End of Chapter 1

Our trip from the last update to here has been a great one. We left Cranbrook a few days ago now and headed towards Fernie. Along the way we met a tame crow and tried to wait out a thunderstorm only to get drenched and cold later. We went through a short tunnel in the mountainside as we biked from Elko to Fernie. (Elko being where we stopped for lunch and where the crow, Squakie, was). The other side of the tunnel is notorious for the bad weather, and it did not disappoint us. When we were roughly 5 minutes from Fernie my front tire, which I had noticed was splitting apart (the new tires I got to start the trip in Halifax did not last long...) blew. So we had to do a highway side, in the pouring rain, with all the traffic zooming by, cold as ever, tire and tube change. We decided Tim's would be a great place to warm up and that is where we met our host for the night, Steve. Steve mistook Neal for a biking friend of his. When he heard our story he asked us if we had a place to stay in Fernie and then offered for us to stay with him. So we did. He was a really cool guy. We had a BBQ and he got us some beer. The next day we busted "over" crows nest pass and into Alberta. It felt like quite an accomplishment to finish a province. The changes in landscape were surprisingly quick to happen too. Suddenly there was grass everywhere. The foot hills rolled and waved at us rather than strike intense awe like the mountains had. We of course could see the mountains for a while. The foothills really are awesome though. We saw Frank Slide (in the early 1900s part of Turtle Mountain broke off and destroyed a whole town). We saw a family of Great Horned Owls at our campsite the other night. From that campsite we went for a big day (120k+) into Lethbridge. The terrain flattened out more and more as we were pushed and helped along by a massive West to East tail wind. Our hosts Greg and Leah have been very nice to us. We took the day off yesterday. We went to a bike shop and a used book store, where we stocked up on some reading material. We went to a record store and then saw the movie Up. Up was amazing. We all highly recommend it. 3D movies are just way cool. Well, e are getting off to a nice and slow start here today. We had a bit of a patio/kitchen party last night, which was great. In two days we'll be past Medicine Hat. Then we'll do the Cypress Hills. Basically, we are going to be in Saskatchewan in no time. All of us would like to wish our fathers a Happy Fathers Day. Take care everyone. Willem, Patrick, and Neal.