September 09, 2012

Day 71 - Blinded By The Lights

It poured out while I was in my tent all night but fortunately stopped shortly after I wanted to leave. I ended up getting a reply from the couple in St. Ignace and despite the short notice they were happy to grant me a place to stay. The only downside was I had to sit around waiting for my phone to charge before I could check the email so I didn't leave until close to 2 pm. It was about 130 km to their house so I would be getting in late, but they didn't mind. The people you find on warmshowers are so accommodating!

The wind today was much more cooperative and I made great time traveling down 8 and 134. I passed through a few towns and usual wooded highways and the Centennial Bridge in Miramichi. The sun slowly sank down and painted the east a nice gold color until it was gone fully and I was left to deal with the constantly growing and shrinking shoulders. At times they were crumbled apart and it made for extremely unsafe riding. The night traffic wasn't too busy but the long straight stretches of road would have me blinded by high beams for a minute or more until the cars passed.

At one point a truck grazed by me coming way to far past the white line. There was no oncoming traffic so I had to wonder why he veered to the right so much, only to see him go off into the opposite lane as he went on up the road. Most likely a drunk driver, and it was a Sunday night too... After seeing this I got pretty shook up about passing traffic so I ended up getting off the shoulder every time I saw the lights of a car approaching behind me. It made for slow travel but it felt safer.

My little on/off shoulder routine almost got me thrown off the bike at one point when I hopped off the shoulder onto the dirt to get away from an approaching car only to hit a chuck of shoulder again and go flying back on. I bounced on and off the steep and cracked shoulder a couple more times but the bike held true and despite the busted pieces of shoulder everywhere I managed to stay on. I'm pretty sure the speed and weight of the bike were the only things that kept it from getting knocked over.

Despite the crappy roads I made it to the couples house by 10pm. I was greeted by Charles and Marthe at their giant house and fed a ton of food. It was late so we only chatted briefly and I was shown to the basement where I had an entire living room, bedroom, and bathroom to use! Charles welcomed me to take tomorrow off if I liked and set off to bed. My warmshowers hosts always make it hard to say no! I watched a bit of netflix and will have a great sleep tonite in my own little paradise.