Monday, June 1, 2009
at camp
hey all so here is a quick update... we are at camp now running school groups. Sachi and I feel old as our knees are still healing and we definitely feeling it after running across the field once... but thats ok we are loving the school groups anyways. As for the update on biking. We have not been allowed to get back on our bikes yet but we are eagerly awaiting the day we can.. especially because we are offering mountain biking and it is going to be sweet! well that's it for now... on to the next school group...
Monday, May 4, 2009
Day 9: Defeat
So today is a very very very sad day. After much thought and debate ... we have decided to fly the rest of the way to BC and to try and get physiotherapy. Hopefully with proper care and physiotherapy we can continue to bike all around Vancouver Island and possibly the mainland for our cause and maybe even bike the equivalent of our original journey in kilometers within this next month and continued on in the summer. Melanie and I are still pretty shell shocked at our final decision. We will be flying back tomorrow morning. We really hope that we haven't disappointed you all too much. Trust me if we thought we had better options ... we would take them. We talked about renting a car and only one of us biking at a time, without gear on. We also talked about just staying here in Caronport for a few more days and then try biking again and just bike as far as we could before flying back, or just biking as far as we could today (but at the rate we were going it would have been very very slow and painful) and then hitch hike the rest of the way to Swift Current. If we had an extra month to do this we would definitely just hang out here for awhile and then try and bike again ... but unfortunately we only have until the 25th of May to get to Thetis Island BC. We are praying that this is the right decision and we hope that you will all support us in it ... as it is already extremely hard for us to accept this decision. We also don't want to cause permanent damage to our knees/achilles, which we are very aware is possible. On the upside ... this now gives us an opportunity to raise more awareness and funds in the areas that are more affected by Camp Columbia. We plan on visiting the majority if not all the Anglican Churches on Vancouver Island. Thank you for all your support and prayers! We will try to keep you as updated as possible.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Day 7/8 - Saturday/Sunday- May 2/3- Regina to Caronport SK
Well it has now been a complete week. We are in Caronport, arrived here last night after a long ride from Regina to here. BUT WE MADE IT THE WHOLE WAY!!!! I will say though... the last 18 km from Moose Jaw were probably some of the longest km EVER!
Getting to Moose Jaw was a bit of an adventure, the morning started out and it was sunny and wonderful :) the strange thing was the directions in Regina. You see I (Mel) had google mapped it and thought i knew the way out to Ring Rd which leads directly on to the #1 hwy. So we made it to Ring Road and took the West exit on to it... the funny thing is... that apparently in Regina we had to take the East exit to go West!!! WHO KNEW??!!! anyways we ended up riding all the way back through town but it wasn't bad and we were feeling great! We made it on to the hwy and were making pretty great time. Until Sachi's knee decided that it was going to be horrible and put her through craziness! The mprning was tough and we prayed pretty much the whole time just asking God to heal Sachi's knee or at least to reduce the pain. We were both very frustrated because it seems like all we have done this whole trip and planning for it, is hit wall after wall. I mean we really shoulf expect that when fighting for an amazing ministry that is on the verge of being closed down. But it is still hard none-the-less.
Anyways we finally made it to this little town for lunch where we stayed and rested for an hour and the took off again.
In the afternoon it was my turn... my knees began to kill. Again more praying and more battling. Once passing through Moose Jaw we were tired from the hills and we had just gone up the biggest one. Sachi had stopped but my head was down as we were still on a bit of an incline. My pannier bag hit hers and on to the road i tumbled. Yep bruised i am but alright, nothing crazy.
We finally got into caronport around 9 and it was GREAT catching up with Sarah and meeting her husband Jordan! (Sarah and I were on the same team 5 years ago doing missions work in Brasil) We decided to stay in the morning and go to church here it was awesome! Another one of my friends (Corey Julin) is also here, which was surprising! His wife Erin gave a great sermon that was very encouraging and all about how we need to love people even when it is scary and really difficult! That pretty much sums up this adventure!
After lunch it was about 1-1:30 and we decided that our day was gone and we wouldn't be able to get very far so we would take the day off. (also we have found it really hard to walk today) so we drove back into Moose Jaw (quite sad when it takes 10 min in a car and about 2 hours on the bike!) and tried to find a place to get some physiotherapy .... but ... apparently nothing is open on Sundays in Moose Jaw, except the Emergency Room. We figured it wouldn't hurt to at least have some kind of doctor look at our hurting limbs so we went to the hospital in Moose Jaw and checked into the Emergency Room. When we finally got a doctor he briefly looked at our knees and Sachi's achilles and told us both to take a little walk about the room and then basically just told us to Rest Ice Compress and Evelate ... and we got a few Ibuprofen and that's about it. Oh the doctor also basically mocked us because he didn't think that we were biking for a good enough reason. Stupid doctor ... he clearly has never been to camp! Poor guy ... how sad it would be to not know how important camp is. Anyway, we were told that there is this great Mineral Spa pool thing that is supposed to be really good for you so we decided to check it out. We ended up chillin in this pool for an hour or so and then hobbled back to the car and drove back to Caronport. Upon arriving in Caronport we kind of just hung out at Sarah and Jordan's place, played guitar, harmonica, penny whistle, and just as the doctor ordered we iced our knees. Sarah was great and threw a lasagna and some garlic toast in the oven and we had strawberries and nutella for dessert! Mmmm delicious. Later on Sarah invited some friends over and we had a campfire, roasted some hot dogs and had some s'mores (which were delicious) and then we realized it was super late and we should go to bed! So now here we are ... up dating our blog and getting ready for bed. We hope to make it to Swift Current tomorrow ... so please continue to pray for our knees, achilles heels, and good weather!
Getting to Moose Jaw was a bit of an adventure, the morning started out and it was sunny and wonderful :) the strange thing was the directions in Regina. You see I (Mel) had google mapped it and thought i knew the way out to Ring Rd which leads directly on to the #1 hwy. So we made it to Ring Road and took the West exit on to it... the funny thing is... that apparently in Regina we had to take the East exit to go West!!! WHO KNEW??!!! anyways we ended up riding all the way back through town but it wasn't bad and we were feeling great! We made it on to the hwy and were making pretty great time. Until Sachi's knee decided that it was going to be horrible and put her through craziness! The mprning was tough and we prayed pretty much the whole time just asking God to heal Sachi's knee or at least to reduce the pain. We were both very frustrated because it seems like all we have done this whole trip and planning for it, is hit wall after wall. I mean we really shoulf expect that when fighting for an amazing ministry that is on the verge of being closed down. But it is still hard none-the-less.
Anyways we finally made it to this little town for lunch where we stayed and rested for an hour and the took off again.
In the afternoon it was my turn... my knees began to kill. Again more praying and more battling. Once passing through Moose Jaw we were tired from the hills and we had just gone up the biggest one. Sachi had stopped but my head was down as we were still on a bit of an incline. My pannier bag hit hers and on to the road i tumbled. Yep bruised i am but alright, nothing crazy.
We finally got into caronport around 9 and it was GREAT catching up with Sarah and meeting her husband Jordan! (Sarah and I were on the same team 5 years ago doing missions work in Brasil) We decided to stay in the morning and go to church here it was awesome! Another one of my friends (Corey Julin) is also here, which was surprising! His wife Erin gave a great sermon that was very encouraging and all about how we need to love people even when it is scary and really difficult! That pretty much sums up this adventure!
After lunch it was about 1-1:30 and we decided that our day was gone and we wouldn't be able to get very far so we would take the day off. (also we have found it really hard to walk today) so we drove back into Moose Jaw (quite sad when it takes 10 min in a car and about 2 hours on the bike!) and tried to find a place to get some physiotherapy .... but ... apparently nothing is open on Sundays in Moose Jaw, except the Emergency Room. We figured it wouldn't hurt to at least have some kind of doctor look at our hurting limbs so we went to the hospital in Moose Jaw and checked into the Emergency Room. When we finally got a doctor he briefly looked at our knees and Sachi's achilles and told us both to take a little walk about the room and then basically just told us to Rest Ice Compress and Evelate ... and we got a few Ibuprofen and that's about it. Oh the doctor also basically mocked us because he didn't think that we were biking for a good enough reason. Stupid doctor ... he clearly has never been to camp! Poor guy ... how sad it would be to not know how important camp is. Anyway, we were told that there is this great Mineral Spa pool thing that is supposed to be really good for you so we decided to check it out. We ended up chillin in this pool for an hour or so and then hobbled back to the car and drove back to Caronport. Upon arriving in Caronport we kind of just hung out at Sarah and Jordan's place, played guitar, harmonica, penny whistle, and just as the doctor ordered we iced our knees. Sarah was great and threw a lasagna and some garlic toast in the oven and we had strawberries and nutella for dessert! Mmmm delicious. Later on Sarah invited some friends over and we had a campfire, roasted some hot dogs and had some s'mores (which were delicious) and then we realized it was super late and we should go to bed! So now here we are ... up dating our blog and getting ready for bed. We hope to make it to Swift Current tomorrow ... so please continue to pray for our knees, achilles heels, and good weather!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Day 6: May 1st - Rest Day in Regina
Hey everyone!
So today was our day off and it has been great! We had a very needed sleep-in and overall rested up fairly well. I (Mel) cooked Sachi her very first 'egg in a basket' and they were fabulous! we then google mapped where the closest bike shop was and called to see if they had time to fix up our bikes. THEY DID! We biked 3.1km... ya sounds like nothing but on a day off seems a lot more! plus of course we had to bike the same distance back (hahahaha well actually a little more because i got mixed up between the north and south streets named the same thing except that one has a N and the other doesn't! I tell you just name it something different!!!) anyways there at Dutch Cycle Shop and Repair they checked out bikes out, cleaned and greased our chains, fixed our breaks as they were rubbing (we need as little resistance as possible!) and trued our wheels. One of my frames was a bit bent... maybe from a bail (?) i don't know anyways our bikes are now GREAT! AND they had this wonderful man who is a bike mechanic and fitness/trainer type person. We set our bikes up on a trainer and he looked at how we were biking. He set up Sachi's bike a lot better and measured the angle of her knee bend and feet when clipped in. And then did the same to mine though mine was pretty much set up right... i just have to learn to peddle more pigeoned toed. And randomly both of our left legs are shorter than our right legs... hence we both had issues beginning on the same side. Very random i know! The best part was that they gave us the tune ups for free!!!!! This was a huge blessing as we are both poor students! We also got a new helmet for Sachi as hers got cracked when she bailed a few days ago. AND we got a better pump for our tires. Both these they gave us awesome discounts as well! all we can do is send a HUGE THANK YOU to Dutch Cycle!!!!
We have since spent the day eating leftover Vietnamese and watching movies! YAY! We will soon head to bed and to get our beauty sleep for tomorrow as we head to Caronport!
I realize there was an issue with our GPS yesterday for tracking, we are attempting to figure out what caused the problem and hopefully it will be alright again tomorrow!
until next time...
- Mel and Sachi
So today was our day off and it has been great! We had a very needed sleep-in and overall rested up fairly well. I (Mel) cooked Sachi her very first 'egg in a basket' and they were fabulous! we then google mapped where the closest bike shop was and called to see if they had time to fix up our bikes. THEY DID! We biked 3.1km... ya sounds like nothing but on a day off seems a lot more! plus of course we had to bike the same distance back (hahahaha well actually a little more because i got mixed up between the north and south streets named the same thing except that one has a N and the other doesn't! I tell you just name it something different!!!) anyways there at Dutch Cycle Shop and Repair they checked out bikes out, cleaned and greased our chains, fixed our breaks as they were rubbing (we need as little resistance as possible!) and trued our wheels. One of my frames was a bit bent... maybe from a bail (?) i don't know anyways our bikes are now GREAT! AND they had this wonderful man who is a bike mechanic and fitness/trainer type person. We set our bikes up on a trainer and he looked at how we were biking. He set up Sachi's bike a lot better and measured the angle of her knee bend and feet when clipped in. And then did the same to mine though mine was pretty much set up right... i just have to learn to peddle more pigeoned toed. And randomly both of our left legs are shorter than our right legs... hence we both had issues beginning on the same side. Very random i know! The best part was that they gave us the tune ups for free!!!!! This was a huge blessing as we are both poor students! We also got a new helmet for Sachi as hers got cracked when she bailed a few days ago. AND we got a better pump for our tires. Both these they gave us awesome discounts as well! all we can do is send a HUGE THANK YOU to Dutch Cycle!!!!
We have since spent the day eating leftover Vietnamese and watching movies! YAY! We will soon head to bed and to get our beauty sleep for tomorrow as we head to Caronport!
I realize there was an issue with our GPS yesterday for tracking, we are attempting to figure out what caused the problem and hopefully it will be alright again tomorrow!
until next time...
- Mel and Sachi
Day 5: Thursday April 30th Moosomin - Regina
WELL... this morning we woke up to the 'best' of the prairies... SNOW!!!! OK so actually we were quite upset! but very very VERY thankful we had a roof up over our head! We were warm, maybe even too warm but who cares we were WARM! we got up packed our bags and had another great breakfast! Eggs and bacon and toast and Cornflakes!!! seriously we are SO spoiled! neither Sachi nor I were in a very good mood, we were (and still are) yep you guessed it in pain. We really didn't feel like being cold and getting all muddy again especially since we had nice clean clothes and had cleaned our bikes off as best as possible. The mud was really bad in our chains and our bikes were making... well a noise no bike should make! But we got all geared up and were standing out in the driveway taking photos when two more men from the town came by on a walk and chatted for a bit. Once we told them what we were doing and why we are SO CRAZILY going into the wind and UPHILL, one got out his wallet and gave us $5. We are continually surprised at the generosity of people! We are using every opportunity we get to share with people why we are on this grand adventure and are shocked when people who don't even know us give us a crisp $20 and wish us luck on the road. Some even have been angry at disrespectful cars who wont pull over so semi's can change lanes and give us a little more space! WHO KNEW!!! Anyways back to this day...
Well we got out on the highway once again but this time were met by a crazy head wind... and when i say crazy i MEAN CRAZY! like when we stopped and weren't holding our bikes the wind would blow them backwards! It was tough and we were in pain. There were many times where we had tears streaming down our faces and were just praying that God would give us the strength and mind power to get through and at least calm the wind a bit for us. The first town was 24km away and it took us 3 hours to get there!!!!! ok yes we stopped for a bit... and were kind of sheltered by a huge caution sign but man were we freezing! We kept going and finally reached the junction of the town. We stood there looking for a gas station and just couldn't see one anywhere! and I (mel) REALLY had to pee (maybe that's too much info but it's reality). As we stood there this truck pulled up and we asked the men where a gas station would be, they said in the next town... 27km away... they asked if we were looking for a restraunt (as it was lunch time) but we said we were just looking for a bathroom. THANK YOU KIND CANADIANS! the driver invited us to use his just a littl ways into town. SUCH A RELIEF!!! Literally! He even gave us some juice for the road!
We continued on, we probably stopped at least every half hour probably even more as the wind was SO tough and it was (i will say it again) up hill and we were Hurting a lot! We wish it were only sore from sitting on a bike seat for 8 hours a day... or even just muscle fatigue... but no it was BAD pain, shooting insane pain.
We continued on not knowing where the heck we were and hoping that the next town was around the next corner (despite popular belief it is NOT just straight and most corners decided it would be great for them to point even more directly into the wind!) we rode another who knows how many km and were just dying! So put our bikes on the ground and lay on the pavement, don't worry not in the middle of the road... on the paved shoulder. AS we were lying there I again had to pee... and this time no nice little town with nice man... nope not even a tree or tiny shrub... just open prairie. So i waited until i couldn't see any cars coming and headed down the little muddy bank. Sure enough as my pants were down two cars drove past and yep took and nice long turn around look at me in my bright yellow coat. (note to self take off flourescent clothing first next time!) oh well will never see them again.
We were also very very hungry by this time, as we were going to wait until we reached the next town... that apparently did not exist at this point! so we ate some pepperoni and a bunch of delicious sharkies and chocolate. Really we didn't care if we ran out at this point we just needed to get through the day!
For those of you tracking us there are probably a billion markers sent out from this location! We then got back up and kept going. Finally we saw a sign for the town! but we were in so much pain that we ended up walking the last 2 km. At this point we decided to hitch hike once again.
SO that brings us to our next very important point. We realize that we are being sponsored by the km... and we are missing several km due to our hitch hiking. We had concluded that our bodies are more important than making every km every day. BUT we are going to make it up. During the summer we are going to bike all the km we have missed. So far that is 245km. Please keep us accountable! Our goal every day is to go as far as we can and hopfully make our destination, but if the weather is bad or we are hurt, we will attempt to get to that destination any way possible. This will keep us on track for reaching Thetis Island on May 25th.
Going back, we stood on the side of the road for an hour and a half, and two cars pulled over and appologized for not being a truck, and wished us luck or a ride if one of us was seriously injured. We finally decided to walk to the gas station to at least warm up a bit and hope that we could convince a trucker to take us with them. We were just entering the parking lot when a truck pulled over and asked us where we were going. We said Regina (as we had decided we needed a day off and didn't had a set place to stay at our original destination, Grenfell) He said he could take us as far as Indian Head, we said GREAT! and loaded our bikes into the back of the truck and jumped in. After talking to us for a bit, Dave offered to drive us the whole way in to Regina. SUCH A BLESSING! It turned out that he was from Moosomin and knew the people we had stayed with, as his mom is very involved in the Anglican Church there.
We arrived in Regina and Allysa, (my friend from Canandian Mennonite University) picked us up and took us to her place. We quickly unloaded, got changed (as we know that we look pretty freaking fabulous in our biking outfits, and definitely smelled of roses... NOT!) and went out for wonderful Vietnemese (which we are eating the leftovers of, right after this) came home, had a GREAT conversation with Eric (the camp Director) showered and entered into dream land.
Well we got out on the highway once again but this time were met by a crazy head wind... and when i say crazy i MEAN CRAZY! like when we stopped and weren't holding our bikes the wind would blow them backwards! It was tough and we were in pain. There were many times where we had tears streaming down our faces and were just praying that God would give us the strength and mind power to get through and at least calm the wind a bit for us. The first town was 24km away and it took us 3 hours to get there!!!!! ok yes we stopped for a bit... and were kind of sheltered by a huge caution sign but man were we freezing! We kept going and finally reached the junction of the town. We stood there looking for a gas station and just couldn't see one anywhere! and I (mel) REALLY had to pee (maybe that's too much info but it's reality). As we stood there this truck pulled up and we asked the men where a gas station would be, they said in the next town... 27km away... they asked if we were looking for a restraunt (as it was lunch time) but we said we were just looking for a bathroom. THANK YOU KIND CANADIANS! the driver invited us to use his just a littl ways into town. SUCH A RELIEF!!! Literally! He even gave us some juice for the road!
We continued on, we probably stopped at least every half hour probably even more as the wind was SO tough and it was (i will say it again) up hill and we were Hurting a lot! We wish it were only sore from sitting on a bike seat for 8 hours a day... or even just muscle fatigue... but no it was BAD pain, shooting insane pain.
We continued on not knowing where the heck we were and hoping that the next town was around the next corner (despite popular belief it is NOT just straight and most corners decided it would be great for them to point even more directly into the wind!) we rode another who knows how many km and were just dying! So put our bikes on the ground and lay on the pavement, don't worry not in the middle of the road... on the paved shoulder. AS we were lying there I again had to pee... and this time no nice little town with nice man... nope not even a tree or tiny shrub... just open prairie. So i waited until i couldn't see any cars coming and headed down the little muddy bank. Sure enough as my pants were down two cars drove past and yep took and nice long turn around look at me in my bright yellow coat. (note to self take off flourescent clothing first next time!) oh well will never see them again.
We were also very very hungry by this time, as we were going to wait until we reached the next town... that apparently did not exist at this point! so we ate some pepperoni and a bunch of delicious sharkies and chocolate. Really we didn't care if we ran out at this point we just needed to get through the day!
For those of you tracking us there are probably a billion markers sent out from this location! We then got back up and kept going. Finally we saw a sign for the town! but we were in so much pain that we ended up walking the last 2 km. At this point we decided to hitch hike once again.
SO that brings us to our next very important point. We realize that we are being sponsored by the km... and we are missing several km due to our hitch hiking. We had concluded that our bodies are more important than making every km every day. BUT we are going to make it up. During the summer we are going to bike all the km we have missed. So far that is 245km. Please keep us accountable! Our goal every day is to go as far as we can and hopfully make our destination, but if the weather is bad or we are hurt, we will attempt to get to that destination any way possible. This will keep us on track for reaching Thetis Island on May 25th.
Going back, we stood on the side of the road for an hour and a half, and two cars pulled over and appologized for not being a truck, and wished us luck or a ride if one of us was seriously injured. We finally decided to walk to the gas station to at least warm up a bit and hope that we could convince a trucker to take us with them. We were just entering the parking lot when a truck pulled over and asked us where we were going. We said Regina (as we had decided we needed a day off and didn't had a set place to stay at our original destination, Grenfell) He said he could take us as far as Indian Head, we said GREAT! and loaded our bikes into the back of the truck and jumped in. After talking to us for a bit, Dave offered to drive us the whole way in to Regina. SUCH A BLESSING! It turned out that he was from Moosomin and knew the people we had stayed with, as his mom is very involved in the Anglican Church there.
We arrived in Regina and Allysa, (my friend from Canandian Mennonite University) picked us up and took us to her place. We quickly unloaded, got changed (as we know that we look pretty freaking fabulous in our biking outfits, and definitely smelled of roses... NOT!) and went out for wonderful Vietnemese (which we are eating the leftovers of, right after this) came home, had a GREAT conversation with Eric (the camp Director) showered and entered into dream land.
Day 4: Wednesday April. 29 Brandon MB - Moosomin SK
Holla ... soooo today was our bike ride from Brandon to Moosomin! Which is about 140km :| baaaaaah sooo long. The upside was that .... in the morning at least .... we had TAIL WIND!! yaaaay. But the very beginning of the day started off a little bit rough in that .... as I was packing one of my panniers I mannaged to break a buckle! Which are kind of necessary when you're on a massive bike ride during this time of year when it's supposed to be rainy and such, and we realized on the first night that we forgot to get tent pegs! So we needed some tent pegs and such ... so during breakfast (which was AMAZING ... Jackie put together basically a breakfast buffet with eggs, banana bread, cheese, cantelope, toast, and many more delicious items ... mmm sooo good) we asked where the closest Canadian Tire was and Jim offered to drive us! :D So we stopped off at Canadian tire before we started biking and got some last minute items. We did have another little hiccup as we were biking out of Brandon ... I (Sachi) was drafting behind Melanie a little too close and bumped my front tire on her back tire ... lost control ... and ... inevitably fell ... hard ... maybe even skidded a bit on the dirt (thank goodness) shoulder. That hurt ... a lot, but this really nice man screeched to a halt on the other side of the road. backed up and asked us if we were okay and everything and offered us a ride ... and when Melanie said ... we're going to BC ... he said "well if that's what you need, we'll make it happen"!!! How nice was that .... we love Canada!
It was sooo glorious once we got back onto the main highway off out of Brandon, we were biking probably 20-25 km an hour (which is very good for us) and it hadn't started raining yet. We decided to stop for lunch at this cute little family restaurant/diner where the whole town of Oak Lake (famous home of Isaac the cow) was dining as well. Upon leaving we found that the wind had changed from a beautiful tail wind to a horrible side/head wind aaaaaaand the rain had begun! Soooo sad. We also had realized how glorious the morning had been as our knees had not been hurting too badly, which definitely wasn't the case in the afternoon. Not only had our right knees started to hurt badly but Mel's left knee was hurting badly and my left achilles heel started to hurt! BAAAAAH ... we hate injuries. We definitely were struggling a bit in the afternoon and were freezing cold and pretty much soaked to the bone, despite all the rain gear we had on. At one point we stopped in the small town of Virden to see how much further it was to Moosomin to see if we could actually make it there and we were told it was only about 40 km further ... we got SUPER excited and figured ya we can totally do that! Yaaaay. ... ... ... ... buut ... .. .. ... ... it wasn't 40 km ... ... ... .. .. it was more like 65 ish km. Yes we know that doesn't seem like that much more ... but when you're biking and you're biking with a head wind when it's pouring rain and the temperature is hovering below zero with the wind that extra 25 km is a whoooooole lot. We found out about this when we stopped to warm ourselves up with some "english toffee coffee" at the gas station in Elkhorn ... when we had thought we only had around 20 km more and it was really 40. Soooo we chilled out ... literally ... in the gas station for awhile warming our hands on the coffee and sitting on the floor, deliberating our next plan of action. This is when we saw the sign for an Inn just a little ways down the road. At this point we were completely soaked, frozen, and hurting ... alot. The prospect of camping in the downpour was not appealing in the least. By this point we had decided that we weren't going to try and bike any further and would either stay at the inn in Elkorn or hitch a ride into Moosomin. So our plan of attack was to stand on the side of the highway for 10 min and if we weren't picked up we would go back into town. Luckily this moving truck pulled up within seconds of us standing there, We had spoken to one of the men in the gas station and he just wanted to check first with his friend if it was alright to pick up these two drowned rats. So we put our bikes in teh back and hopped in the beautifully warm cab for a lovely ride. The problem arrose when the weigh station at the sask border was actually unesxpectedly open. Apparently they have camera's waaaaaaay before you actually reach it and already had seen that there were 4 of us in a 3 person cab (which they thought was a 2 person)... and... the truck was already overloaded. So Sachi and I sent up some prayers as we drove over the scale... unfortunately we got the red light. The patrol man came out and asked what was in the truck and why there was 4 people in a cab with 2 seatbelts. We were then asked to pull over and the driver had to go in with his license and registraation. He went in and then came back out a few minutes later asking us all to come in with ID. So of course our ID was in the back of the moving truck so it took a little while for us to get it out and then just as we had finally got it out the patrolman started walking over to us. Meanwhile, we were both still soaked and freezing cold, basically convulsing with coldness as the patrolman walked over. He then proceeded to interogate us as to what was the purpose of our trip and why were we biking at this time of year, saying that we were going to get ourselves killed biking in this weather and such and yet .... he let us off ... not one of us got a ticket and the patrolman just said that we should get to Moosomin and stay there for awhile until the weather gets better .... right ... like that's gonna happen. Anyway so we dodged a bullet there and thankfully didn't cost the nice guys giving us a ride any money and got a ride into Moosomin!
Once we finally got to Moosomin we gave a call to the local Anglican Church and spoke to Rev. Michael and he said he would find us a place to stay for the night which was awesome! We hung out at the church and had some tea for a bit while Rev. Michael made some phone calls to parishioners around town. We ended up staying with this really sweet elderly couple Marilyn and Ralph Woods who were pretty close to town which was great cause we didn't have to bike far to get there. Marilyn and Ralph were soooo helpful and sweet. They let us keep our bikes in their garage and gave us some rags to wipe down our bikes and bags with and even let us do a bunch of much needed laundry! Mmmmm clean clothes :D. Our clothes had gotten pretty dirty because of the rain and even more dirty because some of the roads in Moosomin are just dirt roads ... very muddy haha. Anyway so they helped us get settled in, gave us a really nice spare bedroom with a big bed to share and ordered some Chinese food for supper which Rev. Michael joined us for. After dinner we attempted to do some yoga (very difficult when you can't even walk properly ... ), had a shower and went to bed ... believe it or not ... before Marilyn and Ralph!
It was sooo glorious once we got back onto the main highway off out of Brandon, we were biking probably 20-25 km an hour (which is very good for us) and it hadn't started raining yet. We decided to stop for lunch at this cute little family restaurant/diner where the whole town of Oak Lake (famous home of Isaac the cow) was dining as well. Upon leaving we found that the wind had changed from a beautiful tail wind to a horrible side/head wind aaaaaaand the rain had begun! Soooo sad. We also had realized how glorious the morning had been as our knees had not been hurting too badly, which definitely wasn't the case in the afternoon. Not only had our right knees started to hurt badly but Mel's left knee was hurting badly and my left achilles heel started to hurt! BAAAAAH ... we hate injuries. We definitely were struggling a bit in the afternoon and were freezing cold and pretty much soaked to the bone, despite all the rain gear we had on. At one point we stopped in the small town of Virden to see how much further it was to Moosomin to see if we could actually make it there and we were told it was only about 40 km further ... we got SUPER excited and figured ya we can totally do that! Yaaaay. ... ... ... ... buut ... .. .. ... ... it wasn't 40 km ... ... ... .. .. it was more like 65 ish km. Yes we know that doesn't seem like that much more ... but when you're biking and you're biking with a head wind when it's pouring rain and the temperature is hovering below zero with the wind that extra 25 km is a whoooooole lot. We found out about this when we stopped to warm ourselves up with some "english toffee coffee" at the gas station in Elkhorn ... when we had thought we only had around 20 km more and it was really 40. Soooo we chilled out ... literally ... in the gas station for awhile warming our hands on the coffee and sitting on the floor, deliberating our next plan of action. This is when we saw the sign for an Inn just a little ways down the road. At this point we were completely soaked, frozen, and hurting ... alot. The prospect of camping in the downpour was not appealing in the least. By this point we had decided that we weren't going to try and bike any further and would either stay at the inn in Elkorn or hitch a ride into Moosomin. So our plan of attack was to stand on the side of the highway for 10 min and if we weren't picked up we would go back into town. Luckily this moving truck pulled up within seconds of us standing there, We had spoken to one of the men in the gas station and he just wanted to check first with his friend if it was alright to pick up these two drowned rats. So we put our bikes in teh back and hopped in the beautifully warm cab for a lovely ride. The problem arrose when the weigh station at the sask border was actually unesxpectedly open. Apparently they have camera's waaaaaaay before you actually reach it and already had seen that there were 4 of us in a 3 person cab (which they thought was a 2 person)... and... the truck was already overloaded. So Sachi and I sent up some prayers as we drove over the scale... unfortunately we got the red light. The patrol man came out and asked what was in the truck and why there was 4 people in a cab with 2 seatbelts. We were then asked to pull over and the driver had to go in with his license and registraation. He went in and then came back out a few minutes later asking us all to come in with ID. So of course our ID was in the back of the moving truck so it took a little while for us to get it out and then just as we had finally got it out the patrolman started walking over to us. Meanwhile, we were both still soaked and freezing cold, basically convulsing with coldness as the patrolman walked over. He then proceeded to interogate us as to what was the purpose of our trip and why were we biking at this time of year, saying that we were going to get ourselves killed biking in this weather and such and yet .... he let us off ... not one of us got a ticket and the patrolman just said that we should get to Moosomin and stay there for awhile until the weather gets better .... right ... like that's gonna happen. Anyway so we dodged a bullet there and thankfully didn't cost the nice guys giving us a ride any money and got a ride into Moosomin!
Once we finally got to Moosomin we gave a call to the local Anglican Church and spoke to Rev. Michael and he said he would find us a place to stay for the night which was awesome! We hung out at the church and had some tea for a bit while Rev. Michael made some phone calls to parishioners around town. We ended up staying with this really sweet elderly couple Marilyn and Ralph Woods who were pretty close to town which was great cause we didn't have to bike far to get there. Marilyn and Ralph were soooo helpful and sweet. They let us keep our bikes in their garage and gave us some rags to wipe down our bikes and bags with and even let us do a bunch of much needed laundry! Mmmmm clean clothes :D. Our clothes had gotten pretty dirty because of the rain and even more dirty because some of the roads in Moosomin are just dirt roads ... very muddy haha. Anyway so they helped us get settled in, gave us a really nice spare bedroom with a big bed to share and ordered some Chinese food for supper which Rev. Michael joined us for. After dinner we attempted to do some yoga (very difficult when you can't even walk properly ... ), had a shower and went to bed ... believe it or not ... before Marilyn and Ralph!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Day 3 Tuesday April 28th Carberry MB - Brandon MB
Soooo today was Day 3 of our Grand Bike ride and we only had a short ride today to do from Carberry to Brandon Manitoba which is nice because yesterday we were feeling the wear and tear on our knees and at points couldn't walk properly :S Despite all this we got to enjoy a lovely breakfast of overeasy eggs with avocado and cherry tomatoes and even a nice protein shake that Henry (the Rev.) made for us! Once we finished off breakfast and did some dishes, Henry made a few calls and found us a place to stay in Brandon for tonight! We are sooo soo soo thankful for all the help Henry gave us. He really was a blessing. Henry even saw us off down the road on our way back to the highway. Which we have to admit was pretty discouraging as our aches and pains from the day before seemed to be heightened but after we had biked a few kilometers we started to get into a good rhythm and were feeling much better.
The 20 or so kilometers just getting out of Carberry were actually really nice! There was some coverage from the trees around so the wind wasn't too bad and we started to figure out some good ways to minimize the pain. We also discovered that once we had gotten over our fear of the huge semi's that passed us that they actually provide a wonderful momentary tail wind ... or at least a momentary break from the head wind! We also have discovered over the past few days that there are a bunch of bike lovers travelling the number 1 highway! We have gotten several friendly honks and waves from passersby and even have passed a few cyclists heading the other direction (which we secretly wanted to shake our fists at because they had the tail wind). Anyway ... we finally made it to the Brandon exit after only 3 hours of biking (as opposed to our 7.5 hour trip the day before) only to encounter the only hills in Manitoba which unlike other provinces (like BC) only go UP! There is no down grrr! They did NOT feel good on the knees ... but after a short stop at a gas station and some lovely coffee we finally got the courage to start up our biking again to find the Rev Jim's house. Unfortunately we got a little bit lost and managed to go past one of the turns we had to make by about 8 blocks ... not fun ... but in the end found the house anyway. Upon arrival we figured out that no one was home! So we decided to go on a walking mission to find some knee braces and Traumeel. Sooooo we went on a 2 hour long walking adventure around Brandon and finally found our knee braces and Traumeel which ended up being only a few blocks from where we were staying! LOL ... oh well. The walk seemed to do some good for our knees as we have found that we haven't been able to do much for excercise besides our incessant biking.
Part way back to the house Jim pulled up beside us in his car and had a large vegetarian pizza and a large hawaiian pizza in the car for us! So very exciting! So we have really enjoyed our night so far here in Brandon getting to know Jim, his lovely wife Jackie and their daughter Christie. And are really looking forward to tomorrow where we are supposedly going to have a 20km TAILWIND! Which is going to be very handy for our 140km trek tomorrow. Anyway it is past our bedtimes and we hope to update you soon! Thanks so much for all your support and prayer! Please please please pray for our knees and for the tail wind!
Sachi and Melanie
ps. if you would like to track us you can visit our sweet awesome GPS tracking site at this link
https://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=1Xbl6cX2RxnWS4yS0HrYQIgOJTFaJcFaD
the password is : campcolumbia
The 20 or so kilometers just getting out of Carberry were actually really nice! There was some coverage from the trees around so the wind wasn't too bad and we started to figure out some good ways to minimize the pain. We also discovered that once we had gotten over our fear of the huge semi's that passed us that they actually provide a wonderful momentary tail wind ... or at least a momentary break from the head wind! We also have discovered over the past few days that there are a bunch of bike lovers travelling the number 1 highway! We have gotten several friendly honks and waves from passersby and even have passed a few cyclists heading the other direction (which we secretly wanted to shake our fists at because they had the tail wind). Anyway ... we finally made it to the Brandon exit after only 3 hours of biking (as opposed to our 7.5 hour trip the day before) only to encounter the only hills in Manitoba which unlike other provinces (like BC) only go UP! There is no down grrr! They did NOT feel good on the knees ... but after a short stop at a gas station and some lovely coffee we finally got the courage to start up our biking again to find the Rev Jim's house. Unfortunately we got a little bit lost and managed to go past one of the turns we had to make by about 8 blocks ... not fun ... but in the end found the house anyway. Upon arrival we figured out that no one was home! So we decided to go on a walking mission to find some knee braces and Traumeel. Sooooo we went on a 2 hour long walking adventure around Brandon and finally found our knee braces and Traumeel which ended up being only a few blocks from where we were staying! LOL ... oh well. The walk seemed to do some good for our knees as we have found that we haven't been able to do much for excercise besides our incessant biking.
Part way back to the house Jim pulled up beside us in his car and had a large vegetarian pizza and a large hawaiian pizza in the car for us! So very exciting! So we have really enjoyed our night so far here in Brandon getting to know Jim, his lovely wife Jackie and their daughter Christie. And are really looking forward to tomorrow where we are supposedly going to have a 20km TAILWIND! Which is going to be very handy for our 140km trek tomorrow. Anyway it is past our bedtimes and we hope to update you soon! Thanks so much for all your support and prayer! Please please please pray for our knees and for the tail wind!
Sachi and Melanie
ps. if you would like to track us you can visit our sweet awesome GPS tracking site at this link
https://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=1Xbl6cX2RxnWS4yS0HrYQIgOJTFaJcFaD
the password is : campcolumbia
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