Wednesday July 15, 2015

As we were leaving Medicine Hat early this morning we spotted a deer in the downtown core with her two babies. She stopped the traffic for a while. We were heading up a hill and couldn’t stop to take photos of them.

This windmill is part of a garden centre, that has a butterfly house attached to it.

Medicine Hat looked like a nice City, clean with a nice historic district.

The topography in this part of Alberta is referred to as the Badlands.

The Badlands are a type of arid terrain with clay-rich soil that has been extensively eroded by wind and water. Canyons, ravines, gullies, hoodoos and other such geological forms are common in The Badlands.  In this photo they look like small hummocks, but they can have quite stunning ravines and shapes to the topography.

We are already in Saskatchewan, where did Alberta go?

Just to let everyone know Saskatchewan is not flat, at least not yet. We climbed 361 metres today! We joined the TransCanada Highway and enjoyed a big wide shoulder all the way to the campground near Maple Creek.

Again we had a tail wind for the most part, but it did change directions a few times.

We passed a warning sign for buffalo. Please stay in vehicle – although our bicycles are considered vehicles under the Highway Traffic Act, I wasn’t sure what we would do if we encountered a buffalo. We saw the buffalo herd, but from a very safe distance.

The only other exciting thing that happened today was the house on the move. A pick-up came alongside me and slowed down. He had flashing lights indicating he was the lead vehicle for a wide load. We have seen a few of these along Highway 3 and have moved over as far as we could to accommodate them. This one however, was a little bigger. It was a house and was taking up the whole road and the shoulder, we had to get onto the gravel portion of the shoulder. I had wondered why the traffic had been so quiet. Nothing could pass this house. When they move house in Saskatchewan, they really do move house!

As far as the campsites go, it wasn’t too bad, $22.00 tonight, the showers were free, the pitch was o.k. and the wi-fi was good, there was no place to wash dishes, and the water in the washroom was cold. The water quality was awful, you could taste the chlorine in the water, we have decided to buy water from the service station about 4kms enroute tomorrow morning.

We met up with Scott again, the Australian.  He doesn\’t carry food with him or have anything to cook on.  He cycled down to the Esso Station which has a cafe attached, for his evening meal.  I am glad we have our stove and the capabilities to cook food at night, it would be very expensive to eat out every day.