Days 8-13

Day 8 (June 6 - Dan's b-day) The sun didn't shine at all on Dan's birthday. We woke up to pouring rain in 100 mile and it didn't stop ALL day. We stopped in a small cafe at Interlakes. By then we were quite ready for a break from the rain. After some hot soup and a coffee we made our way to Little Fort. But to get into Little Fort there is this huge downhill 10km long where we literally froze. We rolled into Little Fort and went to the first motel we saw. We grabbed a much needed hot shower and went across the street to the local pub to watch the Sens game (sorry for your loss John...) and celebrate Dan's b-day. Our roommate Brad Boudens came up from Kamloops to say hi and watch the game with us. Diane (Dan's mom) met us at the bar after the game and we went back to the room for the night.

Day 9 (June 7) Another rainy day, except Diane brought some riding pants and neoprene gloves for Jordie to make the ride much more comfortable. The Yellowhead highway was welcoming to us with wide shoulders and smoother pavement. We made it to Avola. Another 100km in the rain. We were finished quite early(2:30) and spent the afternoon watching movies and napping in the hotel. The owner of the hotel made us hamburgers and chili for dinner. We were sleeping by 8.

Day 10 (June 8 - Jordan's b-day) We were happy to wake up with no rain in sight. We stopped for a snack in Blue river and pedaled for 90km when we met Diane and blew up our foamies and had a nap on the side of the road for over an hour. I think it was Dan's pace that burned us out... None the less we hammered an afternoon ride of about 30km and made it to 20km outside of Valemount. We put the bike in the back of the truck and headed into town. Diane cooked us an excellent pork meal with corn on the cob. After dinner we went across the street to the Loose Moose Pub to celebrate Jordie's B-day. We ran into Heather Lynch (a friend of Jordie's from Pembroke) and we watch her baseball game and had a few frosties.

Day 11 (June 9) Diane got us going with some fried eggs on toast for breakfast which was a nice change from Granola and oatmeal and drove us back to where we left off the day before. We stopped for lunch at Rearguard Falls. We had a near miss there and a little mishap. The near miss was that a mudslide missed us by under 5 minutes. But then Diane accidentally locked the keys in the truck and had to wait for a tow truck while we pushed on for the day. 3 hrs later we were beginning to get a little worried and hungry. Just as we reached the 100km she greeted us with tasty sandwiches. We decided to call it a day 50km outside of Jasper and head into town. We checked into the Athabaska hotel, showered up and Diane treated us to a pasta dinner downtown. We stayed up for a couple of brew pops at the Whistler Inn but didn't last long.

Day 12 (June 10) We were shuttled out to where we stopped the previous day and said goodbye to Diane. We made it into Jasper in the early afternoon and did a few tourist things before meeting with Glenn Schleiman. He used to work on the farm in Waltham back in the day as well as a little babysitting for the Evans'. He treated us to some fine dining and a night on the town. Stories of the old days were the highlight of the day.

Day 13 (June 11) Our first real day off. We slept in, checked out, brought our gear to Glenn's where he putting us up for the night. We were couch potatoes after brunch but finally got some motivation to take care of a few things. We are excited for a home cooked meal at Glenn's tonight. Then it's off to Hinton tomorrow.