Blessings from Caronport and into Regina

After a good night's rest in one of Briercrest's dorms, we were treated to a free breakfast (great cinnamon buns, in particular) in the morning. Tracy joined us, and Debbie did as well. They both made our stay there possible, and it was much appreciated!

After breakfast, we were to talk to two of the high school classes before leaving to Regina. Our first was Mr. Appleby's class of grade 12s (Ron to us). It's been a long time since high school for us, but the kids were really receptive to what we had to say, and seemed to really enjoy having us there. Ron was particularly enthused, as he loves bicycles in general, and according to Tracy practically supplies all of Caronport with them. He also thought that having us in could be a great way to inspire the young minds in his classroom; he would have made an amazing high school teacher for any of us, as you could really sense his passion for teaching. Before we left for the second class, we played a 'current events game' with the rest of the students. Ron had taken bits and pieces from the world news, complete with a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" list of multiple-choice questions ranging in difficulty from $100 to $1,000,000 (even three lifelines). He chose Mike to represent the class, and considering we've led a pretty sheltered life on the road, he answered every one correctly (he did have to use his lifelines, though). Pretty impressive, and he got to take home a wooden carving of a car as a prize!

Afterwards, we went upstairs to a grade 9 class. They were fun, as they asked a lot more questions, making it easier on us. Brian had a funny moment when he started talking about our time with the grade 12 class, using Ron's first name instead of 'Mr. Appleby.' As I said, it's been a while for us, so we've forgotten things like these. Mike even had to remind all of us to take our MMR hats off inside the building. Wouldn't want to be breaking the school's rules! When we were done talking, one of the teachers said a prayer wishing us well on our journey, and asking for better winds. Nice to know we have them looking out for us and thinking of us as we go. We got pictures with both grades before hitting the road to the bike store in Moose Jaw.

When we got into the Jaw, we found Boh's Cycle Shop. Unfortunately, we were only able to get new chains for three of the bikes (apparently 10-speed bikes are not common in this area), and we had to wait a few hours, but what could we do? We got some KFC while we were waiting, and as we left, we saw a big group biking across Canada as well, the Kids Cancer Ride. They had about 60 people relaying in two groups, with tons of support vehicles and trucks with them. It was quite a sight, and good to talk with them. They were excited for us, and it's too bad that we weren't able to join them out of town. Good luck to them!

When we got about 10km out of town, Jon and I started noticing some problems with our newly-replaced chains, as they were skipping on us. We took a look, and the pins keeping them together had been poorly inserted by the mechanic who worked on them at Boh's. We were really incensed, called them to let them know, and had to fix it ourselves. We're pretty sure that their rookie mechanic did the job, because Pat's was fine. Our only consolation is that they did the fix without charging us for labour, but it wouldn't have mattered if something had gone really wrong out on the road. Luckily nothing did, and they'll just have to be more careful next time.

Once we had the problem fixed, it was 4pm, and we still had 60km to go into Regina to make for a 100km day. We also ran into our good friend the headwind, so we simply put our heads down and grinded it out all the way there, stopping only to eat a quick dinner. When we got there, we had been set up with a place to stay by Philip Price, a former cornerback for the Montreal Alouettes in the 60s and 70s, friends with a family friend of mine from Montreal who played with him, Ron Perowne. He was out of this world. He was fun, funny, and really appreciated what we were doing. Little did we know he had set us up to stay in his Pentecostal Church for the night! One of the other members, Tom, was with him, showed us where we could sleep, and gave us keys to the building. After we were settled in, we left the building to get some beers at nearby Bonzzini's Brew Pub, which we had passed along the way. We were planning to take a rest day, so we got a bunch of pitchers, some nachos, and some other fried appies which didn't last long in front of us. By 11-12pm though, we were completely out of steam, and headed back to sleep.

When we woke up this morning, we were treated to an incredible breakfast prepared for us by Phil and Tom, as well as members Neil and Ira. It was absolutely delicious. Eggs, sausage, baked beans, potatoes, and some great cheese biscuits courtesy of Tom's 'special recipe,' complete with coffee and orange juice. Tom said grace, also wishing us well on the trip, so now we have more people looking out for us. We swapped stories with them and snapped a picture before heading just out of town about 10km to a campsite, not wanting to overstay our welcome! They were all really great people, and we really appreciated their taking us in and treating us so well.

Tomorrow we'll head out of Regina, and our next major city will be Winnipeg in about 5 days. With our experience from the last 3-4 weeks in hand, we went over the rest of our route, and have set August 5th as our arrival date in St. John's, so put it in your calendars!
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