Day 17 - Drumheller to Hanna

86 km - Total so far 1,394.99 km - http://ridewithgps.com/trips/5049380

• We left at approximately 6:57 a.m. under cloudy and cool conditions heading to Hanna, 85 km away. For the few of you who may not know, Hanna is the town responsible for the band "Nickleback". 

• As we left, we had to take what else but another dinosaur picture. This particular dinosaur reminds visitors of Drumheller's beginnings as a mining town later made famous by the discovery of dinosaur bones. There was active coal mining in Drumheller up until the discovery of oil in Leduc, in 1948. 

Not Dino sitting on his coal car

• Once again we were on Hwy 9 which for the most part has a fairly wide shoulder but for some reason, the shoulder for about 20 km was narrow and with a rumble strip in the middle. This combination requires a lot of concentration to ride and is not a whole lot of fun. The alternative is to ride in the roadway but near the white line the road was in pretty rough shape.  Eventually the shoulder improved and it was all good.

  

  Hwy 9 and the view beyond

• We had planned to ride to Delia to enjoy a burger but realized that the village was some ways off Hwy 9 which would add mileage to our trip. We decided to make a right to Delia and damn the extra mileage. On entering Delia, we came across a large Veterans' Memorial Park that had been updated and rededicated in 2014. We stopped and paid our respects. As we rode down main street we were surprised by murals and information panels. These panels date back to 2014, the village centennial. One of us is a history buff (and the other just likes older things) and made a point of stopping and reading all panels. We also agreed to take pictures of the many murals after lunch.

  

  One of the many murals 

  
  

  

  A 3D mural note the truck tailgate 

• Hélène stopped by the post office to mail things that we had picked up at the Tyrrell museum and over the last few days. I thought she was taking for ever to come out and so I went in. I found her in an animated conversation with the very enthousistic postmistress who was over the moon at the chance of meeting two people that were cycling to Ottawa. Suprisingly enough, we get that reaction a lot. A customer she knew came in and she shared that with her as well. We asked if she had stickers for us to increase our collection and she did not. Instead she used an antique post office stamp once used to cancelled stamps. We thanked her and left to go have our hamburgers at the Chinese restaurant. There is no chinese restaurant but rather "Luke's Cafe" that is owned and operated by a family of Chinese origin. 

• Luke's Cafe was opened by Luke Sing (Charlie) in 1957 and moved to its current location in 1995 when it was taken over by his son Onruf Luke (Luke). Walking into the cafe is like stepping back to 1957 which was significant to me since I was born in 1957. Hélène and I got to sit in an old booth with thickly padded seats and gave our order to Charlie. We both got cheeseburgers and and an order of fries (the plus side of cycling). It took a while to eat as we did a lot of looking around the cafe and Luke was often standing right next to the booth wanting to chat and, chat we did. All in all it was a most excellent decision to stop in Delia.

  

  One of the few reamaining grain elevators in Alberta

• We took more pictures on the way out of the village of 300 people. Back on Hwy 9, the sun was finally out and we still had a face wind. We have not had more than 2 days without a head wind. It makes for tough going but we consider it training for the up and down hills of Nothern Ontario.

• We got to Hanna at a most reasonable 3 p.m. and finally at the campsite at 4 p.m. It took a while in the grocery store as I can't tell the difference between large oranges and grapefruits, but that is a story for another time.

• Denis, Hélène got your messages but they were delayed and she has difficulties accessing Google+

53.44 miles - Total so far 866.80 miles