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.