all the comments on the posts. They are so encouraging, when I get the emails of each comment. I have yet to figure out how to comment back on my phone, but I wanted to say each one means the world thank you so much!!!
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