Denny Across Canada: New roads and old roads

Finally wrapped up the rest days in Calgary. Well, I did hike up a big ass mountain the other day so not a 100% rest day there I guess. Anyways, I took my sweet time leaving the city. I adjusted my new seat, did some grocery shopping, and sat around doing coffee and donuts for a while. Important thing you must tell yourself regarding all aspects of bike touring: it's not a race.
I did eventually get the point where everything was loaded up and I hit the road around 11 am. Quick pit stop to visit my sister and nephew on the way out of the city and take some pics with my and my nephew's matching outfits.
Only a kilometer later I was playing a rousing game of "what's making that noise" with my bike so I pulled over for some creaking thing diagnosis and a sandwich. Turns out I just needed to tighten the bolts holding my new saddle in place, so easy fix, quick lunch, and back on the road.
Pretty easy afternoon, spent half the day facing north and trying not to get blown off the road, and the other half facing east and flying down the road at 30 - 40 km/hr.
Set my goal for the day as the town of Carbon, and it worked out just right that I was starting to get tired right at the point I rolled into town. Despite only having a few streets, it took me nearly half an hour to find the campground (blame Google Maps), but I eventually got settled in for the night.
Not really the best night of sleep though. Maybe I got used to sleeping in a real bed again, and maybe it was the coyotes howling in the valley, but I woke up a lot during the night. Nice and dry though, despite the thunder clouds that were threatening when I jumped into the tent fot the night.
Legs were definitely a bit stiff despite the rest days, and I had some dece hills for the first 10 km but the sun was shining, and I was biking a highway I've never been on before to Drumheller.
Few hours later, I was sitting outside the cafe in Drumheller, watching a corgi bark at a dinosaur statue painted like batman, sipping my free latte (Telus promotional event of some kind, jokes on them I don't even live here).
I decided over coffee to take Highway 9 into Saskatchewan, despite driving it about ten timea previously. I remembered it being relatively quiet and the camping and grocery options seemed good. It's also just a nice road to drive.
Leaving out of Drumheller, I expected some downhills towards the afternoon, since the prairies are supposed to slope away from the Rockies and I seem to keep going uphill. To my confusion, I seemed to be gradually climbing, albiet at only a 2% gradient, for about 35 km. Turning in to Delia for a water top-up and snack break, I happened to find a sign that kindly informed me that I was at the highest point on the old railline between Calgary and Saskatoon. Well, that explained a lot.
The last 34 km into Hanna went alright, aside from some headwinds, until I crested the last hill and saw the town off in the distance.
"Alright, almost there", I thought.
Then 5 minutes passed. Then 10, 15, 20 minutes. And despite the sign informing me that the town was only 1 km away, my own eyes (and later, my spedometer) suggested it was more like 3 or 4.
When I finally made it into town, I was hitting the wall pretty bad so I limped and stumbled into the grocery store for emergency pie and potato chips. Stashing my treasures, I hammered out the last 4 km to the campground on fumes and settled in for the night.
Nice enough campground, well maintained and quite busy for a Wednesday night.