I was up and out of Holland good and early. Farm lands yada yada yada. There was however a line of 600 train carts to the right of me that sported some fantastic graffiti with gems like "Your all fucking slaves". Slaves to proper grammar apparently. One train in particular had an amazing picture of a watching eye with two other separate tags of "JOBS" and "SLOW" (My nickname is my initials, JOB). Where did this mystic train car come from!?
I also saw an actual live snake on the road. Up until then they had all been flat sticks of leather or fresh bloody tubes. This guy apparently was going to take revenge on the cars by standing in the road and looking mean. Well I stopped to watch this disaster unfold while yelling at the snake for his foolishness as a car drove over him without making contact. The gust of wind must have frightened him because he did his little snake wobble back towards me and right under my pedals to go live another day.
I stopped in (somewhere, ill figure it out later) for a delicious burger at a local diner. A lot of people in this town were French. I'll have to read up about it when I have cell service again. I stopped again later in the day in Starbuck and got directions from Deb who was in Winnipeg at a warmshowers host's house.
I worked my way up 2 riding the small bumpy shoulder until signs of Winnipeg popped up and the shoulders tripled in size for more comfortable riding. The outskirts of town started showing up and soon enough there were cars and businesses everywhere. I rode on through the flat streets and into downtown where some tall buildings sprang up for the first time since Calgary. I started hitting a lot of red lights and felt both annoyed and amused about how I hadn't encountered them in so long. JOBS SLOW.
North I went and the town got a little ugly with pawn shops, sleazy motels, ghetto cash cheque shops, and run down lots with no apparent business left. A few hobos and raggedy looking types on top of this reminded me of the charm a small town holds over any city.
After crawling up main street through more traffic lights that fulfilled the prophecy of the eyeball train car I came to our hosts street which was blanketed in trees and quite nice. Shortly after I arrived everybody showed up from a walk with the dogs and we all went inside for a good time.
I met the kind family, their two dogs and squad of cats. It turns out the father Darcy runs an animal shelter. I really wished I could have gotten Coal here but on top of refusing to sit still in my handlebar bag like E.T. a part of me would never know if someone else actually did own him back in his home town. I hope he is still OK...
I was served a warm dinner of potatoes, peas, chicken, and gravy which has been the best meal of the year so far. We all chatted for a while as we took turns getting much needed showers and cleaning all our clothes. Myself, the mother and her two daughters played monopoly junior (I got destroyed) and we all called it a night afterwards.
Before turning in I discovered my kobo was broken and I'm really bummed out that I can't read "Fools Fate" to finish off the trilogy. I'll have to get a hard copy in town somewhere to keep me sane during those quiet nights in the tent. Tomorrow I should get pretty close to Ontario!
