6/15/22

Ken and I woke up to some harsh rain at the Kipling Motor Inn. Watching the radar, we had about two hours to wait until the rain clouds passed Kipling. We took our time packing up. At around 11am the rain subsided, I put on my rain gear just in case. I was pretty jealous of Ken's Klim jacket and pants with built in Goretex. He said he's never gotten wet in that suit.

We headed out west towards Regina. We got a recommendation from Lindsay the night before that there's a mini Effel Tower in the near by town of Montmartre. It was on the way to Regina so why not. 40 miles west on some terrible bumpy roads, we arrived at Montmartre. This town looks even smaller than Kipling. It literally has dirt roads. It was settled by the French in 1893. So why not build a mini Effel Tower here?

We continued into Regina. These smaller Saskatchewan roads are truly hideous. They're uneven, bumpy, and marred with pot holes. We got hit with some rain and wind along the way. Eventually we got back on the Trans Canada Highway into Regina. The forecast that day was thunderstorms rolling in in a few hours. We decided to stop our day and get a room at the local Motel 8. We unloaded the bike and decided to Uber into downtown take a look. Regina is a small city with an 80s blue collar vibe. There's a huge mall downtown but we found the downtown area to shut down around 6pm. We walked around for a couple hours and decided to grab poutine for dinner at Smoke's. Poutine has gotten fancy these days with about a dozen variety now. We got the classic and Korean BBQ.

After stuffing ourselves with delicious poutine, we Uber back to the motel. This is probably the last day that Ken and I will be riding together. He has a bit of a time crunch on his trip and I'd like to see some sights around town. I'll wake up and make a decision to whether continue with Ken or separate our trip at this point.