Anything But

After making this drive 5? times I was expecting just another boring two days on the road. I was up at 3:15 and on the road by 4:30. Not to self: check the loading of the bikes to be transported in the light of day. First time in the dark is not all that easy.

The last forecast I checked said sun across the prairies for both Friday and Saturday. Well that was 100% correct until I got to Dryden and saw nothing but purple in the western sky. The first drops hit the windshield just outside Vermillion Bay. It continued to get more intense as I moved west. Shortly after crossing into Manitoba the clouds were literally on the road in the distance and I was alone on the highway thinking I should have checked the radio for warnings instead of toe tapping to my playlist. It poured cats, dogs and a few small ponies. Even at 70 kmph and the wipers flapping away like hummingbird wings, it was tough to see. If not on a divided highway I would have been waiting it out on the shoulder. I had passed all my normal lunch spots and finally stopped at a rest stop about 75km from Winnipeg. I checked the radar pages and saw the purple mass of clouds I had just driven through. Parts of Winnipeg saw 41mm of rain in a less than an hour.

As I moved around Winnipeg on the Perimeter highway I got in the middle of a traffic jam. 100 yards to a set of traffic lights saw three cycles pass before I even moved and then another three to get through only to find I had a few intersections to get through before I would clear the logjam. An accident involving a pickup pulling a horse trailer collided with something carrying bags of white powder. I was thinking of the poor horses when I saw the trailer and then the cab of the truck came into view. I'm not sure there were horses in the trailer but there was definitely someone in the driver's and he just has to be hurt. There were a dozen people from an environmental cleanup crew brushing up the powder but they had nothing but orange jump suits as safety gear so the powder must not have been harmful. A good kilometre of the opposing two lanes were blocked off. The entire 4 lane road had been closed earlier so I was lucky to hit the sang when I did.

The only other high/low lights were a scrawny young moose and about 75 kilometres of construction on the divided highway between Brandon and Winnipeg. Surprisingly other than the construction zones time went by very quickly and even those were mostly at 90kmph without any actual stops so not all that bad.

I'm showered and fed, all set to catch as much of the Jays game as I can before getting some sleep. Another full day on the road tomorrow, one entry in the pool in Calgary says I'll be there at noon. Not likely. I'm guessing 3pm Calgary time but we'll see what the day brings, I'm hoping for a little less excitement.