Monday, November 18, 2013

Regina to Crooked Lake, 164km: Cinnamon Buns and River Valley's



Today I cycled my first ever century. I was not the only one who never completed a century ride before, it ended up being a first for a few of us.

Louise and I did not cycle together today because she wanted to get an early start on the day so she ended up leaving camp at 6:45am with Clarke and Becky. That was a tad too early for me and so I cycled with Gee and Larry. It was fun to cycle with them because I had been cycling with Louise for the majority of the rides, so it was nice to break it up a bit and cycle with some other riders.

Not only was today a century ride, but there was quite the strong headwind. The headwind was with us right from the get-go. But Gee, Larry and I formed a pace-line which made it less challenging.

There were two exciting parts to this day. The first was the visit to Indian Head. Right when we entered the town we stopped at the information centre where there was a massive Indian Head that we had to take a photo by.


I also found out that the town was where the Canadian show, “Little Mosque on the Prairie” was filmed, which was super neat. 


Then we had free donuts at the information centre, compliments of Indian Head Bakery. The donuts were fantastic, and the reason we visited the town was to check out the bakery, so that was our next stop. The bakery was fantastic, it smelt soooo good. The bakery was one of seven bakeries in Saskatchewan that make their baked goods from scratch, making it an authentic bakery :) I ate a cinnamon bun with cream cheese icing which was to die for. After savouring that fantastic cinnamon bun Gee asked the owner if she could give us a tour of the bakery and she did just that. It was awesome. They have an oven that can hold 180 loaves of bread, it was amazing. I highly recommend to anyone passing through Saskatchewan that they visit Indian Head, it is a fantastic town and the bakery is phenomenal. I just loved that town; it had such a welcoming quality about it. 



The second exciting part of the day was the Qu’Appelle River Valley which was where our camp, Crooked Lake Provincial Park, was located. The Qu’Appelle River Valley was beautiful. It was a lovely break from the Prairies. It was fun to see that sign indicating a downhill and then speeding down into the valley. 


Gee, Larry and I ended up getting to camp just after 7:00pm. Crooked Lake Provincial Park was a great campsite. I swam for the first time that summer, which was refreshing after a long day on the saddle. And I saw a beautiful sunset. Overall, it ended up being a long, challenging day, but arriving in the valley was worth it. It was a great place to spend our last night in Saskatchewan.  




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