Thunderbay to Sault Ste Marie cont.

So being that we stayed in a motel room that night we had a pretty good sleep-in in the morning and didn't get on the road til about 10:30am. Noah took off ahead of Dave and I, and it was clear he travelled at a faster pace. Dave and I had the intention of going about 120km that day and making it past White River. Somehow that didn't quite work out, although it didn't work out for the best:) We arrived in Marathon (travelled about 80km) and were both quite tired. It seems as though we feed off of each other's energy levels. It was finally a sunny day, and as such it was quite warm. We decided we had had enough, and so we set off to find the campground. It turned out to be newly re-done, and right on a edge of a small lake. We also ran into Pierre-Paul in town so we shared a site with him. Before setting up camp or eating, we decided a swim was in order. The lake was only about 25m across and there were great big rocks on the other side perfect for sunbathing. The water was only about 1.5m deep and had a bunch of gooey mud on the bottom, which was kinda gross but also kinda fun. After our swim we had a delicious dinner, a small campfire, set up camp and went to bed.

In the morning we treated ourselves by making banana pancakes (for any future vegans, bananas substitute eggs well) then peddled off toward White River; where the story of Winnie the Pooh began! I don't recall anything overly significant about that day...the town was pretty tiny and didn't have an actual campground, so the tourist info let us set up in the park. That night apparently there was a pretty brutal storm (I'm a heavy sleeper), and I woke up with a very wet tent, sleeping pad, and slightly wet sleeping bag. We waited out most of the rain in A&W eating eggs and toast, then when it had died down a fair bit we packed up and rode away. The whole day it seemed to be threatening rain again, it was pretty cold and oddly foggy; we rode fast, but the rain never came.

Our destination was Wawa (I believe it was native for "flying geese" or something like that. There were a few giant geese carvings in town) Anyways, we decided on a motel room again that night since we both had a lot of wet gear, and the forecast called for more thunder-showers. We cooked our dinner on the covered walk way outside the room, and had another comfortable sleep.

We woke-up to clear skies, although it was still a little chilly. We packed up, had breaky then headed off to Montreal River. The ride was about 107km, and we conquered the Montreal River hill!! If that doesn't mean anything to you, well...it would if you rode a bike up it, its reeally big. We again didn't have to camp that night, in fact we may have had the best accomodations yet on the trip. Through a friend of a friend of a friend type contact of mine, we arrived to a beautiful log cabin right on the shore of Lake Superior. We had a deck looking out on the water, a warm wood stove and an actual electric stove to cook on; I don't know if anything could have made it any better! That evening made pizzas to go with beer and jelly beans :)

In the morning the neighbours (my friends of friends or something like that) made a delicious homemade breakfast, and even got our names in the newspaper of our next destination- Sault Ste. Marie. That day we really took our time- the weather was beautiful, and the scenery was even more so. For much of the day we were riding right along Superior's shore line. We ate lunch at a tourist stop of native carvings, then stopped a couple hours later for a swim in the lake and some time on the beach. Arriving in Sault Ste Marie around 7pm, we went our separate ways once more, and I found my way to my temporary home for the next two nights (another friend of a friend :) )

So, that brings us up to today! This morning I awoke, returned some phone calls to some local media contacts (thanks to my temporary mom) and ended up doing 4 interviews today! That being said, if your reading this on July 13th, tomorrow you should look at soonews.ca and saultstar.com. I also had one with CTV, and one with the local radio station.

Furthermore, my promotional video has been completed so you should check that out at http://www.imagine1day.org/creatributions.htm?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RachelBike#rachel-video

or simply go onto imagine1day.org, click "get involved" and you might be able to find it from there. I didn't make it myself so I think I'm allowed to say that I'm pretty impressed by it.

So other than my interviews today, I visited the museum, strolled along the boardwalk and simply toured the town.

In the past week or so, there seems to be a very common theme of conversation- food. If you've never done a bike tour, you might now quite realize just how much more food you consume in the day, and how much more creative you must be in eating a variety of foods since you can't carry much, you can't refridgerate anything, and sometimes there are long distances between decent grocery stores.

I've also realized that this is the first time in my life that I have to strategically think about where I will be finding my water and food- that makes me pretty lucky.

Anyways, I'm hoping to post more pictures soon, but this computer doesn't seem to have the right chip-plug in thing so hopefully next time.

"Accept your greatness"