I've been chilling in Whistler with my buddy Dan for the last few days :) It's very beautiful up here. The 'city' of Whistler itself is far, far smaller then I imagined, considering that it is such a winter hotspot and that it is supposed to host god knows how many people in the upcoming 2010 winter Olympic games. Anyways, I am alive and very well :)

After I posted in Winnipeg, I ended up finding a campsite that night and pitched tent. To my surprise, a father-son duo, also on motorcycles, showed up and pitched tent right beside me! They were headed somewhere a little more adventurous though :) Alaska! They promptly offered me a cold beer, which put me to bed at an early 9:00. Haha. The time zone had shifted though, and I was feeling the effects of it.

That morning I woke up, freezing cold, at around 4:45... right before sunrise. I promptly packed up my tent and was on my way. The drive to Regina was well... flat. Very flat. Haha. There I met with my friend Neil and he helped me out by giving me a couch to sleep on, making me some food, and other fun things ;) which I then rode his girlfriend's bike under the influence of. He took me to one of his Regina hangouts and I had an amazing quesadilla. I passed out harrrrd, as I believe by now the time zone was now two hours behind... and at 12:00, and a few beers, I was ready to crash. I think I didn't mention this in my last post... My Ipod died. Yes, RIP shiny 2G ipod touch, you lived a long and fufilling existance, I hope I... 'touched' you... while you were still here. *snigger*. Anyway, when I was in Montreal camping, all the rain caused some serious water damage which could not be cured by sun, gentle heat, patience or a bowl/bag of rice. Sooo... as soon as I got into Regina my first stop was Best Buy before it closed. I bought a shiny new 8 gig purple Ipod Nano (I wasn't a huge fan of the touch to be honest... too much power in those things, when all I really want is music). Thanks to Neil's help I was able to sync it up with my music, which is hosted to the internet for download remotely off my PC at home just in case anything like this should happen :) Go preparation/technology! So thank you so much Neil for your help... and I will be stopping in again on my way back for sure :)

When I awoke in Regina neil made me breakfast and I loaded more songs onto my ipod. It was, of course, a rainy day. It seemed to be the trend thusfar on this adventure. Sooo, we both just chilled out and listened to some tunes and everything was awesome. Eventually 2:00 rolled around, and it had turned into a nice sunny/cloudy day! So neil took me out and showed me around all the coool spots in Regina. When I first entered the city, I entered the uh... Barton street district, and I think that initially gave me the wrong impression. It is a very pretty city filled with some very interesting things, dispite the fact that the landscape is for the most part pretty flat. We said our goodbyes and I headed out for my 9 hour drive to Calgary.

Now, when I say 9 hours, that means 11 hours with stops and rests and food and whatnot. And it was already about... what... 2:30 when I took off? So needless to say I was not going to make it to Calgary by nightfall. I passed through Moosejaw, which had a cool little main street with lots of neat little shops. I passed through Swift Current, but didn't get a chance to look at it too closely... no time to lose getting to Calgary! On the way back though, I think I will pay it more attention :) By 9:00 I made it to Medicine Hat.... roughly 275 km away from my destination of Calgary. I have been following the weather very closely on this trip, and I knew there was a crazy country-wide low pressure trend, along with a system which was rolling off the rockies and bringing thunder storms to the praries. After studying the radar and hourly forecasts, I was given the impression that thunder storms weren't supposed to be hitting Calgary until 9:00 am, giving me plenty of time to get there from Medicine Hat. The stampede is on right now, and I would much rather get stuck for a day in Calgary than Medicine Hat, or as it says on the city welcome signs, "The Gas City". Charming, isn't it? So I set off for the 3.5 hour trek to Calgary.

About 10 minutes out of medicine hat (which was forecasted for no thunder storms until late next afternoon), I began to see dark clouds in front of me. It was pitch black out by now. Let me establish two things... no, wait... three. 1) The dark sketches me out, in many different situations. 2) Driving on the highway at night on a motorcycle, when the highway is littered with "watch for deer" signs, then seeing deer, sketches me out. 3) Boo night riding. I was going as slow as I could, but it was still sketchy. After 25 minutes though, thats when I saw the lightening start. It was far to the south to me, so I thought I would be fine... I was heading north west. Yeah, that storm is totally heading east. I'll be fine. Uh... wait... hmmm. Its getting closer to me. Is that lightening in front of me too? Oh great. Well that lightening is definitely heading east.

So basically, I was being boxed in by two systems of lightening, one heading right for me, one heading north from the south. As soon as it was totally obvious I was heading into these storms, on the open praries, on the sketch highway, I freaked. I found the nearest U-turn, and hauled ass back to Medicine hat. When I got to medicine hat, I found the cheapest motel I could open at that time (12:00 or so). As soon as I got under the roof of the deck with my bike, BAM. The storm hit. Lightening right over top of me. Thank god I managed to get out of that. Whew.

The next morning I woke up super early, like 6:30. I ditched medicine hat pretty quick, and was on my way to Calgary. Now, there were still thunder storm warnings, but I took my chances based on what I saw and didn't even get rained on! I'm not sure if i've said this, but if I have I'll say it again.. the praries is pretty much like 'choose your own weather'. You can see storms so far, you just adjust your course in order to miss them :) doing this I managed to avoid the rain (you can see it falling in the distance, because it blots out the clouds behind it). Along my way to Calgary, I stopped in at a gas stop and got gas. And seafood egg benedict :) Very good. On my way out, I met a woman who was also going to Calgary, and she said I should check out this awesome motorcycle parts shop she was going to. I needed new gloves, so I said I'de meet her there (my scooter couldn't possibly keep up with her cruiser). After getting lost and adjusting my speakers, I ended up there and she was still there. I told her about my adventures and how I was on my way to B.C, and she seemed really pleased and interested in it. I found a great pair of gloves, and a new set of mirrors for my bike (mine needed replacing due to dropping it during an oil change). I bought my stuff, and tried to put my mirrors on. Blast, they're for a yamaha, which has reversed threads. Well... i'll just return them for honda ones. Whats this on the bill? A 25 dollar gift certificate? :) The woman, Kat, anonymously put 25$ towards my purchase :D and told me she was going to do a write up about me in a column in her friend's newspaper... a column called the knuckle busters. Well suited ;) I was very grateful and was on my way.

I wanted to check out downtown Calgary, so I headed that way. It POURED. I couldn't see sky scrapers from 2.5 km away. After taking refuge under the entrance to an appartment building parking lot, it calmed down enough that I could move shop to a tims and have an extra large coffee and a FEW bagels. By the time that was taken care of, it was a sunny day again :) I hopped on my bike and went through Calgary and headed towards my next stop, Banff. Up until now, I hadn't seen any mountains. Or anything close to a mountain. Suddenly, going out of Calgary, there were mountains. The mountain range started on the other side of the city. I was smiling so hard it could have ripped my face in half. Days of flatness leading to days of huge mountainness :) :D

Tomorrow I will post about lake louise, Whistler, and Vancouver :)