21 June is Day #32 of The Road To Valour. It’s the Solstice. I should be dancing around a campfire or something. But, given the windy conditions, I would likely burn the place down.

I thought that this was going to be a long day of riding in the rain and headwind with little else to talk about. How wrong I was — read on…

On today’s ride I was joined by:

Ernie MacDonald

Special Event 1

As I said, as we started off this morning in the light rain and the heavy headwinds, I thought that that would be the highlight for the day. As we were riding along mid morning, A big 18-wheeler truck pulled off onto the shoulder just in front of us and stops. What the …! The driver jumps down from the cab with a couple of energy drinks in his hands. “I saw you guys and thought that you may need a drink.” Are you kidding? I thought that the best I could hope for with these big trucks was a wide berth, but service like this was way beyond anything that I could have hoped for. Andrei, the driver, was from Surrey and couldn’t believe that we actually rode from there. Thanks Andrei, a really amazing act!

Special Event 2

We stopped in Chaplin, SK, for lunch and found that nothing was open, so we pulled into a small park and pulled out the food that we had with us. Before I get to the special moment, I want to mention that Chaplin is a huge source of salt. Riding into Chaplin I saw huge banks of salt that looked more like snow.

So, now on to the special event — as I was sitting having lunch, I got an email saying that I had just received a donation. It was a donation from my friends Sandy and Marylou that put me over my personal goal number of $50,000. It also meant that the team total had reached $65,000. It’s working!

Special Event 3

Now this one is just a little too bizarre to believe, except it did happen and it all has to do with some magic by Pam. (For a full description of Pam’s magic, you will have to look back on Sitrep 25 Nanton.). I had taken a quick break on the side of the highway when I heard a woman calling out my name. Huh? I’m in Lower Armpit, SK. Nobody knows me here. I must be dehydrated and hearing strange things. Nope. There was a silver jeep pulled off to the side of the highway (going west) with a woman leaning out of her window calling my name. I had met her in Nanton after Pam posted a short note about me. Anthea had been in Winnipeg and had visited Valour Road after my description of it. On her return to Nanton she was watching for me. In her own words (from a later email) “I was happy to catch sight of you today and wish you all the best for the rest of your ride to Valour Road. I was worried I would miss you on the 2 sections where the highway lanes split away from each other between Herbert and Mortlach.”

After those three very special events, the rest of the ride was just windy and wet — the way I had thought that the whole day would go. We decided that camping in this rain was out of the question, so we pushed the extra 20 kilometres on to Carport and the Pilgrim Inn — seems appropriate.

Riding The Road To Valour