Fooled you!, Suprise ending!



Riding through the plains has been tough on us mentally and physically.  Most of the time we have had the dreaded headwinds keeping us from breaking any land speed records.  The treeless, rolling hills have their own beauty but that got old for us pretty quick.   Throughout a day we have many phases of our own energy levels.  We have experimented a lot with several different (legal) ways of giving us that extra boost we need throughout the day.  Most of the time we just need something new, cool, fresh and exciting to get our spirits going.  Often times this ends up in the form of a milkshake.  After a tall cold milkshake in a small town diner I am instantly ready to crank out another 20 30 miles no problem.  We have decided that for us to really give us the boost we need for the rest of the trip though we would need something else.  A full slow morning had a thinking hard of the possibilities.  We again needed the something new, cool, fresh and exciting to kick start us for the last leg or legs of our summer.  Brad had the idea of getting a puppy.  We could start it out in a handlebar basket and train it to tour with us, it would also double as great kitchen clean up and a bear alarm.  Mary (being the slightly more practical one) thought up a surprise ending to our trip.  We tossed a coin and Mary still said no to the puppy idea.  So here is the NEW and hopefully Final plan... We are turning south.  From Lethbridge, Alberta we are going southbound to Glacier national park in our home country of the United States. (finally Payday candy bars will be available again)  Then we are going on a National park tour home, through Yellow Stone, and Grand Teton.  Probably spend a couple days with all our friends in Jackson hole Wyoming (where we both worked as river guides last year) then through Logan and onto Salt Lake city.  Whew there it is. We chose this for many reasons, but really we wanted to see some good friends.  From Salt Lake we will probably only stick around for a few days, then we are driving to our original destination of Alaska.  Then we have to get real, find jobs quick before we have to sell a kidney and start our new Alaskan lives.  We are super excited about this plan, riding through some epic country, and ending hopefully with a warm welcome from friends (preferably with food and hugs)  We have already pedaled more than 5300 miles which is more than most other cross Canada tours, so I do want to stress that we are not cheating, or quiting early, just continuing to make this trip our own, and the best.  Since making this route change our spirits have been at nose-bleeding altitudes and our daydreams of riding the homestretch are storybook.  Hope to see you all soon.

\brad was so excited to reach Alberta he crack climbed up the sign!

This guy saw us riding in the heat in Medicine Hat and invited us to take shelter at his house- including great meals, laundry, a bed for the night, AND he tuned up our bikes! Thanks Doug!

little tent on the prairie...

While riding through Taber we couldnt turn down signs for a cornfest! We showed up and the locals gave us free corn, elephant ears, and cold bottles of water. A fest worth stopping for!

we got the first ears of the festival!

everyone says they are riding for some cause, we are riding for a marraige :)

B-rad working on some of his tricks.

this is mary trying to put on a positive face for the constant headwinds...