What an excellent night's sleep! The plants I was trampling flat beneath my sleeping mat and tent made a perfect bed for the night. Perhaps I was nestled in the favourite sleeping spot for the deer as they snorted outside the tent quite soon after dark. By morning condensation had formed on the inside of the tent but it wasn't cold enough to freeze it there.
Poking my head of the tent at 7:30 I could see the staff car park of the New Glasgow Hospital had already started filling. Wading through the tall dewy grass of the vacant land behind the hospital grounds I could see it was going to be another sunny day in Nova Scotia, but it was already starting to blow and the flags were pointing the wrong way - east. Later I was thinking that all thoughts and hopes for a westerly are being answered beyond my needs now.
Though well hidden/camouflaged I didn't want the tent seen and reported so I packed thinking I'd cook porridge at the picnic table I'd seen down the road at a service station. With it being windy I knew it'd be a challenge to cook with a dwindling gas supply. McDonald's was across the road and they serve hotcakes... I am so weak. I can turn any extravagance (my 2nd McD breakfast in two months) into a justified celebration or some other feeble excuse. Fish and chips last night?: anniversary dinner.
I did get to read the day's newspaper though. The submarine fire received many pages of coverage.
On the road it was in to the wind as expected. It was to be that way for the rest of the day. I pulled over at Exit 21 of Highway 104 to use the computer I'd seen there at the tourist info I'd seen last time I was there. A tour bus was in so the place was milling with tourists and the info corner packed, the computer occupied. I chatted with Kara, the friendly consultant, until the tour left and the computer became available. With her so friendly/chatty and the group gone it was just me to talk with and so computing was impaired. It wasn't a bother, it was fun to listen to her.
I wasn't much enjoying the ride today. The wind made it tough. Traffic was mostly well-behaved as we were quite close due to the 1 metre-wide shoulder. Some close calls, the most notable being a house being transported. Like the other close calls, I could've touched it if I had taken my hand off the handle bar and straightened my arm. If I don't get touched then I don't worry so much about the near misses. It it looked like they had a choice then I get a bit frustrated. When it looks like they're just toying with me I carry out a little internal dialogue with me offering the logic to the driver: "So you choose to drive close to a cyclist with a closing speed of around 90km/h when you want to avoid a collision with another metal object passing only about 20km/h faster who has a shoulder on their side of the road too?"
Because I'm retracing road I'd already cycled my landmark today was Exit 18, the camp site of Thursday last week/month. I finally reached it and spread out the tent pieces in the sun and the wind. It'd be such an excellent day for riding if I was still heading east. Took a self-portrait of me eating a bagel with the tent drying - a typical lunch stop.
Downhill to Truro - still gotta pedal to actually move though. Booked time with the Truro Public Library to write up a press release announcing my arrival in Britain a week ahead of the crossing of the finish line. I want to get the media's attention so I can get some more publicity for ITDG and for Zoom Airlines
- sorry for the incomplete entry, but I'm being kicked out of the internet cafe at Halifax Internatio.nal Airport -
