Day 55 - Charlottetown (PEI) to Mount Thom (NS)

Charlottetown (PEI) to past Mount Thom (NS)
115 km, sunny, high of 25 (29 with humidex)
Winds – against me, 30 km/h winds, with gusts up to 37 k/h

Blah. Blase, blase. The winds were strong right from the start, and in my face. The mp3 player gave me a little treat though. There are two albums that the songs are just labled “Track 01, Track 02, etc”. Those two albums: Portishead (Portishead), and The Cure (Bloodflowers). So, the music would alternate between the two albums. Bring out the heroin. It was one of those days that I just looked ahead by 10-15 feet, pedaled, and soaked-up the tunes. Besides those two albums, a few other tracks were labeled the same: one by Hawksley Workman, and two by Amy Winehouse (To Know Him Is To Love Him, Unholy War), which kept up with the mood that was previously established. After that run was done, I continued with more Portishead.

Backtrack a bit. When I was writing the entry last night, in that awesome lounge, I was joined by Melanie. She's an Aussie (of of many around here, and surprisingly to me, many Japanese that moved here), works as the hostel for the past 9 months. The chat was nice, but it also tapped into my needed beauty sleep. She too was quite tired, and was slowly becoming part of the couch. Eventually, she slowly went home, and I finished my entry. Later, her pal (I forgot his name) comes in, fairly wasted, and we start up a conversation. He had two Canadian beers left, which one became mine. Free beer, even though sub-par quality, I will still take it. That lasted probably an hour, so that definitely put me in debt again. I figured I would have a total of 8 hours of sleep in the past 2 nights. Nice.

The morning came quickly (once I went to bed). The breakfast at the hostel was mainly a variety of breads, and some fruit. To my surprise, they had a jar of Saskatoon berries – I finished what was left of it. After I updated the blog and pictures, I headed to the information centre to find out where was located the pavilion of the Trans-Canada Trail, as I have to take a picture of the name that is engraved there. They were completely lost, and the Internet didn't help them out any further. So, I did my own search on the Internet. Within 2 minutes, I informed them of the spot, where it turned on a light in their noggin (they forgot about that spot).

Off I went to find it, and I found what I needed. Cool. Her name made it on the first of the three boards (therefore one of the first batch of people to make a donation). It's cool to be a part of that. My name, well, it'll be in Halifax where I will find it.

I left late to start with, and lost a bunch of time at the Information Centre (also talking to folks about the bike trip). I pondered doing a 60 k TT to try to catch the ferry for a specific time, but nixed that pretty quick. Had a quick lunch on the edge of town, then just faced the wind for the next 3 hours.

At one point, I pulled off the road to buy a quart of strawberries. I also noticed potato fudge, which I bought it, and split it with another person who was curious about it as well. I haven't tasted it yet. The quart of strawberries ended up in the front pannier, and I ate the whole thing within 5 km of riding. I think I got my fruit quota for the day. Tasty, great strawberries.

The ferry. I plugged the computer and mp3 to recharge, and just slept on and off. At the end, I was out, and had to be woken up by an attendant.

New Scotland. Nova Scotia. Eight provinces done, two more to go. I had to head South to then start heading West again. Gees, more detours. Seeing signs that stated “Cape Breton – 89 km East, Halifax – 119 km West”. The trip would be a lot shorter if I just went East. But, no, I have to do this. The winds weren't nice. There's going to be some bad weather coming soon, as the winds were from the East, and South. So, we'll see what happens in a few days.

I decided to keep on biking to reduce the amount of kms I would have to do tomorrow to kick it into Halifax, where I have another rest day. I think there's going to be lots to do there. My friends, Kim and Sean, ended up being shipped to sea and to Base Borden. Dang. Revenons a nos moutons. So, I kept on biking.

After some groceries for the evening and breakfast, I headed back out on the road. If you remember that the mp3 was playing song titles that started with “Track”, some of you might have an idea of what song came a bit later. That was a nice moment, as the winds did stop for 20 minutes or so. Later on, it was back to the grind. My companion in my ears was Saez for a few albums.

I found an abandoned house on the side of the road, surrounded by little pine trees. I thought I could go on biking for another 30-60 minutes, but decided to stop for the night. I took advantage of the light, and took out my sowing kit so I could sow a screen patch to cover the rip on the tent. Lazy night. But, now, I get to just stare at the ¾ full moon and crash.

So, semi-blah day. There are a few avenues I can take with a day like this, but in my opinion, I'm choosing the best one: turn the page.

Ciao,

p

*** I'm a total dork. I was convinced my god-daughter's birthday was in August. Two days ago. Shit. I'm a bad godfather. Dork. Sorry Paige and crew. I'll try to make it up. There goes me trying to finish my rip a day or two earlier so I could show up as a surprise to her birthday party. dork.