Calgary Trip, July 2005

It was July 2005 and my wife decided to take my daughter on a trip back east. She has relatives in Montreal, and my brother lives near Toronto. We have close friends in Calgary, so she made arrangements to fly out of there and back. That way she and my daughter Michelle could buzz up to West Edmonton Mall as well as visit.

Although I couldn’t take the time off, visiting old friends and riding to Calgary sounded like an excellent way to spend our BC Day long weekend. Carole needs her car to drive home in two weeks, so if I wanted to go I had to arrange my own transportation. Suddenly I had an idea. …Kind of a no-brainer.

Friday morning finally arrived with the alarm clock screaming for us to drag our lazy asses out of bed at 4:45 am. At this ungodly hour surely we could avoid the Canada Day Long Weekend rush to abandon civilization. Now, I love my wife dearly, but even when she was born she was two weeks late. She’s been about that far behind ever since. After getting my gear on, warming up the bike, tearing the gear off, warming the bike up again, gearing up again, we finally got on the road about 8:00 am. She in the car and me on the bike. Right into the rush hour we were trying to avoid. Once we got past the little town of Hope traffic thinned and all was right with the world.

The weather was decent. Mostly sunny with clouds. We skirted the rain a few times, and it was a lot colder than I thought it would be, but a great ride through the Rockies. The worst part was the last stretch to Calgary from Canmore, where there’s a heavy deer crossing. I was happily motoring along behind a semi when it ran over a deer that had been nailed earlier that day. I had to quickly swerve to avoid the carcass. After all, picking deer guts out of my 1400 is not my favourite thing (let alone the consequences of hitting a 500 pound broken sack of blood, bones and guts.) It was a good thing I managed not to soil myself.

Seven tanks (I swear that 1400 tank holds little more than a spoonful), 980 kilometers (609 miles), and 12 hours later we were knocking on our friends’ door. Two glasses of wine and it was lights out.

Saturday we all drove North up to Drumheller in my bud’s van and went to the Tyrrell museum and learned about Dinosaurs. If you ever want to learn about dinosaurs, that’s the place to be. The place is huge. It took about three hours to go through it. Interesting, but being a bear of very little brain, I retained very limited amounts of information. Dinner, fancy coffees (decaf) and Rumoli and catching up on old times and it was nighty-night.

The sun through the window beckoned about 6:30 the next morning. Time to have a coffee, say my goodbyes and saddle up for the ride home.

The Coquihalla Highway is fast, but it’s just ‘point and shoot’ (and a $5 toll), so I thought I’d extend the ride and take the scenic route from 5A across 97C to Princeton. A virtually abandoned and nicely twisted 61 Km road. What I hadn’t considered was the fuel-guzzling hill that starts the ‘Coke’ just outside of Kelowna. I got a measly 158 Km (98 miles) before she dried up. My heart sank when I went to switch to reserve only to find that that’s where it already was. Of course, being transportationally challenged (another long story) and in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, there was no cell phone service. I pushed my baby about a ½ mile to a rest area and started to hoof it the 30 Km to Princeton. It amazes me that I’d managed to run out of gas in the exact centre of the middle of nowhere.

Fortunately, though, the story has a happy ending. A young couple from Kamloops driving the other way saw me walking in all the latest biker fashion, then came upon my wounded steed. They did the math and figured out I was in trouble, turned around, picked me up, took me to Princeton, where I bought an $8 gas can and $5 of gas, drove me back to my bike and yet refused to take any money for it! It restored my faith in humanity and their Karma has been re-aligned. Thanks guys.

After that two hour delay (it could have been much worse), I was back on the road. Dusk was falling, which meant the deer would be out soon. It’s really incredible how invisible those suckers are in the fading daylight. Sure enough, I rounded a particularly enjoyable sweeping curve to find myself face to face with a nice buck. No panic, but the silly thing wouldn’t move. I had to stop the bike and honk the horn before it trotted off. I decided I should take it easy. I must have seen about 10 more happily munching by the roadside.

When I finally rolled into the ranch, tired but content, it was a rather dark 11 pm. 1,065 Kilometers (662 miles). My personal best for a single day of riding. Of course, the next morning I slept in and was late for work, and I took three days to recover, but it was all good.