148.18 km
Biking time: 4 hours 43 minutes
2576.7 km total
First thing to note today – Gogi got into U of T med school. He’s got to be pumped about that! Second thing to note – I rode my bike into the back of a car. Brilliant move! No damage, so no big deal. Other than me looking like an idiot. We were biking through Winnipeg to meet up with the TCH and and as I tried to change lanes, I moved too quickly into a lane with a car that was stopped at a red light. A really late start today, 11:15am, but we got close to 150 km in, so it’s ok. Once we finally made it to the highway, we stopped at a Petro Canada to eat lunch. When we were there Kinger realized he left his rain pants at the Gupta’s house and realized I left my rain jacket. We were going to go on without them (and get them from Gogi later) when Kinger realized that he also forgot his, money, ID and credit card. Luckily their daughter was home and was nice enough to drive out and bring us the stuff we left.
Just after leaving the gas station heading east, I got a flat. This one was due to a sharp staple that must’ve been lying on the road. Just after that, I saw something on the road at the last second and I swerved to avoid it. I turned back to see what is was just in time to see Kinger clip the chunk of wood and take a quick detour into the roadside ditch. That one’s on me, I’ve got to at least yell or something next time. We were lucky with that one, Kinger just got his cast off yesterday. We kept up a good pace all day and it didn’t take long for us to find a place to stop for dinner and to get to this campground. It would’ve been faster had it not been for the enormous swarms of flies around our heads following us from just outside Winnipeg all the way here (I felt like Pigpen from Peanuts).
We stopped at a gas station to buy some fly dope. It didn’t work at all. Maybe we’ll just spray ourselves with Raid next time. We gave Thibeau a shout tonight. It looks like he’ll be moving to London, ON in September. It also looks like it’ll be a big day tomorrow and with all of these flies, we have added incentive to get going early.
Longitudinal Centre of Canada
LOOKING BACK, 10 YEARS LATER: I guess we were both a bit out of sorts on this day. It was surprising how much it threw us off our rhythm. It wasn’t the like a friend moving away. Gogi had spent every moment the three weeks with us; cycling all day, eating, sleeping in the same small tent. The only moment we were away from each other was when we used the bathroom. It’s really strange to think about.