For the numerically inclined

Here's something for the number crunchers out there: All the summary data from the Garmin. Pardon the formatting. The time column is elapsed time for that day, not ride time which would have been more interesting. My highest speed on the entire trip came on the first descent on day 1. You may also notice that we climbed more than we descended. That's actually accurate. We missed a major downhill section during the rainout at the Montana border.

The columns are set up as follows:
distance, time, max speed, ascent, descent

Calgary to Kananaskis Camp
51.25, 5:29, 43.30, 2350, 1745

Kananaskis Camp to Longview
95.77, 7:56, 40.80, 5395, 5571

longview to Pincher Creek
84.36, 7:08, 33.50, 4030, 4383

Pincher Creek to St Mary (shortened)
44.87, 5:34, 36.50, 3862, 2218

St Mary to Kallispell (Going to the Sun Road)
83, 9:09, 32.20, 4308, 5841

Kallispell to Eureka
71.4, 5:35, 34.50, 2051, 2227

Eureka to Ft. Steele
64.29, 5:07, 37.00, 2463, 2443

Ft Steele to Windemere
67.96, 6:01, 34.60, 2174, 2054

Windemere to Golden
76.69, 6:07, 31.50, 2786, 2864

Rogers pass, golden to Revelstoke
95.71, 7:38, 43.00, 4687, 5837

Revelstoke to Kamloops
134, 10:43, 36.00, 4792, 5010

Kamloops to Blue Lake (2 days)
144.09, 10:54, 36.50, 5496, 4394

Blue Lake to Jasper (2 days)
132.72, 10:22, 33.20, 5070, 3870

Jasper to Icefields campground
88.64, 8:44, 41.10, 5616, 4367

Icefields to Banff
104.69, 8:53, 39.00, 6212, 6148

Banff to Calgary
81.83, 6:39, 35.00, 2789, 3739

Totals
Miles: 1421.27
ride time: 121:59 hours
Max Speed: 43.30 MPH
Total Climbing: 64081 feet
Total Descending: 62711 feet

The family reunion song

Six year old (yes, 6!) Kamille wanted to do something special as part of the family reunion. She came up with the idea of having a concert. So she and Laurie worked for a couple of days putting the show together. Kamille made tickets that she handed out to everyone. She wrote most of the words to the song, and she and Laurie put the arrangement together. This is just too cute for words. Click on the link below to see the song on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/user/tutone001#play/all/uploads-all/0/CdJRdVysM5Y

The Paul Family Reunion

I'll be wrapping up the Canada trip posts over the next few days, and making a video slide show, but in the meantime I thought I'd send out an update on the rest of my adventure. I flew out of Calgary on Friday and met Laurie in Cincinatti. Her family had an extended family reunion over the weekend at her cousin Cynthia's house.

Laurie's family is spread out all over the country, so this was the first time they'd had a group like this come together. About 40 people showed up, and they all made me feel like family. It's really interesting hearing an entire family's set of shared stories. Some highlights:

• Smoking stogies with Uncle Tony, an 85 year old WW2 veteran.
• Just hanging out with Uncle Tony and Aunt Lou. They've been married for 57 years. I think this one's going to last.
• Hearing about Fat Finger Pauly, No-Neck Vinnie, and Joey bag-o-donuts.
• The Family Reunion Song. I'll have a post about that and a link to the youtube video in a couple of days.
  
• Little girls. We have none in my family. God they're cute.
  
• "I'm talking and I can't shut up". Laurie had t-shirts printed up for the family members with this printed on the back.
  

Cornhole

I was introduced to a local game out in Cincinatti called Cornhole. It's apparently quite the local rage. There are cornhole tournaments with $10,000 prizes. The game essentially consists of throwing a cloth bag onto a board. If it goes in the cornhole that's 3 points. Anything on the board is 1 point. Each side throws 4 bags, the points are counted, and whoever has the most gets to count the difference. For instance if I got 4 points and the other team got 3 points, then I'd add one to my team's score. Game is 21.

This seems like the perfect game for drinking beer and smoking stogies. Cynthia's sons take it pretty seriously. At one point I was leading 5-3, so I had to give her son a little jazz. "You know, if you lose to a city boy from California you'll never hear the end of it." No surprise, I eventually lost.

Those of you with dirty minds will undoubtedly wonder why I'm not mentioning the obvious...Keep it clean people, keep it clean.

The toilet bowl

OK, it's not what you think. We rode a downhill section of road called the toilet bowl. Here's the view from the top of that section. The road drops off to the right and makes a steep, almost 360 degree turn. On a windless day it would make quite the roller-coaster ride.

We had winds howling in from the side so instead we got a lesson in bike handling skills. Biking afficianados would really appreciate this section of road. With the wind blasting and the bike making a large circle we had to handle wind coming from every side and constantly changing direction. Soon enough it was over. We regrouped down at the roadway below and did a big group WooHoo about how cool it was.

Final Google Earth files

Here are the last three days on Google Earth. There are several additional pictures that I didn't include in the blog.

Jasper to the Icefields Campground

Campground to Banff

Banff to Calgary

In addtion, here's the entire trip on Google Earth all in one place.

Day 1: Calgary to Kananaskis Campground

Day 2: Kananaskis Campground to Longview

Day 3: Longview to Pincher Creek

Day 4: Pincher Creek to St. Mary

Day 5: Glacier National Park, St. Mary to Kallispell

Day 7: Kallispell to Eureka, Mt. (no pictures)

Day 8: Eureka to Ft. Steele

Day 9: Ft. Steele to Windemere

Day 10: Windemere to Golden

Day 11: Rogers Pass, Golden to Revelstoke

Day 12: Revelstoke to Kamloops

Day 14 and 15: Kamloops to Clearwater to Blue River

Day 16 and 17: Blue River to Mt. Robson to Jasper

Day 19: Jasper to Icefields Campground

Day 20: Icefields Campground to Banff

Day 21: Banff to Calgary

One to a planet, once in a lifetime

Terry saved the best for last. We rode from Jasper to Banff along the Icefields parkway, covering 187 miles in two days and including two major mountain passes. To call the scenery spectacular just doesn't do it justice. The roadway runs through both of the national parks (Jasper and Banff), through valleys ringed with glacier capped mountains, and alongside rivers the color of turquoise. We climbed mountain passes that made our lungs ache and quads quiver. We descended mountain passes that made our spirits soar. And we did it for two solid days.

Our luck with the weather continued. Terry has been in this area many times and said he had never seen it this nice. We had tailwinds for most of both days and temperatures in the upper 80's. I suppose it's possible to have a better biking experience, but I'd be hard-pressed to figure out how. Like I said, once in a lifetime.