Winnipeg

I don't remember the last time this thing was updated. I feel that it was a couple provinces ago. Our time through Saskatchewan pretty good. Our first two days in we blew through 170 km a day. We went to Swift Current on the first day and then Moose Jaw on the second and spent the night with Alex Mitchell. From there we were hoping for an easy ride to Regina only to be faced with a terrible head wind. It was a battle all day that day to make it to Regina. We also got our glimpse at some of the flattest land around. It hailed on us briefly on the way there. We spent a couple days in a trailer in the backyard of friend's of Neal's family. Andrew and Nicole were excellent hosts who provided us with BBQ and beers. Colin was an interesting guy to hang out with too. Their dog Romeo was super cute and friendly. All he wanted to do was play with us. We hit up Regina Jazz fest for an afternoon but mostly lounged. From Regina we busted up on a northern road for a while. We had been on the #1 Trans Canada until Regina, but we wanted a break from the endless trucks and cars. In Killaly we slept on a baseball field and the town was out partying so we socialized with them. We have gone through countless small towns and endless expanses of fields. I also would like to mention how amazing the sky is. When Saskatchewan said that it was the province with the living sky they were right. It is huge and awesome. The clouds take on such pleasant puffy shapes. Sunsets have also been incredibly rewarding to gaze at. Oh, I also would like to say that for all the hype on how flat the prairies are, we didn't encounter too much straight up flat lands. We've gone on small rolling hills and such mostly. A few days ago we reached a sign that without celebration told us we were in Manitoba. We looked around...trees! We looked to our feet...grass hoppers! We looked to the sky...clouds! The mystery of Manitoba was beginning to become unraveled for us. That day we got to bike down and up a river valley. It had been a while since we had done a climb of that length. Since then it has been fairly flat though. We ended up spending our first night in Manitoba in the village of Foxwarren. We slept in the "campground"...a field with a couple trees by an abandoned school with a dilapidated play ground, but it was nice. We got some beers and watched the sunset. We stayed up a little bit later than usual that night and got to watch lightning bugs playing around! It was around this time on our trip when we began to develop a hate on for the roads in Manitoba. We wanted to use the #16, the Yellowhead. However, quickly to our dismay we discovered that the shoulder is composed of a few inches of unbikeable gravel. This two way traffic major highway was a terrible, terrible place to bike. As soon as we could we took a road south again to try and find the #1. We spent Canada day biking and then stayed at a provincial park in Rivers. It was a really nice day. Sadly there was no Joel Plaskett to play us a concert and rock out...but we got a couple small fire works set off across a lake from where we stayed. In Brandon we hooked up with the #1 again only to find that it too often does not have a bikeable shoulder. Manitoba has been failing us and upping the danger level. We made it to Winnipeg on Friday and met up with Louie and Andrea who have kindly let us stay with them. Then to our delight...an ultimate tournament, here in Winnipeg. We figure, hey, we're in good shape...let's do this. Flatlands 2009 turned out to be a very fun and party filled, but painful weekend. The impact from running hurt. Sprinting was also a whole new concept, and hurt. We played with a rec team and were the ringers from Halifax. The team was fun and we played some decent ultimate. Mostly, we had fun and partied. Another really random thing happened while in Winnipeg. Roger Fage showed up at the tournament after 2 months of tree planting in Ontario. He just happened to be passing through the city on his way out west and ended up playing in the tournament with us. It felt like old times. By the time we had partied our way through the tournament party, gone downtown, got pizza, saw a car accident, had certain folks show us their dinner from earlier, and finally were lying down on an air mattress on the floor next to Roger...well it felt like a DKUT tournament. Good times. Winnipeg has had a lot of rain and such recently so the river is really high and there has been lots of flooding. I thought you would like to know that. Another key tid bit relates to Iggy. Iggy is an adorable little fluff ball that keeps pouncing on me and waking me up in the mornings. Yesterday we relaxed (finally) and puppy sat all day. It was great. He likes to chew on everything and be super cute always. I wouldn't expect anything less from an 8 week old Wheaton. I got to watch my first Blue Ray (BRD) while here. Kung Fu Panda. It looked, well, strange. The high def makes things really sharp though, which is awesome. I suppose the last thing I should mention is that our next chapter of the adventure is going to be a big one. Ontario. Neverendsio. Onlytreesio. Peoplehavetoldushowcrappythislegisgoingtobeio. So we figure in a week we'll have made it through some of the wilderness to be in Thunderbay. Then we want to an island route south a bit and then cut east again. It will probably take us 3 weeks or so to get to Ottawa, sadly, probably too late to be able to play in No Borders. Oh also, I finally got a new air mattress at MEC. Now my mattress won't deflate on me 10 minutes after blowing it up.
So we all wish people at home well. Hopefully the sun comes out in Halifax soon. Fear not if it doesn't for we will bring the sunshine back to you...can you wait till August though? We miss everyone at home lots. Take care. Party on. Willem, Neal and Pat.