I wonder how many times our group collectively checked the weather forecast yesterday? Did it change the weather at all? No. Did we sleep any better for checking? I'm sure we didn't.

We agreed on an 8 AM departure due to cold temperatures. It was 49 degrees when I woke up. We left in a light drizzle. Jacinto was still in bed. His instructions were to take the trash out and to leave by 10:30 AM when the cleaners arrive to clean the condo. I'm sure they wouldn't be excited to walk in on a naked man. Or perhaps they would?

Yesterday the discussion around the forecasted heavy thunderstorms included riding the transit bus to Banff and renting a UHaul to drive to Radium Hot Springs where the sun is supposed to start. I did find out in Canada you can also hire movers for $60. an hour to help load your UHaul. I don't believe hiring movers is a choice in the USA. It was $878. for a UHaul all the way to Missoula. Oren offered to pay for that option. I'd be forever sad we didn't ride the rest of the trip - I didn't take Oren up on his offer.

End of the story was sucking it up and riding in the rain. The four of us had occasional light rain during the first part of our ride and none for the second part.

We retraced our steps back over the Legacy Trail to Banff. I was very careful to not put my foot down when cycling through the gates that had the electrified mats on the ground to keep animals from crossing. Jacinto hadn't noticed the sign that said electric. That would wake him up in a hurry!

Banff was much calmer this morning. Was it the hour (before 10 AM) or the rain that kept the streets clear of people? We had no trouble threading our way back to the second bike path. We were back on 1A. It would be nice to see some animals. I bet they've all had breakfast and are hiding from the cold and wet.

We reached Castle Junction, our turning point onto Highway 93 south. Now we would see some new territory, going over Vermillion Pass. The climb starts as soon as we make the turn. First we had a tourist come up and take our photo. He must not have seen any animals either. We were the best he could do.

We had only 700 feet to climb in five miles from the intersection. Just another day at the office. By this time the rain had quit. I was hoping to finish the climb dry. We succeeded. Happy, happy. I put on my $85. gloves for the downhill and pull up the hood to my rain jacket for warmth. Jim and Genny stopped at a viewpoint at the top. Not me. I wanted off of the top before it started raining again.

Remember I soaked my iPhone in the rain back in Yaak? I've been using the horrible pay as you go phone dubbed the Yugo phone. It has such a terrible memory that I can't get any photos off of the phone and I've recorded only a few hours of music that I've listened to over and over again. I do have an iPod that my daughter gave me for Mother's Day. I didn't want it to get wet in the rain (I do learn lessons, eventually). Today I decided I needed the boost of new music, since we had a long day over a pass in the rain. It was VERY nice to have new songs to listen to. Then my speaker quit. The iPod takes a plug in speaker, no Bluetooth. The speaker has been crammed in my bag for a month. Who knows what damage happened to it. I was very sad to lose my tunes. The others didn't feel it was such a catastrophy. Ah, well. I rode the last 14 miles with no music. I just had to sing songs to myself in my head.

Jim had mapped the ride on ridewithgps.com - 60 miles. I mapped it also, ridewithgps. I paid special attention to starting exactly at our lodging and finishing exactly at our lodging. It showed 66 miles. Six miles extra matters. Especially the difference between 60 and 66 in the rain and cold. I asked Jim to look at my version to see where I went wrong. He couldn't see anything either.

That gave us some doubt as to the distance of our day. I'm happy to say Jim's version was correct. We pulled in to the lodge at 2 PM and were MOST happy to find out we could check into our cabins early. It started to rain significantly as we walked to the cabins. It looked like it was Jacinto's turn to get soaked.

Remember this is one of the reservations I made at the last moment. We are out in the middle of nowhere. If this didn't work, we had trouble. When I called to get a cabin, they had a bigger, newer cabin or an old, small cabin. We took the big one to share with Oren. It's very nice, but he gets to sleep on a pull out sofa and there isn't a bedroom - just one big room. It's a good thing we are friendly. I did mention to Oren that we could ask if the other cabin is still available, but we agreed this was fine.

Jim and Genny had the cabin that matches our. She said she thinks it is the nicest lodging of the trip. At first I disagreed - then I couldn't think of what would be nicer.

We agreed to shower and go to lunch. Just after we ordered, here came Jacinto. He was soaking wet. Soaking. He had had rain since before the turn to 93. As a slight payback, he saw a bear. It came crashing down a steep incline and on to the road right in front of Jacinto. Jacinto was going to take a photo, but a ranger happened to be standing in the area. She clapped her hands and scared the bear away. That's how you scare away alligators in Louisiana also. Just in case you didn't know.

Jacinto declined food, opting for a shower. He came back after the shower for several cups of hot coffee. We were still there as the restaurant had a strange 3 PM rush. Every table was full. It took quite a while to get our food. We've already looked at the dinner menu. There are two choices. A pork chop or chicken. That's it. It's a small place. Oren and Jim had the very good looking apple crunch pie. Oren was going to wait until dinner for pie until he saw how good it looks. We convinced him that Carol would approve his eating two pieces of pie today. I'm not sure Oren is doing a good job keeping his weight up.

Jacinto and I are sitting on a sofa in the general store using the wifi. It is still raining outside. We haven't see a full blue sky once in Canada. Perhaps we've seen 1/4 of a blue sky. Once. Our timing was bad for this trip. Jacinto wants to come back next year in August. The young couple that befriended him said August is the best time to miss the rain. Rain is ok. But not cold and rain. Brrr.

The high tomorrow is supposed to be 70 and the day after is 74. We are riding south out of the rain. The truth is, today is Sunday. It was supposed to be bad again today in Canmore, but sunny starting on Monday. The rain was forecast to dump out on to the plains, thus our change of direction. I've had enough rain this trip. Thank you.

the ghost forest comment is because of all of the dead, standing trees before Vermillion Crossing. It seemed to me that there were too many standing trees to be a forest fire, but there were no red pine needles left to indicate beetle kill trees. We had to ask our waitress. She said there were two forest fires, the most recent in 2003.

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