Day 23 — Saturday, July 12

Portage la Prairie to Richer — 145.8 km
We heard the wind all night long so when we woke up we were praying it was blowing in our favor. We couldn’t tell because we were sheltered by the trees in our campsite. It turned out it was. Whee!

We were to meet my parents at 10 a.m. but there was no word from them where we should meet. I called them and they forgot about the time change. No big deal because that meant we could get going on the road and then meet them down the highway somewhere.

We pulled out onto the highway and without even pedaling we’d hit 20 km/hr. It was pretty nice. We probably averaged about 35 km/hr until we got to a Shell/Flying J truck stop on the outskirts of Winnipeg. By the way, it was raining like crazy. We were soaked, despite the gear we were wearing.

I had an awesome meal (buffet) and dried off (somewhat) with my parents. Kelly and Allan showed up about 30 minutes after us because Kelly got a flat tire, turned out. He said changing it in the pouring rain was one of the most uncomfortable experiences on the trip thus far.

After I showed my mom this strange sore I had developing in my armpit, we said our goodbyes. It turned out that I have the same virus that Vanessa did a couple weeks ago and now these strange and very painful sores were appearing. So weird. I got Vanessa to take me to the hospital tonight where I had some minor surgery and got some antibiotics. Man is it painful.

We made our way around Winnipeg and I actually didn’t see any of the city aside from a few subdivisions on the outskirts. If there weren’t signs, you wouldn’t have known you went by Winnipeg. The tailwind was still going strong, as was the wind. Kelly forgot his rain jacket somewhere so he bought a poncho. Within about 20 minutes of wearing it, it had transformed itself into a necktie. It was blown to shreds. I turned around and saw Kelly with this bright yellow thing hanging from his neck. The rest of him was drenched. Money well spent.

We ended up in a tiny town called Richer, Manitoba where we set up camp. The hospital I went to was in a larger town called Steinbach which is off of the TransCanada Highway so we didn’t see it as we were biking. It was about 20 km west of Richer. Much like Vanessa did a couple weeks ago, I started to get flu-like symptoms.

Kelly thought it might be from the hot tub in Osoyoos. He said he had something similar happen to him when he was a teenager. I guess that could explain this.