It was with immense sadness that I had to finally say goodbye to David, Sydney and Remy this morning and set off for home. I am so glad it worked out for us to spend so much time together. It was grey and a bit misty right before I left so everything was wet but the temperature was pretty good, mid fifties, and the mist held off as I wound my way south along the paths beside the Bow river. Several miles away from the city I climbed a little rise and saw Calgary's skyline for the last time. I had no trouble navigating the path system till I got close to the end. There was a bridge construction that meant I had to jump on a limited access highway to cross the river but it wasn't as scary as I feared. I only had to be on it to cross over and was able to get off at the next exit which had a shoulder again. I rode through some new housing developments and retail on a somewhat low traffic divided parkway with 4 car lanes but no path or shoulder. I followed a few deserted back roads but had to ride a narrow two lane road into the town of Okotoks. Thankfully it was not that bad and once in town I was able to wind through on a nice path system. I took another highway with a nice shoulder to the Okotoks Erratics, well worth a slight diversion. They are a couple of huge three story house sized quartzite boulders just sitting strangely in the middle of the grassy prairie. An ancient rock slide near modern day Jasper fell on a huge glacier between 15000-30000 years ago. The glacier then carved its way through the valley and carried these boulders all the way here. When I arrived in Calgary just a week ago I didn't notice any leaves changing colors but there are a few trees here and there that have begun, signaling that I need to get a move on. A big storm that looked like it was about to swallow me at the Erratics missed me narrowly and afterward the day turned out to quite nice, if cooler than it's been lately. Wind shifted around today and I had a good tailwind going south but going east was into the wind. On the whole it was a good and fast ride today. I finally found some extended gravel sections the few miles into Nanton, which I enjoyed. Partly because I was so early, I decided to actually get a campground site at the town campground. Glad I did. It's a really nice and quiet spot and has free WiFi to boot! And there's hardly anyone here.