Day 25 - Kenora to Ignace

Kenora to Ignace
249.5 km (oh so close), 10.5 hrs
raining, up to 11 degrees
partly windy (some head wind with cross winds)

On a long and lonesome highway, east of Kenora
You can listen to the rain moaning out its one lone song
You can think about woman, or the girl you knew the night before,
But your thoughts will soon be wandering, the way they always do.
When your riding ten hours and theres nothing much to do
And you dont feel much like riding, you just wish the day was through.
Say, here I am, on the road again. there I am, up on the stage.
Here I go, playing star again.
There I go, turn the page.
Well you walk into a restaurant, strung out from the road,
You can feel the eyes upon you as your shaking off the cold
You pretend it doesnt bother you, but you just want to explode.
Most times you cant hear em talk, other times you can.
Oh the same old cliche, is that woman or a man
You always see my number, you dont dare make a stand.
Here I am, on the road again. there I am, up on the stage.
Here I go, playing star again.
There I go, turn the page.
Out there in the spotlight you're 2000 km away,
Every ounce of energy, you try and give away,
As the sweat pours out your body like the km that you put away.
Later in the evening as you lie awake in bed,
With the echo from the big-rigs ringing in your head,
You drank the days last beer, remembering what she said.
Now here I am, on the road again. there I am, up on the stage.
Here I go, playing star again.
There I go, turn the page.
Here I am, on the road again. there I am, up on the stage.
Ah here I go, playing star again.
There I go, there I go.

Lots of rain today, but no downpour. My bike did pick up lots of crap from the road – the drivetrain was pretty gritty at the end of the day.

Lots of people are doing little Inukshuks along the way. I took a few pics of them.

On a coincidence note, while listening to a tune by Pulp, one of the lyrics was “It's 4 o'clock, and the real world seems so far away”. I thought “It must be close to 4 o'clock” and checked my watch. 16h00 and a few seconds. Interesting. I didn't believ it, so I checked a few seconds later, and confirmed that it was, in fact, 4 pm. I thought that was weird, yet cool.

Food – I stopped into a restaurant as the sign attracted me: a big B with moose antlers on each side, and the restaurant's name is something like “Burgers Barbeque”. Decent food, but what is noteworthy is their award winning bbq sauces – their blueberry bbq sauce. They have two versions: normal, and spicy. I tried them both. Tasty. The spicy one was a bit too risky to put on the burger as I didn't want to suffer any consequences later, so I settled for the regular. Their chicken and sausage gumbo was delicious.

Dryden – when I turned the corner to head to downtown, I get to see some factories spewing out dark grey and black smoke out of their smokestacks. This superimposes the little town. Not the prettiest site. Pulp mill, so it probably smells a bit on hot days.

I lost some time in Dryden looking for the internet, and then for a cup of coffee. After lots of time wasted trying to tap into the library system, I decided to nix the internet thing and go for a coffee. The only thing decent was Tim Horton's. Well, I've never had to wait in line 15 minutes before, and the counter people were a bit on the slow side. What didn't help were abnoxious american hunters (or something) being all confused and such. So, I lost maybe up to 45 minutes in Dryden.

That loss turned out to tap into the daylight hours I had to ride. The tail end of the ride was, well, not ideal. There wasn't much light when I finished the ride.

The campsite was alright. Since I was looking for electricity and Internet access, the guy offered me to camp out on his lawn (his house is on the premises) and tap into the two. That was nice of him. Plus he gave me a discount. What was great about the place was the extremely hot showers. Boy I enjoyed that, I didn't want to leave.

I noticed lately my appetite is getting bigger. I think I must of ate for an hour in the tent. The garbage I took out in the morning was a bag full of empty boxes and such from all the food I ate that night. I basically ate everything I had – toasts, bagels, half a container of pasta and sauce, and chocolate milk/hot chocolate. I think I'll turn into a pig.

On the road, I also saw some tell-tale signs of a cyclist before me. There was an empty compressed-air cartridge on the side of the road, and later, an actual bike tire. Good that someone is biking across the country, but they ignored the “carry-in, carry-out” rule. Oh well.

Alright, time for sleep.

Bonne nuit,

p