Stopped for breakfast in Radium where we were chit chatting with this lovely local couple and a couple on a ride from Washington. After breakfast we were back on the road with a spectacular start - Kootney park. The entrance to the park was nothing less than stunning as we literally drove through a mountain. Amazing vista after vista never got old.
A couple of hundred kms later we're out of all the parks and on the main highway into Calgary. I'm travelling at a healthy pace but I start to zone out on the insect funeral grounds on the shield of my helmet. I look up and I see this large bee coming at me at extremely high speed. BAM! He ricochets off the side of my helmet and goes through my jacket and down the back of my shirt. I can feel him buzzing around.
So I'm moving at 130 km/h with a half dead wasp in my shirt. I pull over onto this very economical (read very thin) shoulder and dismount the bike as steadily as possible with fully laden semi trucks barelling down no more than a couple of feet away. I scurry down the embankment to get away from the bevvy of on-coming traffic. I slowly remove my back pack - the wasp startles and tries doing what little it can. At this point I break full out - i'm ripping off my shirt and pants as it tries to make it's way down my back. Meanwhile everyone travelling to Calgary on highway 1 east bound is seeing me jump around on the side of the road stripped down to my skivies.
All this effort did not pay off, in the midst of my helter skelter dis-robing the wasp has decided his last act will be to penetrate me with whatever stinging power he's got left. ZZzzzz .... Oowww. It's done - wasp is dead and i'm stung.
Hurts like a son of a gun but i've got to get back to riding so I get dressed, take a deep breath and get back on my bike.
As I put my helmet back on I start looking at all the exploded bugs. That sting hurts but I know i'm still coming out way ahead in this tradeoff.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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