Day 27
   
   5/24/01
   Mile 2602
   James River Bridge, AB
   
   On the way out of Calgary, I stopped to visit Frank Gaudek, the father
   of some friends of mine that I had met on another bike trip in Oregon
   over a decade ago.  They now live in the Arab Emirates so I let him
   use my email device to send a few lines to his daughter.
   
   At 10am I left Calgary, going out Transcanada route 1.  Ten years ago,
   on my first visit to Calgary, I got off the airplane, assembled my
   bike, and headed out this same road, all the way to Cabo San Lucas,
   Mexico.  It was an odd feeling to be on this road on a bike again, after so
   much time had passed.  This time my destination was in a different
   direction, however, and I soon turned north and headed out to
   Cochrane.  The back tire was showing more threads, so I decided I had 
   pushed my luck far enough and finally retired one Armadillo tire, having
   put over 3500 miles on it.
   
   Heading north out of Cochrane on Route 22, the day got hotter than I
   thought - upper 80's for a while, but I had the seemingly omnipresent
   headwinds to provide some cooling.  I passed along the hilly terrain,
   no big ones really, and noticed small areas of wetlands in places,
   inhabited by ducks.  It's mostly farmland through here, with an
   increasing amount of pine trees.
   
   Evening came, and I was constantly shadowed by storm clouds to the
   west.  At times I would wait for a while until the storm passed in
   front of me.  The roads were often wet, but I managed to stay dry except 
   for a few sprinkles.
   
   Passing the town of Sundre, I began to get the sense that I was
   north, although I'm not sure I can describe why.  The stream beds
   began to take on a more tundra-esque appearance, and the wetlands near 
   them, with a foggy-sky backdrop were what I was expecting for something 
   farther north than this, actually.
   
   I'd checked the forecast yesterday, and it called for uninterrupted
   fair weather for the rest of the week.  But along about 8pm the
   western skies suddenly took a turn for the worse, and a violent electrical
   storm was on it's way.   I stood under the awning of an old metal workshed
   by the road and watched a spectacular lightning display before I went to
   sleep.

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