PSA: hunting deer with a motorcycle isn't nearly as much fun as you'd think...

It is 12:26AM, and I am starting to shiver as I sit on the loose
gravel and type on my laptop. The only Wireless signal is WPA
encrypted. Thankfully, you don't always need internet to 'blog.

When you're waiting on on cold night in early June at a cardlock station in small-town Alberta for your brother to give you a ride home, the easiest way to keep warm is to stand on the high-side of the motorcycle, using the exhaust system to warm your hands. This gets boring after a while, though; you next best choice is probably to find the side of the gas station most out of the wind.

I'm not certain if the shivering is more directly caused by the cold or the sour taste of raw rhubarb. (I am thankful that I was bringing food home with me, though I wish it had been something more like bananas or cherries or... say, a thermos of coffee...)

The great irony of tonight's misadventure is that hitting the deer quite possibly saved my life. My headlight had stopped working long before I got to Camrose, (to be honest, I have no idea why it went out. It was working fine last week) which is where I hit the deer. I was only going ~60kmph on Camrose Drive (the through-route) when the doe misjudged her timing between a car and my poorly-illuminated bike. By the time I had seen her, hit the brakes, and actually made contact, she was probably running faster than my bike was moving.
(Special thanks to my friends at Nissin and Dunlop.)

Perhaps I should have parked the bike on the South-West side of the building, out of the wind.

The Doe saved my life because, had I continued travelling into the late evening without a headlight, I might well have met her sister further down the road, at highway speed. The result of that meeting, I'm sure you know quite well, would have meant an entirely different result. (My brakes and reaction time are good, but not that good.)

I stopped at all the gas stations in Camrose hoping to find a replacement lamp; even something the wrong size that could have been jimmiied into the housing. Sadly, the only gas station that's open at 11:00 is 7-11, so all I got was a not-great-but-at-least-it's-hot chimichanga.

I rode on for another 30kms at 60km/h, but with the moon barely above the horizon and passing cars killing my night vision every five minutes, I decided to quit at Bawlf.

Now I'm squinting suspiciously at each car as it drives past the
town's only turn-off, wondering if it my brother understood my
directions...

Oh, look, a shooting star...

[makes wish]