Well, after spending a couple of days at Yuka's place in Calg, I headed off south to try to get away from the cold. The first day was down through Waterton/Glacier national parks on the boarder with the USA. There was a very strong head/cross wind in southern Alberta and no shortage of wind farms to make use of it.
There was also lots of new snow laying in the fields and the riding was again uncomfortable.
I rode into Glacier park after buying an annual pass for the US parks, but I could not ride through as I had planned since the road in the alpine was closed. Then while taking a picture of a snowy vista in the park, I had my first bike accident of the trip... The wind blew the bike over and it broke a signal light.... did I mention it was windy!. I taped it back together and then rode back out of the park and around the south and down off the high country to where it was significantly warmer.
Then I met a bloke in a cafe where I was having dinner who kindly invited me to pitch my tent on his lawn, which I did. Next day I pushed south again and again I had to fight a strong head wind and very cold conditions as I drifted back and forth across the high country of the continental divide.
I stayed off the freeway and went through a few small Montana towns - It seems Montana is the land of strong wind, pick up trucks, and cowboy boots. I got all the way down through Montana and stopped just short of Yellowstone Park near a lake for the night ... again avoiding paying for camping by using a disused spur of the old highway.
My bike rides better at about 90Kmh than 120Kmh which I had been doing and as a result it took about four hours for my ears to stop ringing and my hands and feet to stop tingling. I'm going to try to go slower as soon as the temperatures start to rise as I get further South.
Next day I spent all day riding around Yellowstone looking at elk and bison and fumaroles and steam and boiling mud etc. - nice. Then I was headed back to the camp I used before and decide to check out one of the National Forrest camp sites on the way back.
But as luck would have it there was another touring biker there (Adam) and he let me share his camp site for the night. The night was very cold but the frost in the morning made the ride South through the Park very pretty.
And now I am running South again to go look for some fossils in Kerremer at the southern edge of Wyoming.
