Day 12 – Brooks,AB – Bow Island, AB – “You got balls” and rattlesnakes
Km’s traveled: 173.4km
Overall average: 21.4km/hr
Moving average: 44.8km/hr
Total time: 8hr 07min
Moving time: 3hr 52min
Stopped: 4hr 14min
Finally I’m back on the road…er…if you can really call that mud hole a road. Heading southeast from the park towards Rolling Hills, Alberta, past Cecil and down the 879 to Bow Island, Alberta.
It was a nice sunny day for riding, not too hot, not too cold, just enough cloud in just the right spots to not affect riding. Riding today would be one to remember and a very interesting fact about Canada. Did you know there are rattlesnakes in Canada? I never till I saw this…
Wow…Really?…ya…really. Believe it or not, Canada DOES in fact have rattlesnakes (and scorpions). And no I never seen either on my trip. Now before you go all loony tunes, rattlesnakes and scorpions are mostly only found in the warmer, dryer Southern parts of the western and prairie provinces, and there still pretty uncommon so I hear.
The rest of the days trip was quite monotonous as were most driving days through the prairies especially doing a whopping 50km/hr!
Stopping at Subway in Bow Island for supper and starting to get a little tired from the monotonous views, I decided to stay here for the night. I went to the tourism center and found a self- registration park right up the road for $10.
Within a half hour of me setting up camp, every other spot was now full. Including a older couple in a moterhome who I had tea with and they let me hook-up to there power outlet so I had power in the tent and could charge everything again. Even had free internet thanks to the town. Now thats true camping, really ruffing it. I mean what would I do without power and internet while camping, thats a must now isn’t it? I mean we do live in 2011 not 1950 right? It is the technological information age after all.
(Please note, this is only my personal opinion, but I think if you have power, satalite tv, internet, etc while camping, your not really camping, camping to me is setting up a tent in the woods, having a fire, roasting marshmallows, coming closer with nature for a brief moment in time.)
Anyways continuing on… On the other lot beside me, there was a Harley Biker who came in. He was coming back from a trip outwest, now heading back east to his home in Ontario. I had the front off the bike, fixing a loose light wire, when he came over to ask if I had all the tools I needed, I said ‘ ya, just finished’. We got to talking as the scooter always brings up questions, once he found out about the trip he said he had to congratulate me on doing this trip, as his Harley buddies who have been ridding for years wont take there bikes out of the city and here I am going across country on a little 50cc. His words “You’ve got balls”. Which I’d learn over the course of the next two weeks these would be three words I’d always here together and daily from other bikers.