Bombs Bursting In Air

This morning I woke up and packed up my tent, after my first night camping alone again since 6/18. It felt different yet familiar. There is an undeniable simplicity in self-reliance and self-direction.

I soon crossed into Manitoba and the first thing I realized is that the sky was full of big dark clouds. I made it to a gas station in West Lake in time to find a roof under which to wait out the first thunderstorm. It rained hard and the power flickered a bit. Once the rain became light I decided to keep going.

I took the 44 to the 15 in order to avoid the 1. On the 44 I passed by a mother bear & cub. I'd seen 3 other bears and they had all run away from me by the time approached, but these two just stood on the side of the road and watched me. Soon after, I arrived at the Elma Store, in Elma. After buying some pop and chips I looked at the sky and it was getting dark and scary again. I sat on the porch and watched the parking lot become covered in marble-sized hail. A man with a white beard came up and tried to tell me about the best bicycle routes into Winnipeg, but forgot the name of nearly every road he was trying to tell me about. Once the rain subsided I continued onwards again.

About 10km West of Elma the sky became dark and scary once again, and this time the clouds included dark funnels swirling towards the ground. (My phone called for severe thunderstorms with hail and the possibility of a tornado.) I don't have much experience with this sort of weather, and also with being able to see it form from afar, so I decided to pedal towards the nearest building, which was a big red barn about 2km ahead and down a short dirt road.

As it was 6pm, I figured nobody would be working near the barn and I would stand in it until the storm passed. However, as I approached I found the barn was adjacent to a house, inside which was a family who saw me riding up and invited me inside.

The Giesbretchs were a Mennonite family of 6. They immedalitely invited me to make myself at home, served me dinner, and were as kind and generous as anyone can be. We chatted a bit about my bicycle ride and about their life living in Elma, MB. (The dinner we had was perogies and sausages. Delicious.) They offered to let me stay the night, but I decided to keep pedaling once the storm passed. They sent me off with water and sugar cookies and a granola bar. I'm glad I got to meet them.

I pedaled about another 15km down the road and camped down an ATV trail, at about 10pm when it was getting dark. There were a lot of horseflies there.