Badlands? - we are in the good lands of BASSANO

SNM Tour Day #14

             (one of the few photos so far that I don't look like a midget)

It was another fantastic day today on the tour.  I ran from home and it was absolutely wonderful after a few days of rest not to feel anything - that may sound funny but if you're a runner in heavy training you'll understand exactly what I'm saying. It was great to see a small crowd (not herd, bunch? gaggle?, gathering might be best) of people to see the tour off from Edworthy Park in Calgary. Thanks to all the well wishers, you don't know how much this means to me and Monique to have a little show of support for all the months of preparation and effort.

We left with a group of cyclists, most of which went to Chestemere Lake and then looped back to Calgary. Glen and Jeanette met us on the highway and it was nice to see them again since the start of the tour.  It was great to see the Dorts out - they survived last night's dinner party and were probably cleaning up long after I was in bed (it's not fair is it?). It was great to cycle with Justine again, and to see Wayne come out.  Indirectly Wayne should be blamed for this tour (perhaps Les secondarily).  Many years ago when teaching with Monique he enticed her to do a lot more walking and a bit of running.  Along with Les, Monique decided to walk and run a marathon before she turned 40, which she accomplished successfully in Penticton.  I watched her train hard for this and this gave me some motivation to try a bit of running again myself, which led to more and more running and cycling and eventually the SAD Tour - so it's all your fault - all of you!!!

Fortunately / unfortunately Justine turned off in Chestemere also - which probably got us to Bassano a lot later, but James who cycled the entire way with me is just far too nice to try to kill me as Justine would have.  Give this girl a hill and she is like a race horse literally chomping at the bit to rip it up to the top.  James and I had a great 145 km cycle and with a beautiful tail wind intermittently, we made great time and enjoyed the goodness of the badlands.

Tom has just joined us to help Monique with driving, cook a bit (oops he doesn't know this yet) and do a little IT and video work.  If I can convince him, he might even do a guest BLOG on one of the days to give you his perspective on this thing we call the SNM tour.  Tom is a cousin of mine, originally from Winnipeg and now living in Saskatoon - he has been a friend, much more than a relative for many years and no matter where we have lived over the years, he has visited enough that most of our friends and neighbors have got to know him very well.  I might post a few "Tom" stories in the future - we'll see.  The more he ticks us off in the next 6 days, the more likely you might be reading embarrassing stories about his past escapades; so a lot hinges on how he behaves himself.

Now about Bassano..... we pulled into a campground to find almost all the campers in formal attire - suits and ties, cowboy hats, etc.  Odd, we thought for a rural campsite, but perhaps this is how they "do things" here in the badlands.  Apparently some of the campers had seen the interview I did on Global TV yesterday morning, so we were a bit like celebrities in this unusually formal camp site.  Talking with the folks, we found out that they were all attending a wedding literally across the street.  So, following the logical progression of events we are of course invited!! So..... at the time of writing this blog - Tom definitely wants to go, Monique absolutely refuses to go ("you've got to be kidding") and I could go either way on this one.  Country weddings ROCK - this could be the highlight of the tour so far, or not.  Either way I have this funny feeling we are going to be up far toooo late whether we attend or not.

                                          the fields near Bassano

Day Sponsor today is the very supportive Ng family - thanks so very much for your encouragement Debbie, Ben, Nicholas and Zachary.

Random quote of the day

Givers need to set limits because takers rarely do

Irma Kurtz

If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred

Walt Whitman

Random animal sightings on the trans Canada today

An impressively large hawk was seemingly very interested in our little convoy - hovering and staying with us for quite some time.  An huge badger, scuttled off from the ditch into a field as we passed. Many very large Angus Bulls - wow and I saw Tom.

Gotta love this pink trailer we saw in the campground which included a pink propane tank (if you look really close). Gab was the heroine of the day - finding this sunny campsite and sourcing out the next few days for us as well as bringing us some freshly made Zucchini loaf which we devoured later after dinner.