Friday, July 23- Monday, July 26, 2010

Originally the tour was supposed to be 13 days and on Day 13 I would arrive back home in the Battlefords. However, I received a late tour invitation to shoot down to Canmore with some friends…go to the Rider/Stampeder game in Calgary…take in a hike…then come back to Edmonton.  I got a ride down there from a friend so I wasn’t on the bike.  It also had nothing to do with the purpose, mindset, or really had anything to do with the That Thing You Do Tour.  For these reasons I don’t consider them part of the tour.  It’s like the tour paused for a few days.

I spent most of Friday recuperating from the previous day’s ride in the rain. It really took its toll on my body, and I was sad to discover two casualties: my camera and my ipod. Both had taken water and were no longer working. That is why there are no pictures after Day 12.

As far as the ride home from Edmonton to the Battlefords goes…if my camera were actually working the pictures would all look similar to those on Day 12. I woke up to a thunderstorm and checked the forecast: there would be rain and thunderstorms all the way home today. Well, I guess if I wanted to go home I’d have to earn it!

I woke up tired on Monday.  That weekend was hard on the system. I had to force myself up and out of bed, and hit the road almost immediately. I decided not to take Hwy 16 and went through Camrose, Wainwright, and Cut Knife instead. The road is nearly the same amount of kilometres but has much better scenery. The Yellowhead can be rather dull in that regard.

But I had no tunes! The ipod was kaput. I have not mentioned up to this point how important tunes have been to the whole trip. I spent 6 weeks fine tuning a playlist on the ipod that consisted of my favourite road songs. No more…just me and the air rushing past my ears. Because I had no music I ended up having a good conversation with myself that day. 😉

The day was largely uneventful with the exception of rain showers that came and went. I stopped for lunch in Wainwright and encountered construction and heavy rain across the Saskatchewan border so I was delayed significantly. It was about 6pm when I finally made it home to the Battlefords.

I was completely drained of energy when I arrived and after a short visit at my Baba’s I went home to bed. I was happy to find that the entire case of wine that I had sent when I was in Vancouver made it home in tact. I couldn’t get to sleep right away…that’s the weird thing about being overtired- you can never get to sleep when you are actually able to! I was able to nod off about 11:30 or so…all of my gear was still packed on Silver in the garage- I was too tired to even bother unpacking.

And with the shutting of my eyes the tour concluded.