Ride Summary

Distance: 45 mi
Climbing: 1076 feet
Descending: slightly more
Difficulty: easy
Link to workout in Strava

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Rode my bike to breakfast, then rode away from breakfast for most of the rest of the day. I'm in a kinda lakey-swampy-foresty zone which is entertaining enough to peer into and smell and wonder about the collapsing structure's former purpose, so that's most of what I did today. A few other things happened too.

It was a foggy morning when I set out, and despite a 30 minute breakfast at the local country kitchen, it was still foggy for at least an hour into the ride. Still fairly concerned about heat/overheating, so I take the free "cloud cover" as a plus. Spoiler, today was mostly cloudy and not at all rainy until after I arrived at my stop - at which point it did get sunny and warm.

panoramas gone wrong

The landscape was somewhat unchanging, but the road shoulder wasn't! Went through a lot of different shoulder types today, as small as 8" and crumbling and as wide as a car lane and a half. Mostly shrinking though, sign of things to come - until yesterday the shoulders had been very accommodating (for the most part easy to ride a bike on) but now I think they'll maybe be mostly unaccommodating? Guess we'll see but that's the scuttlebutt from some folks who passed through recently.

I crossed some things today! This was one (Arctic/Atlantic divide - which way does water go? It changes here!), and it had a nice story to go with it; there was an electrical company work truck across the street from this sign, couple dudes working in some...way. The one who was not in the cherry picker waved as I pulled up. As I came back from photography he approached with a bottle of cool water, which I took gratefully. He asked a little about my trip and noted that my tires were big enough to not immediately crash if I had to ride onto the gravel next to the roadway shoulders, which is true for the most part. It was a nice thing and he tried to offer me more water but I was pretty well loaded already with 5 bottles worth of water, so just drained that one and set off again.

I also "officially" transitioned to eastern timezone about halfway through the ride today, but in reality - my phone, the motel, the gas station in upsala, all >= 20 miles before this sign - say that in practice, the theory is some distance off and some folks are living their earlier lives, and thus so was I. I keep losing hours...2 more timezones to go if I am fast but more likely just 1 (newfoundland is its own timezone but it is looking less and less likely that I'll make it there before the ferry stops running). Thunder Bay tomorrow, and then a couple days off to explore.

it'll tickle yore innards! (they did sell mountain dew, but bbq was a lie)