Day 20

At fifty, I can still remember the strange emotional quiet of Day 20. It was our first full day as a trio, and as we pedaled out of Bassano toward the Badlands, the landscape seemed to echo the change. The terrain was so flat you could see the Rockies as a mere smudge on the horizon before they finally vanished.

The real shift happened at the edge of Dinosaur Provincial Park. One moment we were on the endless grassy plains, and the next, the earth just dropped away into a coulee—an ancient, thimble-hilled world carved by melting glaciers. Seeing a fawn and deer bounding through the scrub added to the prehistoric feel of the place. We spent the afternoon at the field station, where we caught a weirdly charming video by 'Dinosaurs Against Fossil Fuels' (DAFF)—bikers in dino suits protesting oil. It was surreal to see that, having just left the heavy security of the Petroleum Conference in Calgary.

Hiking the Coulee Trail was like walking through a fragile, multi-colored layer cake. The sandstone was so brittle it would crumble under your fingers, and blooming cacti felt totally out of place in Alberta. We finished the day in the stereotypical Patricia Hotel bar—animal heads on the wall and a 'cook-your-own-veggie-burger' policy. But the highlight was definitely the puppies. Nothing settles the nerves like a litter of teething pups trying to suckle your fingers while you’re on the phone with home.

Leaving Bassano, the terrain is almost completely flat and I can just barely discern the mountains on the horizon. We pass through small villages and have a picnic lunch on the lawn of a tiny church in Duchess. Blue and Wendy let me ride ahead, and it feels great to stretch my legs at my own pace before we settle into the Patricia Hotel.

Since it is still mid-afternoon, we decide to ride out to Dinosaur Provincial Park. We see a fawn run across the road and more deer in the brush. As we reach the park perimeter, the ground suddenly slopes downward into an enormous coulee filled with hills that look like thimbles. We stop at the Royal Tyrell Museum Field Station to see fossil exhibits and watch a humorous video by DAFF (Dinosaurs Against Fossil Fuels) about cyclists saving the world from gasoline.

We follow a shorter hiking trail through the fragile environment where you can see bands of colour representing different layers of soil and rock, and even cacti. The ride back to Patricia is a little tough and slow going since the wind has picked up. The hotel bar is delightfully stereotypical: stuffed animal heads, wooden dance floor, and various posters advertising guns. When we go to sleep, it is pouring rain.