Day 68: 89 km

July 13, 2012

Canso causeway- North Sydney: Argentia Ferry

Today we had to hustle to make the Argentia ferry. We said our goodbyes to Mary at the highlands B&B (Mary if you read this I was unable to rate your B&B on trip advisor but everyone who reads this, her place feels like home. Best B&B I've been to). I had absolutely no motivation to bike. I was so tired! Lucky for me mom was super excited all day and motivated me to keep going!! But I did get a 10 min. snooze, which was much needed. 

It was so strange biking beside the ocean today. After all the lakes in Manitoba and Ontario, and the river in Quebec, it's hard to remember that it is salt water, and I am almost done! But I would be occasionally reminded by the cool salty breeze. 

Half way through the day mom found this awesome lunch place to meet me at. The Farmers Daughter in Whycocomagh. It had a sit down resturant, icecream, gifts, fresh baking, and much more. Such an awesome shop. In that town, they were very native. Even their stop signs were in the tribes language. 

It was pretty cool. I had a big lunch there. Big enough to need that 10 minute nap I talked about, and then I carried on with mom telling me not to speed. Funny. 

At about 2:30pm I started climbing Kelly mountain. They had a sign letting people know about the "pass",  but it wasn't much of a pass at all, it was cute! I guess it's the perspective thing again. But it did get difficult when the headwinds came. I had gusts of strong headwinds that were so cold from the ocean that I had goosebumps even though it was 30 degrees out. It was crazy how chilled I got climbing a hill in that hot weather. 

At the top of Kelly mountain mom caught back up to me at St. Anne's look out, and we took lots of  pictures. She had stayed back and explored.  All of the sudden this car pulled up and it had this amazing dog in the back seat!!! It was a huskey Sheppard, and that's the exact breed that I am looking into rescuing when I get home!!!! I got to see him all grown up, and I loved it! Mom, not so much. He was as big as a 2 year old boy, and mom isn't exactly in love with big dogs. But, she's a great sport and if anyone knows how much I need a dog in my life, it's mom. I rolled my bike in human poop (I deduced this because of the toilet paper laying around it) and I was not thrilled. So after I got the poop off my bike and went a bit more, we had to throw my bike in the car to make the "4pm loading time". Which they didn't actually load until 5:30, and I could have made it, but if we would have missed it, it would have been a $430 dollar mistake plus moms flight home. Not worth it. So we cheated about 30 km. 

While we were waiting they played Scottish music over the loud speakers. It was really cool. Nova Scotia really resembled Scotland with the names and the landscape. They play Scottish music, sell Scottish plaid, and are very proud to say they are Scottish. It was really interesting. Canada isn't boring, I'll tell you that. 

We were waiting to board the ferry when I saw a bike all packed up off to the side so I went to go chat. Anthony has been biking since May 2, from Victoria. We chatted for a while but then had to get back into the car to board. 

 

 Trying to take a picture while my hair was blowing from the wind

After we boarded and mom and I showered in our cabins (yes, we got a cabin!!) we went down for dinner. We had a delicious dinner and went to walk around the ship some more. It was huge! And so busy! But somehow we ran back into Anthony, who had met yet another biker, Lori. Lori has been biking since Quebec, and has been on quite the adventure, stopping places for sometimes weeks along the way. We offered them our shower and Lori and I went up so she could shower. We ended up chatting for close to an hour, and she even video interviewed me for her site, www.inspiring-spokes.com. Then we had a knock on the door, and it was Anthony. Haha oops, we chatted a bit longer, and then they showered up and we went back to meet mom who was laughing along to Anthony's blog - Anthony's Trans-Canada bike odyssey. We had so much fun chatting away. Then mom and I went to bed. It was so fun to meet Anthony and Lori! 

                        Mom in her massage chair.

The article for Macleans magazine is up, written by Aaron Hutchins. ! It is about the cycling community that is crossing Canada. Here is the link! www2.macleans.ca/category/canada