Day 17 – Rosedale to Emerson Bridge (T.D.: 108km; S.T.: 5h28min)

The rain came down all night, and showed no signs of letting up when we woke up this morning. Employing the “maybe if I sleep a bit longer, it will stop raining” mentality, we stayed in bed until well past 10am (at which point it still had not stopped raining. At all.). This made for a late – and wet – start to the day, and we weren’t on the road until noon. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, however, as by the time we stopped for a warm meal at the Hotel Saloon in East Coulee, the skies were starting to dry up a bit. The Saloon was a wonderful place – empty, as all good ghost town saloons should be, with an out of town piano in one corner and a jukebox in another. We made good use of both: I did my best to remember the honky- tonk bridge section from Rocky Raccoon by the Beatles, and then picked out a few numbers on the ‘box. We had a nice

conversation with the owner, who then whipped up a fried egg sandwich for Caroline and some fish and chips for me. The fish and chips, as you might guess, were not up to the Newfoundland standard that I am used to.

One of the big highlights of the day came just before we reached East Coulee, when we stopped to gander at the Hoodoos between Cambria and LeHigh. The Blackfoot and Cree traditions hold that these natural wonders are in fact petrified giants that come alive at night to hurl stones at passing cyclists and other intruders. Not hard to believe in this otherworldly landscape of dinosaurs and ghost towns; hence, we’ll do our best to get off the roads before dark.

East of East Coulee, we passed through the tiny town of Dorothy, before climbing a steep ascent up out of the river valley and back into more familiar prairie farmland. Thus began a long trek to Highway 36, which would take us south – and back to the TransCanada. As there was not much to see and do on this stretch of road, our ground squirrel game resumed in earnest. In the prairies, we’ve come to learn that these creatures are called gophers – but the principle remains the same. The score, for those interested (and apparently some of you are) is now 32 to 29. Caroline is closing the gap (she rode in front today).

Heading East, we had a not-so-gentle crosswind that had us working pretty hard. We were thus very pleased to make the turn south onto the 36, transforming said crosswind into an ever-so-helpful tailwind. Throughout the day, we were amazed and grateful that the rain held off. It was one of those miraculous situations where dark clouds were looming just about everywhere in that big prairie sky, with the exception of one sliver of blue that seemed to illuminate our path. We made good, dry, time to our campground in the County of Newell, where the mosquitoes awaited us hungrily. Thanks to Brian and Louise for the homemade soup that we had for dinner. It was most delicious.

Stats:

Av. Spd.: 19.7km/h

Mx. Spd.: 40.9km/h

Number of towns between Dorothy and Emerson Bridge (an 80km stretch): 0 (Homestead Coulee appeared to have once been a town. Maybe.)

Tunes selected on the jukebox: 1. “Just What I Needed” - the Cars, 2. “Like a Rolling Stone” - Bob Dylan, 3. “Please Mr. Postman” - The Marvelettes

Dead iPod batteries: 1 (I don’t usually listen to my iPod when riding, due to the disapproval I earn from Caroline for doing so, but this stretch seemed like a particularly good time to break it out. Unfortunately, my battery, which I had charged in Calgary, seemed to have died somewhere en route, so I didn’t get to listen to it all – I was heartbroken.)

Number of mosquitoes who kamikazed their way into our soup: 3 (more protein right? – Also, I might add that their deaths were highly dramatic. They would land in the soup, and then appear to get stuck, at which point they would start shaking as the heat entered their bodies, and then they would shrivel and collapse on their backs, neck twisted, face up – in a pose not unlike the iconic one we witnessed in many of the dinosaur skeletons at the Tyrell Museum.)