Riding the wind into Brooks

As I've said before, one of the coolest things about this trip is the people you meet who say they've been inspired by what we're doing. In particular, a big thanks goes out to Nicole for a beautiful letter she wrote to us all before we left Calgary, and another goes to all the boys in the 4A class at SHS. Your words inspire us!

Today, we finally got what we were looking for, a good tailwind! It started out by coming across us in the morning, but as the road turned it got behind us and we just sailed. It was a fantastic feeling compared to grinding against the headwinds we'd seen previously.

Now that we're out of the mountains, the terrain is much flatter. It's not completely flat in these parts by any means, but features gently-rolling hills that do not really pose us any problems whatsoever, especially with the right wind. It will likely only get flatter as we continue as well, and hopefully the wind cooperates!

As you can imagine, almost all the land in these parts is devoted to some kind of farming, much of it livestock. Cows are not exactly the brightest bunch, and we have taken to mooing loudly at them as we pass the herds along the highway. Why do we do this? We do it because they have no idea what's going on, and when just one of them gets nervous and starts to head off in the opposite direction, the entire herd follows. It is really funny to see them all running off away from us, and amazing that all you need to do is get one chicken to flinch. It doesn't get old, either.

After a 140km day to Brooks, we've found a campsite in the city at the right price. Unfortunately, mosquitoes have started to make their appearance on the trip, so we have to be careful to close the tents! Once the sun starts to go, they like to make their appearance. Good training for when we hit Manitoba and Northern Ontario, where the blackflies will try to eat us alive.

Depending on the wind, we'll be close to the Alberta-Saskatchewan border by the end of the day. We'll see how things go for us.
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