Before leaving Edmunston I took a few photos with Mr. Giroux, left at about 9:40am - the weather was picture PERFECT - absolutely amazing... I suppose I already got that point across. Anyway, the cycling was pretty easy going, only thing that I don't quite understand is why the highways in this province change numbers as frequently as they do... a bit frustrating, the good thing is there seems to be an abundance of roads that lead in the same direction... once again a good thing, but also a curse. It seems that I ended up on the wrong side of the St. John river time and time again. Meaning that I was taking the LONG way to Fredericton. In the back of my mind I was hoping to make it to Fredericton in one day (which would have been my longest one day ride ever at 265km - perhaps a bit ambitious)... at around 6:30pm - I ran into my first snag - I was almost out of water - only about 600mL left in my emergency backpack (I have always kept one bottle just in case this situation happened). In order to solve my water dilemma - I stopped and asked one of the friendly people sitting on their porch - met a wonderful woman who gave me water and ice and continued on my way...
By about 7:45pm I decided I needed to find a place to camp or a motel to crash in... the difficult part was none were found... so I kept riding, contemplating just stopping and putting my tent up at the side of the road. This wouldn't have been the best move - but I figured I didn't have enough energy left in me to continue all the way to Fredericton (especially when i saw that I was still about 50km out of the city). Definitely my darkest hour, in this entire trip across Canada. Then it all changed.
I saw two people sitting on their front deck and I stopped... I suppose I did the right thing by asking if I could camp on their lawn first and then ask if a campground was nearby. Jerry Brown was his name and his daughter Nicole was there visiting (she works for McCain Canada). Anyway, obviously knowing this information is an indication that I camped on Jerrys' lawn. Got to meet his son John and Kathy (his girlfriend). We enjoyed a beer in there backyard and then I headed off to my tent. Oh... I also forgot to mention that he let me shower and get all cleaned up.
Felt GREAT to be in a "safe" place. I put that in quotes because the area of New Brunswick where I was - is called Bear Island (due to the large number of bears in the area - funny thing is it isn't really an island).
Amazing day! Longest as well.
Distance travelled: 227.57km
Total Distance in Canada: 4983.40km
Total Distance for the Year: 8062.19km
Impressive cycle! And how great he let you camp in his front/back yard! Don't you just love the kindness of strangers.
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