Day 47: Separation Anxiety (Algoma Mills – Espanola)

June 25, 2014

No miracle is to be today. My phone hasn’t come online again since last night and after waiting until 11am for the resturaunt to open so I could contact the waiter I talked to, I discovered it was not turned in to her. The fact that it showed up at that resturaunt/motel was a coincidence. Waking in the morning, I considered leaving my stuff at the campground and doing a long day to Bruce Mines and back or hitchhiking there. Thankfully, I counseled myself to patience for it would have been a day wasted. So I’m resigning myself to the idea that the phone is really gone. It seems a rather silly thing but all day, or the half day left, I felt like my bike load wasn’t complete and that I forgot something important. Mostly, felt more alone on the road than I have in a while. No longer are there a whole list of friends and family a text away. A new dimension of the trip begins until I get a another phone.

Adorable tool shed at the campground this morning
Adorable tool shed at the campground this morning

I only encountered one cyclists today and that was a rather strange experience. I noticed her approaching ahead so crossed the highway to chat. She was going rather slowly, a little more loaded down than typical, and I thought a little disheveled. We exchanged our destinations and then she asked with a slight accent, “Is there a report?” As touring cyclists there’s a standard list of reports we exchange: how far something is, what the terrain is like, good places to stay and eat, or maybe sights worth detouring. Not sure quite what she asked, I wanted to know what she meant by report. Without any attempt to explain or rephrase she replied, “You America. You cannot help me.” It turns out I’m more of a Canadian than I thought as I almost instinctually replied that I was in fact Canadian but by then she was already pedaling away. Without so much as a ‘never mind’ or ‘good day’ she turned away and was off again, mind you not particularly fast either. A little bewildered and chucking to myself, I watched her labour on thinking this is too hilarious. She may have been inquiring about a rest stop. I hope I just caught her in a bad moment because if ‘Americans’ are generally this useless to her, it seems an odd choice of continent to cycle. It’s full of them from sea to sea.

With this exception, cycling across the country places you into a touring community of sorts as another cyclists put it. There are so many people on the road you often heard about a cyclists days before you meet them through locals or other cyclists. I keeping thinking it’s a little like early settlers or drifters during the Depression. We move relatively slowly to everyone around us and generally have no instant communication between each other. Yet we tend to travel some of the same routes, stay at the same places, share the good and bad about the road ahead, and of course tell many trail stories.

Either a gutsy name for a restaurant or lowering expectations at the door. The latter was probably the case in my experience.
Either a gutsy name for a restaurant or lowering expectations at the door. The latter was probably the case in my experience.

Road Report: ~88km
The road has improved remarkably since Sault Ste Marie except on entering Espanola where the shoulder is crumbling away again. But improved doesn’t include a wide shoulder as that’s still the few feet of pavement. There are also some excellent flat stretches today, which were unfortunately of no use to me as I was facing headwinds.

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