Day Off In The Soo

With the long day of battling a headwind behind me, today became an unscheduled rest day. To say, “unscheduled” is a bit misleading as that might suggest that I have formulated some form of schedule. I haven’t. So, perhaps it’s better to call today a well-deserved rest day. In the grand scheme of things you can call it whatever you like, but the end result is that I’m not biking anywhere today. Well, except over to Tim Hortons.

Speaking of Tim Hortons (yeah, I know … not one of my better segues), is it just me or is their hot chocolate not very good? Their Creamy Chocolate Chill … very good. Their hot chocolate, less than impressive. I suppose I could’ve complained but I figured all I’d end up with is a replacement watery hot chocolate. I know, I know … first world problems.

Despite not being on the bike, I actually had a pretty productive day. Maybe I was productive because I wasn’t on the bike! One of the benefits of travelling with a 15″ laptop is that I’m able to work while I’m on the road. Now, some people might considering working while travelling to be a negative, not a positive. But when the alternative is sitting in an office, I’ll take working on the road any day.

So, I set up shop for about three hours in Tim Hortons working, drinking bad hot chocolate, and eating decent donuts (a Boston Creme and later a Maple Swirl, for those keeping track). My productivity limit was reached at about the same time my battery started to run out. Good timing. Besides, it’s not like I want to work ALL day. I had other pressing matters that required my attention. Namely, stocking up for the next few days.

The good news is there’s a Walmart within walking distance of my campsite. The bad news is there’s a Walmart within walking distance of my campsite. Sure, their prices are good but I can’t help but feel a little bit dirty whenever I enter that store – which is why my doing so is such a rare occasion. However, with price and proximity too tempting to resist, I sold what little bit of a soul I may have left and shopped at Walmart. I won’t go into details as to what I bought, but suffice it to say you can buy quite a bit for $20 at Walmart.

With three bags of goods in hand, I returned to my campsite behind Velorution with the plan of finally getting this blog updated. This went reasonably well for a while, but obviously not as well as hoped as it’s now Thursday as I type this. At least I got the previous day’s update finished.

Later in the afternoon a familiar face arrived at the campsite. Moritz had finished his day’s journey from Blind River and would be joining the party behind Velorution.

Fast forward a few hours and we decided ordering pizza would be a good idea. Isn’t it always? We set out on bike to find a suitable pizza place and were reasonably successful. Although, ordering a medium pizza each may have been excessive – but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The highlight of the day came as we pedalled our way back to the campsite carrying our large boxes of pizza (okay, technically they were medium boxes – but they were big mediums). Along the way we crossed paths with three young hitchhikers – well, “young” to me anyway. We weren’t in a position to offer a ride but we could offer pizza. They seemed very happy with our offer and for the next 15 min we shared pizza and discussed our respective travels.

Perspective is a funny thing. They thought it would be great to cycle across the country while I couldn’t help but think that their adventure was pretty impressive – especially the part about riding the rails. I certainly wasn’t doing that when I was eighteen!

We eventually parted ways, wished each other well and returned to our campsite for pizza and a campfire. A good plan to be sure. The campfire was better than the pizza but all things considered it was a very good day.

Tomorrow the ride to Wawa begins.