Straight up, anyone who tells you the Prairies are boring is full of baloney. I challenge any of you naysayers to ride a bike across the flatlands (which are definitely not flat until you get east of Regina) and then tell me that you were not entertained. Ok, I'll admit they're not the Rocky Mountains, with their towering, snow-topped spires and windex-blue lakes. You find a different kind of beauty in the Prairies: subtle colour contrasts, panoramic views, fantasmagorical creatures in the clouds. The landscape, shaped by generations of farmers and field workers, has a kind of beauty unto its own.
I don't mean to rant, but I've come across more than a few flatland haters, and I want to set this straight for the record: Saskatchewan rocks! And I totally dig Alberta and Manitoba as well.
I think the problem is that when people drive across the prairies, they tend to keep their eyes straight ahead on the road. Look up! The true beauty lies in the skies. The sky is huge! Absolutely enormous. It blows my mind. It's like the sky is one giant theater, and I have a front row seat to the performance. When my eyes aren't checking out the changing shapes of the clouds or watching thunderstorms brew off in the distance, I'm marveling at how the wind ripples the grasses, or how the little prairie dogs run away from the tires of my bike. Sometimes I try to guess how far away grain elevators and cell reception towers are in the distance. The best is when the sun starts to fall in the sky, and the world turns colours that seem to come from a storybook. I love it.
Long days on the open road have become the norm. I just passed into a new time zone, and now the sun sets even later. Last night I didn't find myself cycling toward camp until nearly 10pm. I was on some back country road outside of Virden (Manitoba), but instead of rushing to find a place to camp I found my eyes wandering, my legs slowing down, as I looked around my surrounding with a rejuvenated awe. The nightly ritual of sunset boggles the mind and grounds the soul. I pulled off on the side of the road to stare out at the fields, watching the grasses change colour as the sun fell towards the horizon. A couple of rusting oil donkey caught my eye, and soon I found myself wandering around an old junk yard, feeling nostalgic for the days when all this old machinery was in use. By the time I arrived in camp, I had just enough energy to pulverize all the mosquitoes buzzing about my tent before I passing out in peaceful slumber.
I think the worst part about cycling across the prairies is the quantity of roadkill. Skunks, elk, deer, antelope, foxes, beavers, prairie dogs galore (seriously, like every 50m there's another one. Someone told me that they're cannibals and eat their dead, so that might explain why there are so many rotting on the hwy), badgers, wolves, coyotes, all in various states of decomposition. I've learned that if you're riding with the wind, the smartest move is to take a big inhalation as soon as you see a large piece of roadkill, then hold your breath for about 15 seconds. More than that and you risk passing on your bike, less than that and you're nostrils will be filled with a most offensive odor.
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