In June 2004 I set off across Canada on my bicycle. Or at least I'd planned to cross Canada. It didn't work out, mostly because of the weather, but I did have a great ride.

These pages are an account of that trip, as told through travelogs I sent to friends. I hope you enjoy the ride!

    Last you heard from me I was waiting for the snow, rain, hail and wind to ebb before pushing on out of the upper Bow Valley. Well, no sooner did I  complain about the weather when it cleared off and a nice even west wind came up.
    So Blu, BoB and I loaded up and rode off. It had been so long since we travelled I almost forgot how to pack things up, and had to redo the load a couple times to get it right. Eventually, after many hours, I managed to get it all comfortably together and set out.
    The ride was short and beautiful, with the first tail wind of my entire journey behind me, I rode along the 1A heading east. After a long stop at a place called Gap Lake, about midway between Canmore and Seebe, Alberta, where I wrote long a intense poem about my mountain experience, I made it back to Willow Rock, where I'd camped a week earlier.
    Funny thing about Willow Rock, when I was a young hitchhiker I must have  slept in the field there a dozen times. There was no official campground  back then. Now I was paying $17 for the right to do something I'd been doing free all those years ago.
    Another funny thing about that place, a high plateau surrounded by rocky peaks and bowled over in the endless changing winds, was that I suddenly found myself back to my ride. It was like I'd taken a week off and left myself there. Pulling into Willow Rock was like rediscovering me.
    Some of you know part of the diversion to Banff and Canmore was too look up the Aussie lass I passed so much of my spring with. Alas, it was a sad affair. I found her like some of these mountain lakes, frozen over despite the summer warmth. There was barely a trickle of energy coming my way. Old and somewhat cynical as I may be, I'd thought somehow, after months of intense intimacy, there might still be a little joy and warmth between us.
    Sadly, my conjecture was apparently misplaced. It seems, in the grand total of things, I was little more than a convenient free ride for her. Where she was concerned I was a trucker who pulled over and took her to the next town. So, like that trucker, I've my own business to mind and, with a tinge of sadness and regret, I had no choice but to pull out of that truck stop and
move on.

    Early the next morning, at Willow Rock, I loaded up and headed out again. Somewhere in the back of my mind, after weeks of uphill slogging through the weather and terrain, I'd imagined, anticipated, a breezy downhill run into Cowtown. It seemed only fair, after so much work. I was looking forward to the great reward of downhill coasting. Alas, I have never been more wrong!
    Breezy, yes, but a downhill coast, NOT!
    What I faced was 80 hellish K of cross-head-winds. A bitter, sometimes cold and often brittle southeaster rose as I peddalled. All those nice sloping hills down into the lower Bow Valley became relentless grinding battering torents of dust and dirt. At times I found myself being blown back up hills I should have been gliding down. It was hell, especially with the endless
stream of big trucks and winnebegos screaming along beside and all around me.
    It was one of those days when I really began to question what the hell I think I'm doing. Over and over I was telling myself; Man, you should have done this crud when you were 25, not almost 50. This is young man's work!
    At other times I found myself pleading with the wind, Please, give me a break! No way, no how! It kept up so bad, at one point I pulled over and seriously considered just laying down in the wide Alberta ditch, and letting the thing pass, especially when I noticed a cloud formation that looked like a big ice cream cone, coming my way.
    "So this is my reward," I said to myself, "for taking the time out to see if a fire still burned in that Aussie woman's eyes, to be blown apart by wind and tormented on the day when I was expecting things to finally get easy."
    Well, one way or another, I somehow managed to get down that road and, uncharacteristic of me, I was actually happy when the urban sprawl of Calgary started cropping up on all sides. It took me a good couple hours to negotiate the town, but after a delighful stop, to drink a quart of soy milk, and talk to a long tall blonde cashier outside a Safeway store, I made it to my friend's house near the center of town.
    Here, I was greeted by her kids who I've not seen in 10 long years. I remember them mostly as rug rats, preschoolers, and little beings in cute clothes. Now they are full blown teenagers, with black dye in their hair and lanky limbs attached to tall bodies that make me feel like the rug rat in cute clothes. Let me tell you folks, its a little weird when little kids suddenly become tall teenagers and you miss the process in between. Still, they seem like good kids, adults, and I think I'm something of an amusement to them, Mom and Dad's old hippie friend from BC.
    Funny thing is, for two days I've been hold up with the kids but have seen no sign of Mom, who I came to visit. She's due back from camping today so I guess it will all come together in time. Meanwhile, I've managed to clean up the kitchen and feed the boppers some good food. I get the sneaky suspicion Mom knew right well I'd feed them and clean up a bit, so she thought, hey, what the heck, Willy's coming, he'll keep them on the straight and narrow,
this is perfect chance for me to get away!
    I don't mind so much. It's kind of nice actually. I'm getting a chance to meet each of the kids and renew our aquaintance. Afterall, I've known them since they were but glints in their parents' eyes. I've Christmassed with them through their potty training years and seen them off to their first days of school. How fitting that I should come along and be a thorn in their
sides as they venture forth into early adult rebellion.
    Actually, they're good kids. All are well educated, liberal thinking, socially and environmentally conscious, and relatively clean living. They make eye contact, talk real stuff, and are warm and accomodating. Their parents have done a fine job.
    So, anyway, here I am in Cow Town with a house full of teenagers and no other grown ups in sight. Now if that ain't some sort of weird justice I don't know what is. Fortunately they're good, not these dark cold downward gazing denziens I've met so frequently in recent years. It gives me hope.
    Think maybe today I'll tour the town on Blu, maybe see if we can find a cool edge in Calgary. Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, I'll go off and check out the Stampede, which is all the local rage at the moment. Then, who knows, maybe I'll venture further into this strange open land where one can see so far.
    So, that's all for now folks. Catch up with you again soon, maybe with tales of the rodeo.