Manitoba Highway Fund

Today started out rough for myself as I awoke at 6am to the call of nature. As I fumbled to get the tent open, I was covered with a layer of frost that had developed on the inside of the fly cover of the tent. I quickly rushed to the bathroom, answered natures call, and then returned to the comfort of my sleeping bag for some more much needed sleep.

By the time I awoke again it was about 8:15am, and I could feel a dramatic rise in temperature as the sun was beating down on the tent and providing an almost warm, cozy feeling! I crawled out of the tent to face another beautiful prairie day with winds gusting from - yep, you guessed it - the west. Another day of tail winds! We cooked up breakfast, packed the gear and bid farewell to Virden.

The first major destination was Brandon, home of the Wheat Kings. We decided to take the city route highway through Brandon to find a place to eat, as well as see what the city had to offer. Following lunch, a quick stop at Zellers, and a scenic tour through Brandon, it was back on the highway to cover as much distance as possible.

Things were going great for about 20km until I felt the urge to pee (I see a trend here...). I managed to hold it for about another 20-25km, as I was hoping to find a roadside gas station, but eventually I pulled over, dropped my bike, and hightailed it into the trees! Dave found the situation was quite humorous and decided it was worthy of a picture so that we will always remember my "roadside relief".

After I had relieved myself, we continued on until we reached a town called MacGregor which was where we decided to spend the night. A tour through downtown MacGregor revealed that small town stores all close at 6pm, so we were forced to go back to the highway gas station in order to get some food for supper and snacks. We then made our way to the campground and set up camp for the night.

So now we are a mere 100km from Winnipeg, and it was evident today that we were close to leaving the prairies behind. Once we left Brandon, there was a noticeable increase in the number of trees, and we even ran into a few hills on the route. With perhaps only two more riding days left in Manitoba, we will have covered four provinces, but still have only crossed about one third of the country... damn Ontario!

The one complaint that I do have regarding Manitoba is that they need to invest more money into their highways. We thought conditions would be great since we had divided highway, but there was absolutely no paved shoulder to ride on, forcing us to ride out in the road. As a result, we had to be ever aware of traffic in order to ensure our safety. Also, there were stretches along the highway where the pavement was so bad, it seemed as though we were riding on gravel. I admit that things improved slightly once we got past Brandon, but Manitoba definitely needs to invest some money in improving their highways.