Day 8: Clearwater to Edmonton

View Larger Map

We got a nice early start. Feeling a little tired and a little refreshed in one, we headed out, hoping to make it home for the night. I was much worse for the ear after all that riding, with pain shooting in my arms and legs from so much time on the bike.

It was a great day for riding and we were a bit too tired and determined to put miles on the rubber to really enjoy it fully. Almost completely sunny, beautiful roads, and so much to see. I found myself being less pleased with the scenery as time went on and more concerned with wildlife or traffic backing up from tourists gawking at something or another.

We gassed up here and there, and only stopped to eat very briefly in Hinton (L&W has great burgers, what can I say?) in the entire long stretch that day. We made it in to Edmonton by 7:30 that evening, stripped down the bikes, and finally got to relax. It was the best time we'd made on any stretch in the trip and it was exhausting.

It was an amazing trip. I encountered roads I'd never seen anything like, got to visit a bunch of new places, talked with many new people, and also got a better appreciation for being at home. The one big thing I would have liked to change would be to take more time for such a big trip. It was quite the effort to do what we did, and a lot of the really neat things we came across couldn't be properly appreciated with tight time constraints. All in all, still a great experience.

Total travel: ~660km

Final Odometer reading: 3327km