I set the alarm for 0700hrs. Of course I was wide awake at 0600hrs. May as well get up and do things. The neighbourhood birds have finally found our feeder after a break in the continuous rain. And boy did they enjoy the Black Oil Sunflower seeds, so I did q quick cleaning of the feeder and reloaded it. Coffee, breakfast, load the last few items on the Starship Enterprise and roll out. Just me, the Enterprise, music in my ears, clouds in the sky, the wind and early morning open roads. The first leg was a sole ride through some of the fantastic secondary roads that criss cross Alberta. You just need to go and explore, see a paved road, find out where it goes. At times the ride was….how shall I put it? Rather brisk. Saw osprey, several deer and a moose. My first stop was the D & R Drive-In in Innisfail. Within minutes, Larry and Ties arrived from different directions. Nothing shy of stupendous that all three of us travelled a couple of hundred kilometres from different directions and arrived within 4 minutes of each other.
One of our fellow riders recently moved to Phoenix and had arranged to be at his place near Pine Lake. Unknown to Larry and Ties, I had contacted Flemming and asked him to join us for the lunch. It was quite the surprise for Ties & Larry when this random rider pulled up, parked his ride between our, took his helmet off and they realized it was Flemming. Flemming is a rider to the nth degree. He can make a motorcycle do things that make mere mortals jaws almost fall off. Flemming and a couple of other riders will meet up with us tomorrow afternoon as they are on a slightly different schedule. What a great opportunity for us to catch up with each other. Lots of humour, lots of laughter and of course the appropriate digs and shots that friends are capable of.
Back on the road, we made it about 2 km when the vent cover on the top of my helmet flew off, hit the road, was pick up by the wind and vanished in the grass on the other side of the road. Red Green would be very proud of our solution.
Back on the road, north of Calgary, we watch to the west as a large unusual wedge shaped cloud seemed to be rapidly forming. I suggested that it was definitely up to no good. I was not surprised that several tornado warning popped up on our screens. We were really please that from then on the skys just kept clearing and the temperature kept climbing.
By the time we exited Stony Trail the temperature was 25.6 and climbing, so a short stop near the Okotoks was needed to remove several layers. The temperature continued to climb until we got to junction of highway 2 and highway 3 where it peaked at 28.9 degrees.
Four years ago, on this same adventure we stayed at the Blairmore Travel Lodge only to find out that the restaurant was closed for renovations and no beer was to be had. Well this time the restaurant was open, the East Indian food was stupendous, the dessert was terrific, but there was still no beer. It will be another couple of weeks before they have there licence.
Its about 2330hrs and I’m a bit bagged. So here are a couple of more pix for you. Have a great sleep. See you tomorrow. Oh if you spot any errors in spelling, grammar, etc, let me know and I’ll correct them on another day.
Oh, there was a small car show next door to the Travel Lodge.
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What a great trip to be on! Happy trails!!
Delayed on yesterday’s post. Between Rogers and Fido being off line and a couple of other things, I’ll probably write 2 days worth later today. Been exciting so far.