Canada 1

6/29/07
It rained pretty good last night so my stuff was wet when I awoke. I
decided that was an omen to let it dry longer while I had breakfast in
Jasper. I returned and packed up and got out about 9 AM. The goal is
to make it to Dawson Creek, BC.
Ok, the scorecard for today is;
1 coyote
2 elk
6 deer
The coyote was hunting the roadside near Jasper. I suppose its easier
to see rodents in the 20 yards of short grass than in the woods.
The elk were across a lake. I did see a single roadkill elk near
Grand Prairie. Can you imagine hitting an animal of that size????
Ouch!!!
The deer were in various spots. One was almost my sidepanel. I saw
it run from the side of the road and it appeared to try to match my
speed to collide. Fortunately, it turned before it got to the
roadside so it was only exciting.
The bucks have velvet on their antlers. I like when they look like
that. By the way, the deer here in Canada are definitely
demonstrating Bergmans's Rule (or is it Allen's?); they are MUCH
larger than the ones in MA or the US in general. I think they're the
size of a cow up here.
The ride went from Jasper to Hinton to Grand Cache to Grand Prairie to
Dawson Creek. Its a good goal and I made it easily.
I noticed a biome shift on the route. I started in taiga (conifers)
but it shifted to a white birch forest partway through the ride. That
usually only happens if we go south (nope, I didn't get lost and go
the wrong way) or if you get lower in elevation. Perhaps something
else could do it also but I don't know what that would be.
In Grand Prairie I discovered I was low on oil so I hunted down a
motorcycle shop and got some oil to continue. No harm done.
I also had another exciting vehicel viewing here in Canada. Yesterday
I saw two smart cars on my way to Banff and today I saw a CanAm
Spyder. For you non-motorcycling folks, its a three wheeler with the
two wheels in FRONT. Its looks like a sport bike. It turned in front
of me going in a different direction so it was a quick view but it
looked "interesting".
It started raining on my way to Dawson Creek and continued all 140 km
to it. When I got here, I asked for a forecast at the visitor center
and they said they had 80% chance of rain this evening. I decided to
stay in a hotel. They also told me that last night they had a
rainstorm that caused flooding in a Super 8 and a couple of parking
lots. Tomorrow I'm trying for Fort Nelson, BC.

--
============
Todd Ryan; Hudson, MA
Westborough HS Science Teacher
MSF RiderCoach