This morning I was up fairly early to do some writing, and I was watching the Weather Channel on TV. The 'cooling trend' mentioned yesterday was now a huge low pressure system stretching from northern Montana all the way to past Edmonton. There was no escaping that today.

There is a saying in the Motorcycle world, and I am sure it applies to many other activities, just fill in the blanks, The Worst Day on a Motorcycle, is Better Than the Best Day at Work. I find if I repeat that over and over on worst days, I can sometimes come to believe it.

As I am departing at 1100 I am shocked at how cold it was in Claresholm, about 14, and that a light rain is falling. I have spent, as you well know, many hours in soaking wet leathers, driving through pouring rain in 'merica. But the difference between Texas rain and Alberta rain is usually 20 or 30 degrees. What is mildly uncomfortable in Texas would prolly lead to hypothermia in Alberta.

To this end, I put on my rain suit right off the top, I am about 4 hours from Edmonton and 4 hours of Texas wet is one thing, 4 hours of 14 degree Celcius Alberta wet is another.



I stop for gas next door and head off northbound on Highway 2. Immediately what I had hitherto described as a squall became a driving rain storm, the rain was being whipped against me from a 70 kph headwind blowing straight down the highway. Apparently there was a heavy rainfall warning for the area south of Calgary as well.

Once time I was trying to pass a semi that was creating very dirty air for me (buffeting). He was doing maybe 120 kph, and maintaining my speed was becoming increasingly difficult as my gloves became wet and my hands became cold. I couldn't grip the throttle hard enough to keep it twisted.

I pulled alongside the truck as we came around a corner, the wind was blowing the water off the truck and whipping it at me in sheets, the headwind was compounded by the bow wave in front of the semi. The road was covered in water, I wasn't gaining on him. It became a battle of wills for a long 30 seconds through the curve. Finally I prevailed and got in front of him into the clean, if cold, 70 kph headwind.

That episode reminded me of what it is like to pass a soccer Mom's minivan in 'merica. They are doing 110 I wanna do 140. When I get behind them now they are doing 130. As I pull out to pass they are now doing 150 and I hafta do 160 to get around them. When I pull in front I check my mirrors and they are way back because they are doing 110 again! I guess they make you earn it!

I discover a new unpleasant sensation. The road is covered in deep water and my front wheel splits this water and splashes it directly on my riding shoes when they are tucked up on my passenger pegs, with my toes pointed down. When I put my feet onto the shifter pegs, now my heel is pointing down and I feel the water running from my toes to my heels inside the shoes. Eventually the sensation goes away and I realize they are full.

Just before I start the Calgary crossing, at the split between Deerfoot and MacLeod Trail I pull over to the side of the road to thaw my hands out. I am used to riding with cold fingertips, but today the cold has spread all the way up to my wrists. My hands are so cold and wet that I fear if I need to do emergency braking or clutching that my hands won't operate. They have frozen into handlebar shaped hooks of unresponsive meat. It takes about 10 minutes to restore feeling into the fingertips and it is extremely painful as the blood supply returns.

I get underway again and my warming efforts last maybe 30 seconds inside my soaking wet leather gloves. I have to pull over about every 10 kms for 10 minutes to keep my hands warm enough that they respond to my commands. I wish I could hold them in my armpits but there are too many layers in between. Honestly my hands are brutally cold, but everywhere else I am comfortable, if not warm and thankx to my rainsuit, dry.

On the north side of Calgary I stop at the Outdoor Outfitters outlet at Cross Iron Mills. They have a huge fireplace inside the front door that I stand in front of for about 20 minutes BEFORE I start shivering. My first aid training tells me I have mild hypothermia. After about an hour I am warm enough to move into the store. I used the washroom and then the hand dryer for about 15 minutes to warm up and completely dry my hands.

I look around for plastic gloves, I am going to wear them inside my gloves, and chemical hand warmers. I find the hand warmers but no rubber gloves. I end up buying these attractive blue BBQ gloves that I hope are water proof, and a big bag of hand warmers. The bag has big warning labels about burn hazards but no matter what I do I can't get them to heat up past tepid. I use electrical tape to tape one above and one below each wrist to heat the blood at the radial artery. I also tape one into the palm of each hand, then put the blue rubber glove on.

The small amount of heat from the ineffectual chemical hand warmers extends my hand warming interval to about 30 kms. Later on at home, in the light of day, I find out you hafta shake the hand warmer for about 5 minutes to get them to heat up. Do they really think some one in need of a warmer can do that? I also find the gloves have no insulating value whatsoever, nor are they water proof, nor are they pretty. But desperate times..................



I drive from the Outfitters to the Bowden FasGas just south of Red Deer stopping 4 or 5 times for 10 minutes each. All the while I am having this idealogical conflict with myself about whether I should continue or not. It is really only my hands that are cold, but they are dangerously so, and I fear they won't work if they need to. I also can't see very well and I am having trouble maintaining my speed as the throttle keeps slipping through my hands. Even if I had the dexterity in my hands to set the throttle lock it wouldn't be safe to use it.

I feel a certain amount of pressure to come home as my wife is expecting me after a long absence, I put that pressure on myself. I don't know if I have what it takes, but then I remind myself that 'I am Lou' and furthermore 'I am a Dechant'. I am not a quitter! But I still struggle. As the Olds exit approaches I know there is a mo'tel maybe 10 minutes away, but I drive past. That happens many times, I just keep going and keep pushing myself to keep going.

I stop for fuel at the FasGas at Bowden, I have to go inside and warm up before I pump the gas because my hands are too cold to use the ignition key to open the gas cap. I have to stand inside for 15 minutes before my fingers have enough dexterity to undo the chin strap of my helmet. I have a ginormuous coffee, but hafta ask a lady also getting a coffee to open my sugar packets and rip the lid of the creamers because I can't do it myself.

After about 30 minutes and drinking my coffee with 2 hands I have enough strength to rip the electrical taped useless handwarmers off of me. That plan did not work at all. When I get home I am going to put my wool Helly Hansen mittens in the bottom of my saddlebags!

I call my ever patient wife Eryn and explain my dilemma, she encourages me to stop for the day. I have finally been inside the FasGas long enough that I start shivering again. I stay there for about 90 minutes, fuel up and head out. The rain seems to have abated somewhat, and it just might be a little warmer. My hands still aren't warm enough to have the dexterity to do up the chin strap on my helmet. I ask the cashier guy if he can help me out and do it for me, but he doesn't get how to do it, and a line-up is forming, I leave it undone for the last 200 kms.

The further north I go the better it gets. As a veteran of driving hwy 2 between Edmonton and Calgary I know often the weather on one side of Red Deer is different that the other. I have heard the term 'thermal inversion trough' that blocks weather systems from spanning the region. They get pushed to one side or the other. The mo'tel I am planning on staying at is on Gasoline Alley in RD by the A&W but by the time I get there the rain has stopped completely and the road is drying. So I keep going, I am 2/3rds of the way home anyway!

By Lacombe, just north of RD the road is completely dry. When is was the terrible weather Trifecta of Wind, Cold & Rain, it was almost unbearable, but removing just one of those factors made it tolerable. I stopped and changed back into my leather gloves, the hand warming interval was 50 - 60 kms. By the time I got to Hobbema there were patches of blue sky ahead, and by Leduc the sun was shining. I had made it.

I pulled into my driveway in the back alley and set up my camera for the homecoming shot, then circled the block for dramatic effect.



My bike has 4 odometers, 3 of which I can reset. I use odo #1 as kind of a gas gauge to track how many kms I have on any given tank of gas. I reset it at each fill-up. Odo's #2 & #3 can also be reset, and #4 is the total mileage on the bike, although that is 31 502 km short because my mechanic accidently dropped the OEM speedo and broke it.

Odo #2 I use to track daily mileage and would reset it each morning, but with the distractions this morning leaving Claresholm I neglected to do that, and that is how I found that I had ridden exactly 1000.0 km from Missoula.



Odo #3 tracked the total mileage for the entire trip and I reset it on July 30 in my driveway before setting out. Truth be told I say in the video 11 000.0 but this odo doesn't track fractions of kilometers.



Nonetheless it is an amazing coincidence, and that mileage includes circling the block once for my dramatic entrance. I unpack the bike, get a load of laundry on and take a very long very hot shower, then wait for me BuBu to come home! I also took a before and after of my riding pants, they didn't suffer the damage the pair I wore to Key West did, and these will live to ride another day.



When it was all said and done what should have taken me 4 hours on a sunny day took me 7 hours which included the lengthy stop at CrossIron Mills and another one at the Bowden FasGas, not to mention too numerous to count roadside hand warm ups. It was a tough character building day with an extreme test of my will and resolve. Hopefully I am a better person for it.

Thank you for coming along for the ride.

Day 23
Claresholm, AB to Edmonton, AB
423 kms