Blog

We have officially entered Alberta.  After spending a day off in Sparwood we started out early in the morning heading for Claresholm AB.  We had a long but enjoyable ride.  In total we hit 169.8 km the longest ride I had ever done.  We finally had some sunshine and were able to have some nice views of the Rockies as we entered Alberta.  We did hit a little rain on the way through but not much and arrived in Claresholm before the rain started there.  We were able to stay with the Mayled's, Ron and Joyce and they were wonderful hosts.  I work with their son in Kitchener and he had emailed me when he found out we were going through Claresholm.  They fed us great meals and even busted out some old photo albums of Brent (my co worker) and Ron insisted I look through the whole album and then tell Brent about it.  After dinner I had a chance to meet with a local reporter and a family with 2 kids, one who has PKU.  It was great to talk to Joni and Adam and meet Kyler (Sp?).  It was interesting to hear about a child with PKU who is living in such a small community.  When I told Joni that there were other families who have children with PKU in Windsor where Avery lives she explained that there was no one around Claresholm who had ever even really heard of PKU. Another aspect of the ride is to help promote community among those with PKU so that they can support one another.  Joni explained that had she been able to meet another child with PKU who was doing well it would have been very helpful for her after learning of Kyler's diagnosis.  One of the challenges Joni talked about was having food taken off the list of food the government will cover in Alberta.  She said that the list had been cut twice and at times in order to get some of the things that Kyler will eat she must travel to Montana.  Joni said it would be so helpful if more foods were added to the list rather than taking food off the list.  I sat and chatted with Joni and Adam until almost 10:30 and then headed back over to the Mayled's to try to get some sleep before a long rainy ride ahead of me today.  The ride today was just that, long and rainy.  What made it long was not the distance but the wind. Before leaving the weather network said the wind was travelling from the north to the south at 25km/hr.  In other words right in my face.  It was not just raining either, it was pouring rain.  It would have been easy to bike a few km's and then pack it in and get in the van but I was determined to get to Calgary on my bike and if that meant biking for 10 hours today I was prepared to do that.  I stopped for a hot chocolate in Nanton which helped warm me up a bit and the next 30 km felt pretty good.  The wind seemed to get worse as I approached Calgary, there were also many long gradual hills on the way in to Calgary.   I was at about 90km when I came up over a hill and could finally see Calgary.  I then ended up on a highway that I am pretty sure I was not supposed to be on but I kept biking.  The van had stopped at the Calgary sign to wait for me and we snapped a few pics once I got there and then I jumped in because I was not feeling safe on the highway. I made it to Calgary on my bike.  I was relieved to be here.  We are staying at the residence at SAIT and its great.  Today was by far the hardest ride I have ever done on a bike so it felt good to get it done.  Tomorrow we head to Edmonton and then will continue the ride from there.  Edmonton has been doing a bottle drive to help support the ride.  Hopefully the weather gets better.