160.16 km

Biking time: 6 hours 40 minutes

3796 km total

We ate breakfast in a diner in Wawa next to a gigantic statue of a goose. Then we entered Lake Superior Park. So, 90 km of our route after breakfast was through a park with no supermarkets or grocery stores around. We knew this before we entered the park, but it was either buy bad, expensive snack food at the diner/convenience store or just go with the few cereal bars we had left. We chose the latter. That probably wasn’t a wise choice.

There were a couple big hills near the park’s entrance (west) and it was a generally hilly ride throughout. The hills really kicked up as we left the park and to make matters more difficult, our lack of food meant we were cycling on fumes by that point. Leaving the park was a long, sustained, moderate gradient climb that took the good out of Kinger. I was hurting too, and we both knew that there was no way we’d get to camp and be able to ride tomorrow if we didn’t get some food in us. With the park behind us, we found a place to eat in Montreal RIver. Of course, it was on the top of a hill. The hill wasn’t big or overly steep, but it bit. By this point, however, we were both too tired to muster any type of emotional reaction to it. We resigned ourselves to riding up hills, eating dinner and getting to bed before doing it all again tomorrow.

After dinner, it was a more relaxed and very scenic 40 km to this park. At the camp office we met this really friendly guy who gave us a ride to our campsite which was off in the park suburbs or something. He invited us down to their group camping area, but we were exhausted and both wanted to get some rest. He drove up a couple of hours later and we went with him to the beach with about 10 others from Sault Ste Marie. It was a good time. Had a couple beer and listened to this one dude playing guitar. It was relaxed, but it wasn’t sleeping, which is what I should be doing at 1am instead of writing in this journal. All the people at the beach warned us about Mile Hill before Sault Ste Marie. I don’t think I’m going to have any fun tomorrow.

Imagine if geese were actually this big! Terrifying.

LOOKING BACK, 10 YEARS LATER: I don’t know why we thought not eating was a good move. From the west entrance of the park to about the midway point, there was great scenery and we were both really enjoying the ride. I started gradually losing energy as we neared the east exit/entrance and had virtually nothing left in the tank by the time we left the park. Kinger simply hit the wall. That was a fun night on the beach; having a couple of beer and listening to the guy on guitar. It was one o’clock in the morning and it felt like I hadn’t slept in days.