July 27, 2017, Day 67, Young’s Cove to Moncton. 103 km

Why was I wide awake at 3am? Charlie too, but that could be expected; he’d napped for almost 2 hours during the day. I snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag and tried to catch the tail of my last dream. 

No. It didn’t work. Charlie was wide awake working on his Amazon Fire. I turned over and opened my iPad. An hour or so later I put it down, closed my eyes and dozed off. No such luck for Charlie. Eventually he gave up, crawled out of the tent and sat by the river as the sun peeked over the horizon and the new day began. He took some breathtaking pictures that he shared with me later when I awoke. Made me wish I’d stayed up with him. ….Almost.

We breakfasted, packed, and headed to Moncton on the TransCanada highway on wide, smooth shoulders, climbing long, slow hills. Charlie and I hold different philosophies on how to take on hills. He likes to coast down them, expending no energy until it’s absolutely necessary to turn a few cranks. I don’t like to ride behind  him going downhill as then I have to brake or I’ll run right over him.  I like to attack hills and let fly! I pedal for all I’m worth until there’s no resistance and then, on the upswing, I pedal some more. It’s not safe to do that here however, as the asphalt can’t be trusted. Somehow though, despite my efforts, Charlie always overtakes me climbing hills. Big sigh…….

   It wasn’t warm out and we were dressed accordingly. Every now and then we’d ride through some rain droplets but there was never enough to make us stop and don our raingear. It was good.

Cory was munching banana bread, and washing it down with coffee, at a corner store, his lightly packed road bike with super skinny tires balanced against the wall beside him.  (He’s had more than 10 flats, 4 within 80 km!) He started his journey from Vancouver Island and also plans to finish in Newfoundland. He’s faster than we are though, (buff and about 35 years younger). His start date was June 5th. Today his plan was to get to PEI, about 187 km away. Cycling alone for most of his journey, he was finding the ride long and lonely and he expressed an eagerness to get it over with. He planned on  joining someone from Quebec on PEI that he’d met earlier in his journey and he and his friend were going to cycle Cape Breton together and then ferry to Newfoundland and finish off there. He is a gas fitter, air conditioning technician with a union job waiting for him in Kitchener-Waterloo when he’s ready to start. It seems incredible to us that we too are so close to finishing this marathon ride. We look forward to it because we know that we will feel proud of ourselves for completing this goal; that this dream did not just stay on the drawing board. But in another way, it’s also a bit sad. It will be the end of an absolutely amazing experience, an extreme adventure. We hope and plan on having time at the end to see Chantal, Charlie’s younger daughter, her husband, Adam, George, their four year old son and Robyn, the elder daughter, her husband John and their two kids, Jack and Cookie, who are on the east coast for the summer. The rest of the year Robyn and her family live in Rimbey, about 2 1/2 hours north west of Calgary. We also want to see Charlie’s brothers and their families and to have a couple of days for just the two of us to relax and reflect. (Seems funny to say that we’re hoping to have a couple of days alone, when really, we’ve been together 24/7 for 67 days so far. )

Tonight we are staying at a bed and breakfast run by a Chinese couple who immigrated to Canada 31 years ago. They own 3 houses in a row and rent out rooms, which appear to be in high demand. We chatted with them for a while and tomorrow, the woman owner, will show us pictures of her hometown.  We showered (and I actually had the use of a blow dryer!) and wandered downtown, settling on a fusion Thai-Vietnamese restaurant where they served us appetizing and beautifully presented meals.       It felt like a real date. Then we slipped next door to The Pump House Brewery for another drink before walking back, hand-in-hand, to our home-away-from home for tonight.