| "Momma, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys"; that's because they have this daft
idea that trying to sit on a wild bull, with nasty big horns is fun. Well it is! There's something
really entertaining about watching a guy cling onto a bull for dear life, and then watching the bull
try to pound him into the ground when he falls off. Yahoo! It's the Calgary Stampede. A week of
rodeo, line dancing and cowboy type things. I was luck that I'd been offered a place to stay with
some folk I'd met in Youngstown; because there was no room at the inn (not even the stable, cos of
all the rodeo horses and bulls). My new-found friends made my stay a blur of honky tonk bars and
country dancing. Oh yeah, and then there was Cowboy Glen (at the Canadian Honky Tonk Bar Association),
who taught me how to 'yahoo' properly; when he told me, "when you feel one coming, just let it go",
it took me a while to realise that he wasn't talking about farting!
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Who says recumbents can't climb hills? On to The Rocky Mountains; roads climbing as high as Ben
Nevis, steep winding passes that lead up to the edge of the Columbia Icefields. After the azure
beauty of Lake Louise, I joined up with a party from Missoula Adventure Cycling (up from Montana). Together
we cycled the snow-capped mountain passes; daily tallying our sightings of bears, moose and eagles
that motor powered visitors scared off as they rushed around to try and see. There was some disbelief
amongst my comrades, I think, as I steadily pedalled my overloaded Peer Gynt over pass after pass,
to daily sweat our weary legs out in wood burning saunas, provided by Alberta's Hostels. We parted
Company in overcrowded Jasper, where I 'landed on my feet again'; a phrase that was to appear
regularly in my diary. With nowhere available to stay in town, I was invited to stay at the home
of a park ranger.
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