4th July: Youngstown to Kindersley
Odometer: 152 km, Start: 9.00am, Finish: 5.15pm, Avg: 23.6 km/h,
Weather: Sunny, cloud PM, light westerly wind, Temp: 16-25°C
Bear count: 5, Moose count: 1, Mosquito Bites: 50, Hills walked: 0
Road Conditions: #9, 2m shoulder, mostly OK, some perpendicular cracking. #7(SK), 2-3m shoulder mostly good. Traffic moderate towards Kindersley otherwise light. Services Oyen (54km), Alsask (90km), 125km. Ascent: 325m up/400m down.
Not that much happened today, other than I've made it to Saskatchewan! I also had my longest distance day so far. Conditions are still favourable, although I didn’t have the dream winds of yesterday. It seemed an especially loooooong day in the saddle.
I quite like the wide open spaces around here. There’s not much to see (or photograph), but that doesn’t matter. It’s more about the emotion, the feeling, the sense of achievement of moving steadily across this enormous expanse of flat, featureless land. It’s still difficult to comprehend just how big this place is. You have to break it into daily chunks. No, even smaller than that. Or your head will explode.
There’s not much to do other than pedal. (I also sing)! There’s nowhere to stop and rest other than the one or two services en route per day. You can’t really stop at the roadside, you’ll just get attacked by mosquitoes. You have to keep moving on, kilometre after kilometre, hour after hour.
Toilet breaks are interesting. There’s just enough cars on this section so that you can’t just pee in the road where it’s relatively bug free! To retain some sense of modesty you’ll have to venture into the verge. Be fast though! And keep waving your spare hand just above your…
Finally, I’ve just passed 2,400km and that’s well over a quarter of my expected 9,000km total. I'm going all right so far, don’t you think?
1 comment:
Make sure you don't wave the wrong hand!!
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