Day 64: The End

Day 64 - 7/19/08
Start - Tobermory cabin before Elk Pass
End - Banff- the END Beotch!!
Mileage - 70 miles
The end has finally come. The end, the end, the end. Hard to believe. I have been rudely delivered back into civilization by entering into Banff, Alberta. This is most certainly a tourist mecca, and I may have been a tourist for the past 3,000 miles, but you better believe that I was a bike tourist. My five star hotels are flat pine straw padded sites with wind protection. My fine dinners were lentils and couscous for dinner and granola with powdered milk for breakfast, and of course peanut butter for all times of the day. My exercise room is a 100 square mile wilderness forest with sick singletrack and dirt roads to explore. It might be a bit different from your standard Banff tourist life, but I happen to adore this lifestyle. And, as I wipe away the sleep at the corner of my eye, I am sad to say that the Stewie singlespeeder vagabonder life gasped its last breath today as I rolled into the parking lot of the Banff Springs Hotel. I knew it would happen at some time, but da!mn it I'm not ready for it. Alas, the meager life shall continue in some sort of stereotypical fashion as I fumble to obtain an acceptable mode of operating. That's the way it goes. So Mark and I rode the final 70 miles of the bike sojourn today. It only took about 3.5 hour to ride the first 10 miles, it always seems to be exceedingly hard to accomplish things on the days we actually want to get somewhere. I took off a little before Marky-Mark in the morning and later found myself lost in a maze of ski trails around the Kananaski Lake area. Great biking, but I was nowhere near where I wanted to be, which was en route to Banff. Eventually I found a little convenience store, soothed my wounds with chocolate milk, and grabbed it up with an old/odd woman. Mark miraculously appeared about 45 minutes later, having also been lost for awhile. Gotta love life. So we pushed onward. Gotta say one thing- the Canadian Rockies kick ass! Definitely some of the best scenery of the entire trip. Wicked views of rocky mountain outcroppings, topped off with glaciers and snow with beautiful clouds dancing on the peaks. Not to mention the lakes, sun, and some other pretty things in the world.We kicked out the last 50 miles along Spray Lake without getting lost. Thank Allah. For the last 12 miles we received the divine opportunity to ride the quasi singletrack on the Goat Creek Trail. This turned out to be one of my favorite sections of trail of the entire trip. Just technical enough to keep my attention, but not so burly that it rocked the f out of my body and panniers. Just amazing. Couldn't believe that I was about to wrap up the 3,000 mile pilgrimage in just a few minutes. But it happened, as I rolled into the Banff Springs Castle. The first order of business was to feed the beast inside. After consulting with some locals on the side of the street, we navigated to the Old Spagetti House in one of the many malls of Banff. Scrumptious meal. We feast like kings- we killed off three loafs of bread, salad, a pitcher of beer, spaghetti, ice cream, and coffee. Heaven was shining on me at that moment. It's always a nice to have a celebratory meal after an epic trek. Wow. Now I'm sitting my pale ass in the movie theater about to view the new batman movie- I believe it's called The Dark Night. Regardless, it's feeling pretty weird right now to be sitting in the middle of a bunch of homo sapiens that are clean and dressed in something other than spandex cycling clothing. Oh, where are my lovely Douglas Firs, they judge not and have no fashions. I have entered back into the human society, and it will take some adjusting- hopefully I can stomach it. Gotta people watch now, it's like a free circus. Peace.