Days 41 to 45: Cape Breton (Sam's version of events)

Day 41

Kilometer 3697

Baddeck, NS (but really River Denys, NS)

Okay, picture this, if you will: you're biking in the middle of nowhere, in a foreign country, hoping to meet your dad at a pre-arranged time and place that's still half a day's ride away. And it's seven pm. It's been drizzling all day, and recently that drizzle turned into a full-on downpour. You're counting down kilometers, but the number is still in the fifties. Your spirit soared when you thought you saw a pay phone outside the one lone building you've passed in the past hour (a Presbyterian church), but it turned out to be a bulletin board. You haven't spoken to or heard from your dad in two days, and can only hope he comes looking for you. If not, then you'll be arriving at the hotel at around two am, at the rate you're going. And now, it's just started hailing. Okay, that's it. You'll stop a friendly-looking car and use their phone. Oh, but it's an international call. Or at least, a call to an American phone that's currently in Canada. Will it even work? Did Dad get an international plan? Better idea: stop at someone's house and ask to use their computer. That'll be a fun conversation to have, as you show up drenched on some old man's doorstep. But will you ever pass by a house out here?

You're only awoken from your road-weary, mildly-panicky, intensely-wet reverie by the honking of a passing Volvo with a familiar license plate. Ah, there it is, your ticket to a dry bed. Also, the man who brought you into this world. But mostly, the bed.

Day 42

Kilometer 3784

Ingonish Beach, NS

First day with Dad and it was another day of downpours.

I did get a lobster sandwich for lunch, which was both more delicious than, and probably single-handedly more expensive than, my past week of lunches combined.

The hotel tonight is in one of the most beautiful spots I've ever seen, wedged between cliffs on a narrow peninsula sticking out into Ingonish Bay.

Day 43

Kilometer 3865

Pleasant Bay, NS

This is how Dad rides a bicycle: first, he's got to mentally prepare himself. How far is it from here to there? So, going this fast, it will take us this long? But if we go that fast, we won't get to that town until then. And if we don't get to that town until then, then we definitely won't make it to over there before much later. So we've got to reach this place before too long. Okay, we can reach this place before too long, can't we? Second, he's got to take stock of the mountains. This mountain looks very tall on this diagram, but it may in fact be less steep than that mountain, so the overall time expenditure may be similar. Third, he's got to plan lunch. And this one always goes the same way: we've got to be precisely 66.7% of the way through the day before we are allowed to stop for lunch, even if that doesn't happen until after three o'clock and his son is keeling over from hunger. Fourth, he's going to need constant milage updates. After step four, step one is repeated, followed by step two, and so on. When the actually turning of wheels occurs in unclear.

Day 44

Kilometer 3936

Margaree Harbour, NS

Uff, these mountains! Not helped by the miles and miles of road construction today, or by the fact that we didn't eat lunch until the middle of the afternoon and I was about to faint. (Dad has this weird thing about meals: he only eats three of them! Whereas I might enjoy three lunches on a typical day, Dad (and now I) eats only one, leaving me alternating between painfully hungry and too full to move.)

I haven't yet adequately sung the praises of this region's beauty. Let the record show that it is very striking. The Cabot Trail itself winds around the Highlands of Cape Breton, following a narrow path between the shore and the mountains and occasionally, to Dad's very vocal dismay, up to the top of the mountains when then the cliffs are too steep. And virtually nowhere is it not beautiful. We stop frequently for photos of these austere cliffs, laced with a ribbon of asphalt.

Day 45

Kilometer 3999

Baddeck, NS

Short day today, but it was the end of the Cabot Trail! Woot.

Highlight of the day, though, if not pulling into the hotel mid-afternoon, might have been the quintessential Canadian experience we had after finishing and returning to the supposedly (and, upon seeing it, legitimately) "unmissable" hiking trail that we'd missed the first time around. Before seeing the trail's fantastic views we'd been advertised, we saw a full-grown moose right in front of us, grazing on the trail. Took a good twenty minutes before he left the path and let us pass. If I had a bucket list, I could probably check something off now.