Tomorrow I will clean and tune the bike for the final assault to Jasper Alberta. I will also clean the lenses on the camera and cell phone. I will also completely empty out suitcases and repack, who knows, maybe the missing gloves and loonies and toonies will show up.
Its good to completely repack and match up socks etc, everything that comes in pairs and gets separated and strewn about. After awhile you tend to put certain things in the same place, especially important things, but other stuff seems to get scattered about. I also will handwash many clothes since they get two days to dry here.
Tomorrow will mark 5 weeks of the tour. In a little over a week, this grand odessey will come to a conclusion. I thought I would really want to come home after a few weeks and was prepared to try to deal with that feeling. But to my surprise, I don't feel like that at all. I have never had that feeling on this tour. I could live this way for awhile longer. Of course I feel like that now knowing I don't have to get up and ride tomorrow.
Attached is a photo looking out my room in Watertown. Notice both the American and Canadian Flags.This is probably the nicest room of the tour so far. This is also the nicest room in the motel, the only room with a balcony and on the end of the motel facing the mountains. This may not be an accident, it is always best to be really kind to the tour leaders and thank them at every opportunity while being very sincere. I try to say thank you at every opportunity I can and really do mean what I say. A sincere little thank you goes a long way, all people really want is to be appreciated. I so much appreciate the Timberline Adventures Company for all the tours and experiences they have provided for me over the last 12 years. The current tour leaders, Leslie and Terri are wonderful. They have such a love of the outdoors and cycling. We have had great tour leaders the entire tour. Jim and Tim were also great on the middle leg of the trip. Jim was the nicest man you will ever meet. He reminde
d me a lot of Jimmy Stewart, sounded just like him. He had a wealth of knowledge about Colorado and Wyoming from living there all his life, not the kind of information you find in a guide book. The owners of the company, Dick and Carol led the first segment of the tour. They have led thousands of tours over the last 25 years and of course the tour ran very smoothly. When I got sick in NM they made sure I got into the next days motel as soon as possible, around 11am, even though that is checkout time from the night before. Dick's narratives about the land and what you are going to see are wonderful, he really should be a writer.The tour leaders do so much more than just bring your luggage along and follow you along with the support van. A lot goes on behind the scenes that guests just don't see. I have taken enough of these tours to know how much work it takes to make a tour run smoothly. While the guests are all asleep, the tour leaders are often working to midnight.
The best lodging is still yet to come. That special place will come on the last night of the tour when we settle in at Sunwapta Falls. Sunwapta Falls is my favorite place I have stayed on all my vacations. Well I have to include Moraine Lake Lodge too. They are both special places. I suppose Moraine Lake Lodge has a more comfortable bed. I have the same bed at home, thanks to Jeff and Sandi Kolvenbach who called Moraine Lake Lodge after staying there to find out what kind of bed they have there. But you are just as likely to get bitten by a spider in your sleep at either Moraine Lake Lodge or Sunwapta Falls.
I have stayed at Sunwapta Falls five times before. Sunwapta Falls is right along the Icefields Parkway with nothing else around it. Places like Sunwapta Falls are the best to stay in, even though they are not the most luxurious. The best places are not in cities or small towns, but in small rustic cabins in the woods.
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