Bikely map

I got up, and had an interesting interaction with someone who had become concerned that those food-containing panniers not brought into my tent had been abandoned and, either completely failing to notice my tent, or completely failing to figure that it might in some way be related to the panniers, had loaded them into the back of his truck to take down to the police station for safe-keeping (and noted to myself that, when in a population centre that isn’t smack in the middle of bear country, the food panniers should be kept in the tent vestibule with the other panniers). Fortunately, he’d just gotten them loaded up when he saw me emerge from the tent, and start looking for my bags, so he let me know that he had them, and gave them back to me.

The wind was even worse than the day before (50km/h gusting to 70km/h), so I made sure to swing by the local grocery store and pick up some baked beans (among other provisions). This turned out to be a good idea since, when I actually got back up to the highway and took the wind right on my face, it was nearly impossible to make any reasonable progress. Noting that it was only supposed to be about 25km east to the next town, and was 10km back south to Maple Creek, I decided to see how much more distance I could cover before packing it in for the day. I didn’t get very far before deciding that I’d stop at the next town with any sort of food, and just wait out the remainder of this miserable weather.

Seeing the sign for Piapot (the next town) when I got close to it, the little facility signs were there for food, lodging, and library, so I figured that I had scored a town where I could not only eat, but I could check weather updates, and otherwise pass time on the internet. It turns out that the sign was somewhat deceptive. When I rolled into town, it was sitting on the cusp of being a ghost town. The hotel/restaurant was closed, but contained signs of life–none that would answer the door though. Unfortunately, it also contained posters in the window advertising a re-opening to happen some time later this summer. I looked a little for the library but failed to find it, so I wandered into the office/shop/building for the municipality, where there was a clerk on hand, and asked about the food, lodging, and library. She informed me that the closed hotel was the food/lodging, and that the library was only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and it was a Friday, so even if the town were otherwise campable, I’d hope for a change in weather before being able to use the internet anyhow).

That said, I decided to camp the night in/around Piapot, and put off my plans to wait out the weather by another day, so I could take on the ride to the next town (which I was assured did have a campground, cafe/diner, and a few other services) in slightly fresher shape. Checking my map, I saw that there was a local road just south of the railway that might lend itself to some nicer camping than the highway if I set out along it to maybe put away a few more km walking before pitching my tent (which was quite the chore in the heavy wind). The road was gravel, but I decided to slog along it anyhow, at least for a few km before calling it a day.