June 7 - Day 32 - Richer 92 km

 Another good day….now that I’m off the bike and safely in my tent before the rain storm!!!

I got up early this morning and said goodbye to the Mannitoba base, and thank you for a wonderful stay.  

Yesterday Grant Therian - the provincial director brought in Orion for a visit so that I could meet him.  Grant made an application to PADS, and Orion is a specially trained accredited facility dog.  His purpose is to provide comfort and support to the STARS team.  He has only been at the base for 3 months, and staff and crew say they don’t know how it used to be before he was there.  He will sit quietly with the crew when requested, greets people, plays fetch….but I think the best part is that he quietly waits for the crew to return from a mission, and when he sees the white helmets…he approaches them.  He has also been brought to other bases as needed for comfort.  Acquiring Orion was not easy, and keeping him also entails some work as PADS has many rules to ensure that their efforts to train the dog are not wasted, and Grant ensures that their rules are followed, as Orion is now an essential part of the STARS 7 team.  This is amazing….and I know what a difference it is to the base when the Edmonton pups are brought in by the owners…Gerbie and Juno, they just bring in a calming influence, that having a trained dog would be next level.  Congrats to Grant for not only thinking about a facility dog, but also caring for him. 

Just outside of Winnipeg is the Longitudinal centre of Canada, but not the halfway point of my ride.  Since I plan to meander through Ontario and Québec, my half way point is about 1000 km away.  Today I’m over the 3,000 km mark for my cycling!!!!  WOW!!!  It was challenging day with the winds.  Thankfully Jenna and Troy found me a way out of Winnipeg where I was mostly on bike routes….thank you!!!!  That made a huge difference this morning, plus I got to see some beautiful areas of Winnipeg.  Once out of the city, the highway is south east, and with the string south wind of 35 gusting to 55, it made for slow going.  Cycling 9-11 km/hr while trying not to get pushed around too much.  Thankfully the shoulders are wide.  Four hours of this and then the road finally turned east, and with the trees to my right, I was cycling 20 km/hr.  I stopped in the town of Richer for some lunch, and bought dinner to go, as my planned campsite wasn’t near any food.  I headed off, and received a text about some severe weather coming from Winnipeg, and moving fairly quickly….so quick change of plans and staying here for the night.  I got the tent up, and everything settled before the storm.  It was short lived but quite strong, and I was glad to be off the bike.  So that just means a few extra km added to tomorrow’s ride, but I should have a tail wind, or at least a slight cross tail wind for the ride tomorrow.