First glimpse

of the rockies, between strathmore and calgary, just a faint shadow through the clouds. I thought it would be a "short" day today, but i still logged 714 km, and I'm not at my cousin's just yet -- pit stop in a starbucks to try to finish the nagging unfinished piece of work that is today's version of the big Unfinished credits that have followed me throughout my life. (There's always one thing I have to push to its limits; in this case, it's a report on some focus groups we did at one of the hospitals).

Renee asked me yesterday what I think about when I drive. It's not very profound. I think about driving, and the little friendly competition the A4 with BC plates and I had where we both hovered at 160 km/h throughout western saskatchewan, and why the guys on harleys had to block both lanes just to be contrary outside calgary, and how the landscape in western SK and eastern AB off the transcanada looks so prosperous, and what exactly those driller thingies that look like this:



are called. (Oil well pump, google image tells me).

And what they are mining near Chaplin, SK, that looks like snow:



(Sodium sulphate, apparently, whatever that's used for).

And I think about the month's worth of Sunday Edition podcasts that drifted through the car, and whether I should stop and try to buy a phone for my new place at Staples in Swift Current, and whether they sell wine in grocery stores in AB, and whether the Safeway in MooseJaw has a starbucks (it does), and whether my tummy hurts because of the eggs or the bread in my breakfast panini.

And of course, I think about my life, and the cyclists on the transcanada (all heading east; 2 sets of m/f couples and one solo man with a little trailer), and what I will have to do to get ready for a real pilgrimage on my bike, and all of the books I've read about women traveling solo on bikes, from Dervla Murphy to Josie Dew. Thinking about how the travel problem-solving even at the simplest level -- where to get a coffee -- will be so magnified, and wondering what I can mine to get the nerve.

I'm tired of driving, so tomorrow will be a short drive to Banff. I booked a room for tomorrow night there, and will go for a hike tomorrow afternoon. The mountains, finally.