Gull Lake to Chaplin (142km)

Gull Lake to Chaplin (142km) trip stats

https://www.polarpersonaltrainer.com/user/calendar/item/analyze.ftl?id=156966407&r


We headed towards Chaplin today and the ride was good. The weather cooperated and the scenery was like nothing else I have seen yet. There are sloughs, waterfowl, and shorebirds everywhere and there is always something to look at.

We stayed arrived in Chaplin and stopped at the Chaplin Nature Center to see what it was all about. We had noticed it looks like there is salt everywhere and their welcoming sign talks about salt....turns out Chaplin is home to one of the most Saline bodies of water in the world and an incredible amount of birds come to Chaplin. We had a tour of the nature center and the guide mentioned they have a type of pelican that has its young there, but they fly 60 miles each day to a different body of water to catch fish that they bring back to feed their young....that is one ambitious bird doing what it has to do!

I forget how rare these albino coyotes are but they are extremely rare!

We saw the real thing, but this model helped describe how the mine and saline body of water actually thrive off each other...it was pretty nice to think this mine wasn't destroying the world.

We asked for directions to the campground and Bev from Gull Lake had called  Geri Ball in Chaplin to organize our stay for the night and she was able to get the city to allow us to camp for free.

This campground was strange because it is right in a town park, but we enjoyed our stay and met a very interesting man named "Presty". Presty was pulling a huge Airstream trailer with an F450 truck and he noticed I was working on my bike. He mentioned that he was a mechanic for the movie industry in Vancouver and had some stuff that would help me remove the grease....I was pretty skeptical at first because I only have one bike and I have had lots of people who think they know how to help....BUT, Presty was awesome...he cleaned my bike up, donated to our ride, and offered to have us join him for a movie. Presty gave us tons of craft dinner, a space heater, and a folding pylon for Elyse to put behind her when she stops on the road. We even woke up to boiled eggs from Presty for the ride...He entertained us with some incredible stories and made out night!