And province number 4...

Welcome to Manitoba.

Out of Regina we followed the Trans Canada down to the small town (is there another type?) of
Stop location: Grenfell
lat 50.41347N
lon 102.93769W
alt 578m
121km
5:12
23.3km/h

The day was a bit... tedious. The weather and wind was nice enough and the road wasn't too bad, but it wasn't overly scenic and nothing really interesting happened. Cars and trucks went by, we saw trees and fields and birds. And I'm really stretching it here trying to find more to say. Of course, it then led into the next day...

Stop location: Sask welcome centre
lat 50.05966N
lon 101.44820W
alt 540m
121km
5:38
21.5km/h

This day was not a good day at all. The last 40km or so of the ride was through construction so it was dusty and narrow. Due to the nature of the construction, we were even further from anything really remotely resembling nature. Alas.

And now we are here:

Stop location: Brandon
lat 49.88784N
lon 99.95679W
alt 408m
126km
4:43
26.7km/h

Our to date total is 2648km in 115 hours and 44 minutes of pedalling, which means a rolling average of 22.8km/h.

Todays ride was equally not scenic, though as we got within 20km of Brandon, it got a bit more green, a bit more hilly and a bit nicer. The wind actually treated us well today, being at best a nice tailwind for about two hours, then fading into a fairly neutral position for much of the rest of the ride.

After yesterday's kicking of my hiney by the road, I felt much better today and actually was able to hammer it up the one climb of the day so that was good for the ego. I'm looking forward to getting out of the prairies though. BC was tough, but fun and the scenery was outstanding and changing. The prairies are beautiful, but very similar as you go across them, outside of a few different micro areas such as the badlands and parks like the Saskatchewan Landing.

Two days from now we'll be in Winnipeg, so here's to the restocking of gear at MEC and we're now officially within striking distance of the halfway point.

And that's hard to believe.