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Published: August 10th 2007
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Bob Meets a Bear!
Thursday, 12 July 2007
Today marks one month since we left Ottawa. In a way, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long. On the other hand, like the tour itself, it seems like it’s just been part of our lives for quite a while, an indeterminate while. Despite the unusual, and sometimes not very “exciting” places we’ve stayed, on the whole, I feel it’s been a great adventure. I only hope Bob feels the same, especially after his experience today.
My plan today was to cycle from Sandy Lake, where I was picked up yesterday, to Minnedosa, where we will stay the next 3 nights. Yesterday I’d pointed out to Bob where the TCT intersected with a road, so he could park Casper & go for a quiet walk with Panna, uninterrupted by people walking with their children or what-have-you. So he dropped me off & drove to the place, parked the van, and went about 45 min along the trail. He was quite impressed by the relative peace & tranquility, and Panna had a great time running into the brush & I believe she even found a place to go for a
swim. He’d just gotten ahold of her with the leash, to head back to the van, when he noticed a pretty large, solid black thing in front of him. He wasn’t wearing his driving glasses - who needs them when you’re just going for a walk in the woods, on a trail - but he was pretty darn sure it was a bear! It seemed to be an adolescent, not as big as an adult, and definitely not a cub. He says it took all his “all” not to run back to the van - that’s not a good thing to do around black bears - and try as he might he couldn’t remember for sure all the things he’d learned about black bears as a boy scout, or from the assorted literature we’ve read here. (Funniest thing, I was just thinking that myself yesterday on my “hike” - what would I remember to do or not do should I encounter a bear...)
But he certainly did walk back as rapidly as his pace would take him, not allowing Panna to stop & sniff as he ordinarily would have. And he didn’t BEGIN to relax till they were both safely
locked in the van. Panna, “princess” that she is, didn’t pick up on the bear’s scent or show any interest, which was fine by us - he didn’t need her charging at it or doing anything to provoke a display of temper. I think Bob is now about 5 years older than he was before he left on his walk ;-)
My own adventure wasn’t nearly as exciting. I took Blue again, and pretty much stuck to the pavement, even travelling quite a ways on highway 10, which is the main north-south route out of Brandon. And as with so many of the highways here, the shoulder MAY have been paved, but heavy accumulation of gravel & grit on it made it pretty much unusable, at least for a road bike. And there was plenty of traffic to endure - transports, Greyhound buses, and two trucks going the opposite direction, towing large pre-fab house pieces, which sent a tremendous draft against me as they went past. But it really wasn’t that difficult.
More difficult was the valley of the Little Saskatchewan River, which provided a lovely, long descent into a nice level valley, followed by a LONG (to
me) climb (about 2.5+ kilometres). Thank goodness I was able to build up some momentum & speed before that, and although it wasn’t really easy, at least I was able to cycle all the way up, didn’t have to get off & walk the bike.
The length of my ride was only about 50 kilometres, about 5/6 of what I’m trying to do, so once I got a little settled (and heard Bob’s bear story!), Panna & I took a bit of a walk around the town, the main street & a little path in a park, where I was able to let her off-leash & didn’t have to worry about bears!
Minnedosa is a cute little town, which seems to have a bit more going for it than does Elphinstone (which really seems to be a nearly-desolate place, in my opinion, and I’m sorry if I’m insulting anyone). But here too a lot of businesses seem to be shut down or for sale. The main saving grace seems to be that it’s close to the highway to Brandon, which is only about ½ hour away - as a matter of fact we hope to go there for dinner one or more of the nights we’re here. The motel is a bit more “up-scale” than in Elphinstone, as we do] have telephones in the rooms & the TV works, and we have air-conditioning. But there’s still no internet access, as I don’t know the Sympatico dial-up number for this neck of the woods. Tomorrow, we may check with the library here, or in Neepawa, our next overnight stay but not very far from here. In the meantime we’ll try not to dream of bears or big, insurmountable hills...lucky Panna, she’s sound asleep already!
DAY 21: On the bicycle: 52.0 km, in 2:36 hours, ave. speed 19.9, max. speed 37.7 km/hr
On foot: 2.9 km, in 46 min, ave. speed 3.8 km/hr
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