So, I was heading out of Redcliff onto the TransCanada Highway and hadn't gone very far when the turn off to Hays and Vauxhall came up. There was a big sign as I turned down the Alberta 524, it read: Watch Out For Rattlesnakes.
That was about all there was to do on Highway 524, watch out for Rattlesnakes. All day long, one slow rising hill after another, with the long grass waving and the occasional distinct rattling sound when I rolled to close to the edge of the pavement, in a straight line, all there was to do was watch out for rattlesnakes. Never did see one, at least not one that was alive. There were a few curled up, croaked dead, and flattened like paper. Yes, they were there, but I didn't see one alive.
It was one of those hot prairie days when the sun is mercilous and there ain't a speck of shade to be found. They start around 4 am and end about 11 pm, longest days in the world methinks. It was one of those days when towns 30 K hence seem to float off the surface of the earth and appear to be just up ahead, when the waves of heat off the tar quiver above the highway as if they were made of see-through silk caught by some undercurrent of excruciating heat.
When I set out from Redcliff, I pretty much figured I would have to go all the way to Vauxhall to find a campground with water. All my books and maps said it was so. I powered up because it was going to be a 100 K ride, at least. Throughout the day a slight head wind resisted my grinding piston legs, but I would not be resisted. I knocked off the first 50 K in just under four hours.
It was not to last. By time 75 K went by I was reassuring myself that all campgrounds are not listed and there was going to be something special about Hays. Then I was telling myself, at least there would be some shade and I could rest for an hour or two, maybe make dinner, before finishing up the ride to Vauxhall.
Coming down a long hill and around a bend, a large stand of pines and cottonwoods appeared before me. From the angle I was at, it seemed like an entire forest. Maybe I was dipping into one of the coulees where the prairie is suddenly rich, green and treed. It was not to be.
The trees turned out to be the wind barrier for the town, a one horse place, with one tiny store where the groceries are left in their original brown boxes because its just too damn hot to be bothered taking them all out and putting them on the shelf. It was situated a block or two up the main street from the turn off, right in the center of town. Hays was a blue town. Not blue by mood, but blue by paint. Everywhere I looked to there was a light blue tinge to everything. Even the white washed walls of the defunct cafe and hardware store seemed of a blue tint. Heck, even the large fresh mowed lawns out behind the local arena, where the campground is wedged against the aforementioned trees, seemed slightly blue.
Back in the store, the proprietor, a woman of maybe 75, not a day younger, was giving me the cautionary eye, watching my hands.
"How much for these grapes?" I asked, holding up a small bag of seedless green grapes.
"Oh them," she said, as if someone had mistakenly left there in her store, "you can have them for free. Some of them are rotten."
I looked at the bag again. There were a few bad grapes in the bottom, but nothing you wouldn't find in a grocery store. I did notice the grapes were a little small, but that did not matter.
"Thanks!" I said.
I took the grapes and bought a few more things. Then I asked where the campground was.
"You rode right by it," she said, pointing out the door and back down the road.
"Where the picnic pavillion is?" I queried.
"Yes." she affirmed.
"How's the water there?" I asked.
"What do you mean," she responded.
"Is it good to drink?" I asked.
"NOTHING WRONG WITH THE TOWN WATER!" said a male voice from behind a row of merchandise.
"Water's good in this town," he said, raising his head above the row of goods, and looking at me as if I'd suggested there might be something wrong with the town water.
While all this was going on a few more people entered the store. In short order I began to understand that I was the attraction. Everyone in town, nearly all 41 of them, had seen the guy on the bike ride into town. Heck, I would find out later they had spotted me a good 10 K up the road, and had been awaiting my arrival. I was peppered with questions to which I gave snappy answers, and we all stood around doing some greetin' and grinin' until I announced that I really had to get myself and my food bags into some shade.
They let me go and I wheeled back down the road the campground, where I pulled up by the line of trees, started setting up, and pulled out my radio, just to check the time. I'd done 80 K in six and a half hours. I felt like six o'clock, but it was the middle of the afternoon. I could have made Vauxhall, but I didn't. I stayed right there, with their good water and their shade.
Sometime later, the woman who acts as campground attendant showed up and informed me that, because I worked so hard all day, my rent was free. It was only five dollars anyway, and I insisted she take it.
"Mam, I go to campgrounds all the time that want fifteen and twenty bucks for me to lay down in an unkempt, bottle-cap filled, mosquito hatchery. For five bucks, this is the best kept camp in Canada. Take my money, its my way of encouraging you to keep it up!"
She smiled, easily.
Had me a good sleep there in Hays and was raring to go the next morning. It was a good thing I was raring to go because it would turn out to be a difficult day. Well, it started out nice and easy and I found myself in the quaint little town of Vauxhall before noon, where I visited with some locals, had a good chat with the young woman running one of the grocery stores, found myself some cheap shorts in a local second hand store, checked email and restocked my groceries and water. It was such a nice town I thought seriously of staying the night, but because I was there over the noon hour, I thought it best I keep rolling. Before I left several locals told me about a back way to Enchant, so I took it as a sign and followed their directions, west of town, and along a freshly paved unmarked road that paralleled Hwy 36. After some heavy riding, this road deposited me in the less than enchanting town of Enchant, where the cheapest camping space was in a municipal park full of RVs, screaming kids, and rednecks in SUVs, who stared at me like I was a Martian, or a hippy from BC!
I stopped a while and checked out their museum, and asked some questions in the infocentre, which once again was staffed by young people who seemed to know nothing of the area, and could not tell me any distances, nor give me any sort of helpful directive. I really think these infocentres should get away from hiring kids and hire old gaffers who've been in the area for eons and know every nook and cranny.
Finally I decided, after being stared down by the local mountie, to try to make the Bow Resevoir Regional Park, which according to my maps, was located at the end of the road I was now on, Hwy 526. By this time there was a fairly stiff west wind blowing and it took me an hour or two to reach the junction of Hwy 845. A few K up this road I found the sign to the Bow Resevoir, not to be confused with the Bow Resevoir Provincial Park, and headed up a dirt road to the campsite.
This was an ugly road for a bicycle, and shook both Wheels and BoB up good. It was this road that would cause my back axle to shake loose and took one of my water bottles. However, when I got into the campground I found a lovely place to camp, on a treeless bluff overlooking the man-made lake. Sure there were RVers with speed boats, millions of little gnats flying around, and no good water, but the place was gorgeous. What's more, the camp host, an 80 year old grandpa named Howard, was very kind to me. He refilled my remaining water bottles with fresh water and let me camp free. He told me that a guy traveling like I do deserves a break once in a while. I cooked up a lovely pasta dinner that night and caught an early sleep there on the high plains. It rained pretty good that night, and there were lots of lightning strikes, but I slept well, and was once again up early and ready to go the next day, despite feeling a mite sunstroked from the previous day's heat and light.
On my way out I found the misplaced water bottle, all torn to pieces by gulls. It was a bottle I'd picked up for five cents at a secondhand store and featured a Starbucks logo. When I saw it laying in the dirt all poked full of holes I thought it was a fitting end for a Starbucks ad. I picked it up and carried it on the back of Wheels until I could find a garbage can to deposit it in.
This was a breezy morning but I was making good time when I rolled into the hamlet of Lomond, where I quite nearly ran over a trio of executives from the local grainery. Lomond is a proverbial one horse town, with a grocery full of tobacco smoke and a bar that was busy at 11 am. I bought some water, checked email at their quaint little library, and pushed on through the midday heat, first following Hwy 531 and then Hwy 534, which featured a good hill through the Macgregor Lake Coulee.
Round about 4 pm I pulled into one of the ugliest towns on the planet, Vulcan.
Now, from everything I've read about the proposed Trans Canada Trail, which is supposed to be a route for cyclists and horsemen, through Alberta, it passes right through here, although there is no signage of such, and lately I've been unable to find any info on this particular segment of the route. I began to understand why as I rode into the dust ridden, garbage strewn highway, full of snorting diesel trucks and yahoos in blue-burning jalopies.
Once again, I pulled into a infocentre, this one shaped like the Starship Enterprise from the Star Trek TV show. Once again I was misinformed by the two nice, but clueless young ladies working inside. The centre was basically set up like the bridge of Captain Kirk's starship, and one could have his picture taken with a cardboard cut out of Spock. These girls, who eventually confessed to me that neither of them had ever seen a single episode of Star Trek, knew nothing of the town, the roads, or the local camps. There were three local campgrounds. One, behind the local Petrocan, was all rock and stone, had no shade, cost $20, and was full of RVs. The second was much the same, with a little green grass between the stoney RV sites, and the third was a tiny little patch of brown dirt located on the high point of land in town, adjacent to the local industrial zone. It featured a filthy little bathroom shack, with weird lirking men hanging around it, a couple large cottonwood trees, two dilapitated travel trailers, and a constant stream of big cattle trucks rolling by and emitting large billowing clouds of dirt. There was a picnic pavillion, but its floor was covered by the feces of some small rodents.
Upon seeing all of this I decided to check the local motels, because after standing for five minutes in the blazing sun at this campsite, I needed a shower bad. At the first motel I was greeted by an Asian man who gave me a foul looking scowl and told me it would cost $80, plus tax, to stay in his motel, which incidently was wedged between the highway and the railway and had a stone driveway that nearly took Wheels out from under me. Then I checked the second motel, which was located on the main road into town, directly across from the Starship infocentre. Here they wanted $75 plus tax, and I was told I could not bring my bike into my room.
I rode back into the center part of town. It was now after 5 pm, and I was getting both hungry and tired, and, if I'd not been a little sunstroked the day before, I most certainly was getting there now. I decided to check the local hotel, which appeared somewhat run down, was undergoing some renovation, and was my last hope for a place to stay in Vulcan.
Following the directions, hand written on a piece of paper and taped to the front door, I found my way into the bar and went up to the counter, where a heavily tatooed woman of about 40 greeted me with a kind smile. She would give me a room for $35 plus tax. It had a shower, a TV and a bed. She also allowed me to pull Wheels and Blue into the bar and park them by the dance floor at the back end of the bar. It would do.
For some minutes, after loading my stuff up the stairs, down the block-long hall, and into the cramped little room, I wondered if I hadn't somehow ended up in Mexico. It was stifling hot. Dust blew through the window screens. Wires hung from the whitewashed walls. The shower was in a little room that had been built inside the main room, and reminded me a lot of a hotel I once stayed in in San Luis Potosi in Mexico. Any moment I was expecting the local hooker to knock, she didn't.
I didn't really sleep well in this place, but I did spend some hours in the shower, which took a good ten minutes to warm up - a blessing of sorts in that the cold spurting water actually provided me some chance to cool down. Eventually I was able to catch a few winks, once the prairie sun set and the wind began to blow through the windows. I also took myself to dinner, because I wasn't allowed to cook in the room. It was not a great meal but it hit the spot and gave me a look at some of the local colour, which was mostly pallid pink and rednecked. I was once again a Martian in the diner, or perhaps a real Vulcan in Vulcan.
As I was walking back to the hotel after dinner there was an old gaffer on the street in front of the hotel. When he saw me he said: "Boy, the good Lord sure built you close to the ground, didn't he!" I stopped and talked with him for a few mintues, but there really wasn't much to say.
"This town saw better days," he said. "But it was before my time."
For the life of me, Star Trekky or no, I don't know why anyone would ever want to visit Vulcan, although I clearly understand why so many have fled. If you're riding through this area, just avoid the place, stick to the highway, and get through it. It is ugly, ugly, ugly, but the women who own and operate the ranshackle hotel in the middle of town are quite nice and hospitable, and I imagine a drinker could really find his bottom in the place.
I was late getting out of town the next morning. It was partly the late sleep and partly having to load all my things down the many hallways and stairs to the pub, then get it all back out the doors, where I had to set up all over again. By 11 am I finally hit the road.
At one pm I pulled into the town of Mossleigh, where there was nothing but a gas station, a pub, and another overpriced motel. There was also a Lions Campground, with brand new white tables. On each table there was a sign imbedded, "Do Not Place Camp Stoves or Barbeques On Tables!" Seems the tables were made to look nice, not to be practical. Each one was coated with vinyl siding! Imagine that, using an extremely combustible material as a covering for picnic tables! Some folks just don't get it.
I pushed on. Hadn't gone far, and was rounding a bend and begining the long decline into the Bow Valley, when a wind gust caught me by surprise. For a brief moment Wheels and BoB began to shake uncontrollably. I could hear an RV coming up behind me and began to shudder. Just for an instant I thought I was going to crash. Right at that moment I was very glad I'd recently tightened my brakes, and that I was having a bit of a grinding problem with my rear axle. Between those two things I was able to slow myself down and regain control. By time the RV passed I was steady again, but the few moments of panic had settled me down. I would have to take it easy the rest of the day.
About an hour later I pulled into the Wyndham-Carseland Provincial Park, located on the Bow River, just outside the dusty berg of Carseland. It was a lovely place, well treed with a river running through it, rabbits bouncing around it, and nice little sheltered camping sites. I rode around the place a good hour before picking what seemed to be a perfect site with very few other campers around it. I set camp, cooked dinner, hung out, enjoying the shade and a mild breeze coming off the river. It was paradise after Vulcan. Sometimes places like Vulcan are good for making places like Carseland seem better than they really are.
Sadly, my pleasure did not last so long. About sunset, after the camp hosts had gone through checking for unregistered campers, three drunken RVers, with big expensive fifth wheels, pulled in with their noisy pick ups, their barking dogs and loud drunken voices, and decided to take up residence in the three open sites surrounding mine. I hid from them, retreating behind the shrubbery of my site and laying low. It took them a good noisy hour to finally set up and get down to the business of getting drunker than they already were. Two hours later, from the confines of my tent. I would bellow at them, in my biggest loudest voice: "Hey Guys, there's people sleeping in tents around here. Either shut up or take your party inside."
To my amazement, they did as they were told. The next morning, I would figure the sound of my voice must have made them think I was about two meters tall and a good 110 Kg big. Once again, I was very careful not to let them see me. Felt a bit like the Wizard of Oz doing that. I did not want them to realize the Gorilla who'd roared at them the night before was actually a little screaming chimpanzee!
Here were these guys, in $75,000 fifth wheel trailers, pulled by $50,000 trucks, and they were sneaking into a provincial campground after hours in order to avoid paying the $20 camping fee! On top of that they were all driving drunk, and in the morning, instead of cooking up breakfast in their RVs, they all went off to Carseland to a restaurant. Next time I find myself wondering who in hell votes for the likes of Stephen Harper and George Bush, I think I will remember these guys. These are the true aliens in out society.
Once the committee to re-elect Harper-Bush left for breakfast, I pulled out, stopping by the self registration kiosk on the way to drop off the RVers license plate numbers and car descriptions on individual envelopes with little notes inside that said, "Ha, Ha, we didn't pay!"
Riding up out of the Bow Coulee was a good way to get my blood pumping, while the shoulderless turns into the dirty little hamlet of Carseland, got it pumping anymore. Fortunately, at Carseland, I discovered a paved side road that took me all the way out to Hwy 22X. The 22X is a major east-west trucking route for the city of Calgary. It is busy with hundreds of big trucks but has a very good clean two meter wide paved shoulder. What's more, as I reached the 22X, I was spotted by some friendly traffic control police officers, who upon spotting me, began to follow along behind me, slowing the traffic down and making the next hour of my life quite enjoyable. I've never seen so many polite truckers. If I'd had the wherewithal I most certainly would have gone back and thanked those cops for doing what they did. They just made themselves very visible and slowed everyone down.
When I reached Highway 797 I turned north to the suburb of Langdon, and then west onto the Glenmore Trail, or Hwy 580 as it is called on maps. This road was under construction, and although its shoulders were littered with debris, the traffic was slow and light because of construction. About 15 to 20 K along this road it crossed a local irrigation canal and I was able to access the City of Calgary cycling trail at that point. Calgary has a few hundred K of cycling trails. All the waterways in the city have paved cycling routes along them. The system rivals the system in Montreal, and perhaps surpasses it in some cases. With great relief, and a sense of finally having got somewhere, I would spend the next few hours leisurely peddling along the canal, then out along the Bow River, into the heart of the city, which is now no longer Cowtown but a big multi-cultural world metropolis, and one of the greenest places in Canada. At about supper time I finally pulled up to my friend Becky's place near the center of town, parked my bike in her yard, and took a well deserved rest.
Since then I've been engaged in feasting, bike repair, and family visitations, but that's a whole other story I'll write to you all about later.
Hope you are all well. Talk to you soon.
Will