Day 17, July 6th, Gull Lake to Herbert

We deliberately slept in today. It felt great. We didn’t get out onto the highway until 11:00am. Who ever said the Saskatchewan is flat, didn’t ride their bikes across it. It is continuous hills. Although, considerably easier to climb in comparison to B.C.

As we were riding into Swift Current, another biker rode beside me. He was also riding his bike across Canada for a hospital in Toronto. The only difference between our two tours was that he started in Vancouver, and was riding 380k a day! He was planning on being done at the end of the month. I still don’t know if he was in the Sasky sun too long, or if he was serious. He did ride in the right hand lane and not the shoulder! Speaking of shoulders, and the lack there of in Saskatchewan. It’s nice to have van behind us during these stretches.

We went through Swift Current because we were ahead of schedule. We rode another 40k to Herbert. We experienced a significant headwind for this section. At times, we were only going 18-20km/h. Felt like we were riding to Monarch again. We then put our bikes on the rack at Herbert, and headed to Maureen Schwartz’s mom’s house to spend the night. Thanks for setting us up Maureen! We went and had dinner and Smitty’s, where we tried to convince our server to go to the U of L. We gave him a U of L pin and our contact info. We were definitely spoiled again tonight with our accommodations. We each have our own bed and a shower. Thanks Anne!

We only rode about 110k today. It was a nice distance from the last couple days. Tomorrow is Moose Jaw.