Day 21 - Medicine Hat to Maple Creek (T.D.: 82.5km; S.T.: 3h48min)

Surprise, surprise, we're actually posting a current update! We arrived in Maple Creek this afternoon, and are staying with Loree Redick, a friend of my co-worker's mother (how tenuous a connection is that?).
Loree is a farmer here in Maple Creek, and is quite amazed as to how or why we would want to bike across this country. She has been an incredible host, though, especially considering that we are complete strangers. She even surprised us by showing up in her truck about 16km
from town - and wouldn't take no for an answer when she offered us a lift the rest of the way to her farm.
We felt a bit funny taking the ride - when you're riding 6400km across Canada, you don't want to leave out a 16km section between Medicine Hat and Maple Creek -- but it did force us to reflect on why exactly we're doing this trip. Is it to cover every kilometre self-propelled, unaided by motors and engines? Or is it to get to know your home country a bit more intimately than you might driving through it or flying over it? We settled on the latter, and as Loree drove us, off-road, through her vast crop fields and cow pastures (we had to find the llamas that keep
the coyotes at bay), we figured we were getting a glimpse of Saskatchewan that we certainly wouldn't have had on our bikes. Forgot those 15 kilometres (what's 15 kilometres of prairie landscape in a stretch of about 1000 anyhow?)

I should say, though, that up until our little four-wheel fling, the ride was really beautiful. A perfect riding day, with moderate temperatures, captivating scenery through the rolling cowboy-and-indian hills of Cypress County, and the wind at our backs the whole day (note our fastest average speed yet in the stats below). This stretch of road is also where there have been record rainfalls these past few months, which caused part of the TCH to be washed away not too long ago (it's fixed now) and has probably made the countryside about as lush as it ever is likely to be. It was really a lovely ride.

We also hit a couple of milestones today. For one, we entered our third province of the journey as we transitioned from Alberta to Saskatchewan; and for two, we hit the one-quarter mark of the entire trip somewhere around kilometre 1600. As my brother Matt has informed us, that is well past the 1407km it takes to get from the northern-most point of Scotland to the southern-most point of England. Take that, British Isle.

Back at the ranch - or Loree's house - we enjoyed an incredible home-cooked meal - fresh roast beef straight from the fields around us (Caroline even tried a piece) with all the fixings. Loree even made Caroline's favorite dessert - having learned it from reading our blog. She didn't have any butterscotch chips, so she used chocolate. We weren't about to argue.

Hard to beat this Saskatchewan hospitality - we're happy to be here.

Stats:

Av. Spd.: 21.6km/h
Mx. Spd.: 52.3km/h
Cumulative Distance: 1615km
Days since being in a motorized vehicle: 20 - I guess we can set that meter back to zero.
Number of acres on Loree's farm: 3120, approximately (she says it's "medium-sized")
Number of cows: 150
Number of calves: 150
Number of adult bulls: 6
Number of llamas: 9
Number of alpacas: 5
Number of dogs and cats: a handful
Number of eligible bachelors in Maple Creek: none, apparently (Loree says she could use some help in this department)
Number of tractors converted into jungle gyms: 1
Number of awesome electric massaging chairs: 1
Number of servings Pat had at dinner: 3
Number of chocolate marshmellow squares Caroline had: how many squares in a casserole dish?

Number of squared feet that make up our bed: 127 (it's a really big bed)
Number of statistics that have numerical values today: 15 - well, this makes 16.