Roadkill on the way to a birdwatching tower in...Somewhere, SK

Saskatchewan is flat, and we knew there would be wind (unfortunately for us in the wrong direction), but we never expected to see the amount of roadkill that we have on the highway thus far.

Prairie dogs live all around the fields, and their holes lie along the highway. They seemingly love to come out to look around and play, but they're obviously not too careful around cars. Other casualties today have included a few porcupines, a mallard duck, a coyote, and a red-winged blackbird. It gets to the point where you have to swerve to avoid them as they litter the shoulder. Awful? Yes, but it's part of our life on the road (sorry to the faint of heart for the description).

We got to sleep in this morning, waiting for Swift Current's only bike shop to open at 10am. We all need new chains at this point, as we've ridden over 2000km and they've stretched. If they stretch past 1/8", the cassette will start to wear badly, but it's best to switch them around 1/16", which we've all pretty much reached. Unfortunately, the shop didn't have any for us, but the owner was really great, and despite his busy schedule took time to fix Pat's bike, which had some problems with both derailleurs which we couldn't fix. He also thought that we had all broken 5-6 broken cogs on our cassettes, and thought we were really strong riders, but we're pretty sure it's a feature on them to help the chain switch gears, so the jury is still out on how much he knew about our bikes.

With the stop at the shop, we only got on the road at noon after getting groceries. We have beds and food at a Christian school in Caronport, Briarcrest College and Seminary (~150km away), but with 20-25mph headwinds and a late start we weren't making it today. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to have to rough it in between. Moving along slowly, Lady Luck smiled on us. Just off the highway, 55km out of Swift Current, Mike and Jon spotted a birdwatching tower, and we went to check it out.

The location was perfect. It was two-leveled, so we could sleep on the top level, and cook and eat on the lower one, storing our bikes and trailers on ground level. It sits about 1000ft from Reed Lake, and we were hoping to walk out to it to have a swim.

We never guessed that it would be a long walk on ground I can only describe as 'scorched mud.' The ground was badly cracked, obviously from the dry climate, but was soggy from the rain we had yesterday. It was fine for about the first 400ft, until it got pretty spongy. Then it just got downright muddy. Jon and Pat started sinking into it about 100ft from the lake (Pat lost his flip-flops in the episode), and we realized we would not be able to get there, much less swim in it. We returned to our temporary home dissappointed and muddy, and cleaned it off as best we could before making dinner and relaxing as the sun slowly set over the flat horizon.

We've set up our tarp and the groundsheets along the railing to protect us from the wind as we sleep tonight, but it will get cold. Tomorrow we'll make our way to Briarcrest in Caronport, where they offered us room and board for tomorrow night. In return, we will talk to their high school students about the trip during chapel the next morning.
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