Day 14, Monday, July 30, 2012, Pincher Creek to Waterton Village, Waterton National Park, AB
Pictures below taken looking back at Pincher Creek.
Pincher Creek in the foreground.
Good night's sleep. Up and ready to go. Breakfast deal: $7 Canadian got you 2 pancakes of an acceptable size, 2 bacon, 2 sausage and 2 eggs over medium. One of the cheapest breakfasts we have gotten so far.
The day was bright and sunny. I wore no arm warmers, no leg warmers, or vest.
The ride to Waterton was an up and down course. We crossed many creek drainages requiring a descent to the creek and an up out of the creek.
Last looks at the Alberta high prairie.
Waterton National Park straight ahead between the break in the mountain ranges.
A little over half-way we stopped at Twin Butte Country Store and Restaurant. Their menu was primarily Mexican, somethingI thought was unique being out in the middle of high prairie Alberta nowhere.
The ride from Twin Butte was a bit more of the same, with our denizens of the prairies thrown in for good measure. Mike and Frank went searching for the White Buffalo and Mike says they saw it. : > ) I have no documentation of such a sighting though as one can see below.
No white buffaloe.
The three of us arrived in Waterton National Park in time to see the other four ride off toward town on the other side of the park payment station. We queued up behind the cars and RVs to wait our turn when we were pulled out of line by a young lady who believed we had been paid for by the first group of cyclists. She doubled checked and was confirmed in her belief. I spied the bike trail as soon as we cleared the payment station and directed Mike and Frank to follow me. The bike trail turned out to be one of the more challenging routes with some steep pitches to horse our bikes up. They were short pitches but well over 15% on some of the two or three we attempted. I looked back in my rear view mirror and saw Mike and Frank conferring. The next thing I knew Mike is riding by me on the road. I could see another dip and climb coming up soon. I looked back on the road and could see Frank but no cars so crossed the grassy median separating the bike path from the highway to be between Mike and Frank. It was five miles from the junction with Highway 6 and the road to Waterton and none of the highway short climbs were anywhere as steep as the bike path climbs. The bike path was not designed by a cyclist. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
Our camp site was on the far side of town. they only allowed 2 tents per campsite so we paid for 3 reserving a fourth in case Mike decided to do camping instead of moteling. Yes, folks, we really were going to camp, i.e. sleep in sleeping bags inside our tents. No TV, no wifi, no bathrooms or showers a few steps away. We were really roughing it. : > )
I elected to forgo a shower along with the rest to find some lunch and explore the town. The place we chose had food and wifi, but seemed to me to be on the spendy side. I chose to eat two cookies, washed down with lemon tea. I drank two more cups of the lemon tree obviously being more thirsty than hungry. The wifi signal was weak at this establishment and I was feeling rather languorous.
The rest of the gang took off to explore the town on foot. I still had some ice tea to finish and was thinking about finishing this blog entry, but it was beginning to feel hot in the restaurant and my gumption for writing was not very strong.
I got on the bike and rode around the block to the other main street. Several of the gang had found an ice cream shoppe and had queued up; this was obviously a popular place on a hot day in Waterton. I found a place to sit and soon found myself wanting to fall asleep. I imagined finding a shaded place down by the lake front and laying down to take a nap. When the others had finished their ice cream and were going to go back to the restaurant where they had left their bikes, I decided to pursue my dream. I found a narrow asphalt path paralleling the lake front. I pedaled along until I found a shaded spot of grass. Immediately I recognized the spot as being my dream. I dismounted the Rex, putting it on its kickstand, and lay down. I didn't sleep but the cool breeze off the lake did wonders for my disposition. All the images below were taken from my resting place.
After sufficient cooling I rode the Rex back to camp. The campsite was totally exposed to the sun and my tent was broiling. The closest shower, Mike had scouted the locations of all the shower possibilities, was a single being used by Bob at the time. I found some shade and waited my turn. The Cetafil bar soap I use for my face had begun to melt being inside the tent during the time I was away. It worked anyway and I finished the shower refreshed.
Herb and I gathered dirty clothes together for a laundry run and off we went to wash clothes. We met the others for dinner after the washing had finished and the hang dry had been separated out and the clothes for the dryer were placed in it and sufficient quarters had been fed into the machine.
Dinner was at Zum's who were famous for their deep fried chicken. Surely you have heard of it! (Mike W.: a note for your future deep fried chicken, to copy the Zum recipe add more pepper to your coating.) It was a spicy outside coating and very, very, crispy, one could say crunchy, even. Their wild berry pie was very good and appeared homemade.
Back at camp the temperature had dropped very nicely and the tent was quite comfortable. We did have to chase the flies off the space between the fly and the tent just because we didn't want to deal with them in the morning when the sun hit the tent. I read for a while then slept solidly. I got up for a pee break just before the sun came up over the mountains. The full moon had already set. When I crawled back into the sleeping bag the next thing I remember was awaking at 8 AM because it was hot in the tent.
Stats: T= 3:03, Mx= 36.8, Av= 11.7, El Gain= 1741, Max Alt= 4536, ODO= 3578, D= 35.9.
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