3 August - 100 miles and Jaffa cakes

Bassano to Medicine Hat 168km (2158km total).

Unfortunately by the time I got into my sleeping bag last night I realised the little campground (read park) I was in was sandwiched between a family reunion in a house on one side and a wedding reception in the community hall on the other so it wasn't a very quiet night!! 

I rode the 50km to Brooks trying to decide if I would just take the rest of the day off and camp there. I felt tired but the wind was so much better. Whilst having a second breakfast at Tim Horton's I checked the weather and decided I had to go for it. There were not many accommodation options between Brooks and Medicine Hat but lots of daylight hours!!

One of my goals for this trip was to ride 100 miles in a day and by the end of today I had (I had done 167km the day into Canmore but with a bit of support from Susie and her parents). I had to listen to some music and more of the audiobook and make a few stops including the Canex store at Canadian Forces Base Suffield. I had made a number of visits to this base in my previous job with the military and discovered they have a British food section as half of the base belongs to the British Army. As I passed the 2000km mark today I decided to take the 3km detour for some British goodies. 

I rolled into Medicine Hat close to 7pm and must have missed the campground signs. I have also spent quite a bit of time in Medicine Hat and it has a quaint old downtown section, nice river valley and trails as well as the World's Tallest Teepee. But I have never stayed at the campground and ended up in the eastern part of the city before realising the campground had been on the western edges a good few km's back. I was exhausted and couldn't face backtracking especially as I will be headed east in the morning so I decided to find a cheap motel as I was familar with the area and it was close to grocery stores etc. Thanks again to all who have put me up on this trip, as I have really not spent that much on accommodation I decided it was okay. I even had a bath which was amazing. Today also marks a month on the road as I left Campbell River on the 3rd of July. In that time I have biked 25 days covering 2158km.

I have no idea why I took this photo but I have a number of similar ones from today!!

My British goodies. I should have just eaten the Jaffa cakes straight away as when I opened them later they hadn't done so well in the heat!!

Welcome to Canada. This is the view that the British soldiers get arriving in Suffield.

World's tallest teepee (Medicine Hat).