Oh Canada

Cardston, Alberta, Canada to Cut Bank, MT July 10, 2009 - Back in the USA, you don't know how lucky you are boy. We left Cardston from Lee Creek Campsite in cool, rainy weather today. After climbing out of Cardston we had some relatively flat highway, Highway 2 I believe. We had some nice distant views of the Rockies that we just crossed over Continental Divide on. The ride today was excellent, the rain cleared, the temperature stayed moderate and we had very favorable winds pushing us along. Despite some pretty daunting climbs the ride was reminiscent of the Flint Hills and looked somewhat like that part of Kansas except for the Rockies looming in the distance. By the half way mark we had only seen 6 cars and by the end of the day probably no more than 20, Art was keeping track of the traffic count. We were in a very rural area of Alberta so no towns, just farms for 35 miles until we reached Del Bonita, Alberta population maybe 5. We had lunch at Del Bonita at the General Store and Post Office. The lady who ran the operation said she had 50 mail boxes at the DB Post Office. We all had some Gatorade and drinks at the general store, Art and I had some tasty Ukrainian sausages. At one time we thought about staying at DB and the postmistress said it would be fine to camp there but it was such a nice day we moved on. We left DB and it was two miles to the Canada/USA border. Our group moved through customs in fine shape but our support vehicle was inspected. After crossing back into the USA conditions remained ideal. We climbed a few hills but mostly had rolling or flat terrain all the way to Cut Bank. During the ride I thought of Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road, although this experience and Kerouac's are vastly different I sort of struck by some of the spontaneity and freedom of the road maybe more about that in future blogs. We are camped at the Riverview Campground in Cut Bank and have enjoyed nice showers and friendly staff. Tomorrow is a short day to Shelby as we continue through Montana. Our ride today since we decided not to camp in Del Bonita was around 71 miles.