Bow Tie Tour

A new tire was the first order of business for the day so got to the bike shop just as the service door opened and re-shoeing of the horse commenced. Killing time a motorcycle shop is always fun though it does tempt one towards covetousness while perusing we ran across some newspaper clippings and picture of a motorcycle that looked like the one in “The Word’s Fastest Indian” (Which if you haven’t seen it you need to.) We chatted with one of the ladies and she said that that was the owner. We met the owner and he showed us his “world’s fastest Yamaha warrior” his current record is 174 mph and he hopes to break 200 with a new body kit. A very cool guy and a nice motorcycle shop.

With the re-shoeing complete we headed north to Canada. After mountain passes and hills we descended into the plains, and boy are they plain. We saw a thunderstorm in the distance and pulled over to don our rain gear. Standing in one spot I turned all the way around and saw a lot of absolutely nothing.

Our port of entry into the “Peoples Republic of Canada” was Sweetgrass and when we arrived they had a surprise for us. We pulled into a gas station on our side of the border to fill up on gas that cost only a few fingers instead of the whole arm and leg. Our tanks were on empty and we dismounted only to discover that the power was out. So their we waited for the next hour for the saving graces of the power company to rescue us from our plight. It was fun to observe the other people as the came into the gas station and, after being told their was no power proceeded to try and buy things with their credit cards. And after being told that the credit cards need electricity to work they pulled our their debit cards! We have truly become a society totally dependent on electricity.

Waiting is my favorite thing to do so after an hour we pulled out in the hopes of gas somewhere north of the border. Customs was a breeze and we entered Canada eh? 15 miles north of the border was a gas station and we paid the price and I didn’t even bother to convert liters to galleons, not because I was lazy but because I didn’t want to know how much I was actually paying per galleon. Another thing that is different in Canada, besides the shorter stature, the communism and the endless supply of eh?s is that gas stations don’t have a covering for the pumps, so if it’s raining you have to stand in the rain to pump your gas. I guess the whole roof thing hasn’t caught on up there yet.

Our destination that night was the Knights (pun intended) in Calgary. Good friend of the family and the Canadian reps for Math-U-See they had invited us to spend the night with them. We rode north and into a nasty storm. It was so bad, we discovered later, that peoples houses had had windows blown out and roofs destroyed. It was dark, it was very wet and raining, it was cold and it was late. But we made it! We pulled up to the house, got out of our wet gear and went in. Inside I discovered that Canada has an excellent redemptive quality to it, “beer”. Canadian beer is full of flavor, it’s smooth and you get to say eh? a lot After Canadian goodness we partook of Canadian hospitality and went to bed.