Day 49 - Saint Marc du Lac Long

I impressed myself this morning when I woke up at 6:30 and was ready to go at 7:45. I think I'm finally getting the hang of the morning routine, just in time for the end of the trip. People are starting to count the days now. For them, there are two weeks left to St. John's. For me, there are 9 days to Cape Breton and 11 to Halifax. For my part, I'm in no hurry for the trip to be over. I suppose my feelings are different because I'm heading into familiar territory. For the others, they are traveling farther away from home so maybe they feel more urgency to get this strange ordeal over with.

The first 48 km was along the river, through vast plains with the occasional drumlin peeking out of the landscape, with an awesome tailwind pushing us along.

Then, things got a little more epic. As we turned the corner to head east, the tailwind turned into a sidewind, the plains turned into rolling hills and the weather turned to rain. The silver lining was that, as the only one without fenders, I was allowed to stay at the back of the group to avoid spraying the others with road sludge from my tires. It's usually a little more relaxing at the back so I got to save some energy.

At around 90 km we came to a small town with a little eatery. I ordered spaghetti and a medium poutine to share with the others. Then the guy showed me the size of a medium, which was about the diameter of a pie plate but deeper, so I downgraded to petit.

The expression on Isabel's face when we were presented with the poutine was priceless. I'm not sure what word describes it best... horror comes close. Regardless, it was quite tasty and excellent cycling fuel.

For me, the drama of the day came at the campsite where I decided to do laundry even though the dryer was out of order. At that time, the sun was beating down on us and I was convinced we'd seen the last of the rain. I couldn't have been more wrong as multiple waves of torrential rains rolled over us. I managed to hang up my clothes for about half an hour between two of the waves, but it wasn't enough to get them close to dry. They're now hanging under our breakfast canopy and I'm looking forward to the commentary on my "intimates" tomorrow morning.

The silver lining in this case (there always is one, you know) was a beautiful double rainbow over the lake. Yes, a DOUBLE rainbow! Unfortunately, I was too busy saving my stuff from the downpour to get a picture. This was later on:

Today's track

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