Last night (july 6th) I could not sleep. I packed all i could pack and finally went to bed at about 2:30am. I got up at 5:45am. I'm tired, but I guess lack of sleep does that to you.
Thankfully I started taking things out of my gear that I didn't think I would either need or use. The large tire spoon, the bead breaker and sandals were left behind in an attempt to reduce weight. I left a few other things behind (can't remember now) and I'm thankful that I did. I think i Packed to 99% capacity. I have no space to even put a bottle of water on the bike. I tried to trim down the essentials and I still packed too much somehow. Most probably too many electronics and camping gear.
Left home at about 6:30am and gassed up and got a coffee. I finally got going at 7am to the grand road. The Odo reading at this time is 24028km, but truth be told, I have an extra 10k km on the clock since I was without a speedo cable from Texas to home on my threecornersusa tour.
I couldn't get my bluetooth headset and the chatterbox to work properly, so no sound for now. No XM Satalite, no music, nothing but wind noise. yay.
I got the GoPro taking pictures every 30 seconds to see if i could catch anything interesting.
Today was "SLAB DAY". No visiting, just making miles so that i can take the extra time up the road, when something interesting comes up. Looking over the pics, they're pretty boring as they all look the same. They all look like this:
I stopped for coffee a few times over the course of the day. It was hot. damn hot. I thought at one point i was getting a heat stroke. The suit kept me comfortable though.
"Hello? is this thing on?"
I stopped into Donnacona for lunch and bumped into a couple riding back from the Gaspe area. we chatted bikes and rides for a bit. Eric was his name and unfortunately forgot hers. They are actually from close to home (north of buckingham). we all recognized how no one in the area actually have any gear on. the only riders with Full face helmets are the sportbikers and apart from that, no one had any jackets. Tshirts do not could as gear as it neither keeps you cool in the heat, or helps with any kind of crash mitigation.
All i can say is that everyone looked at me funny because of my silver suit and helmet. I'm the oddball one! oh well, at least i won't have to pick up my teeth after a crash.
I wonder if this is why they don't have full face helmets... no teeth to take care of?
Already the bike is sucking back oil... i'm hoping it's because of the pace i kept today, going 120-130 most of the time. it's not a sportsbike, that's for certain and another thing to note is that it was hot. i'll have to keep an eye on it.
I got a campsite for the night at Fjord camping and ranch. I chatted with the cutie working there about motorcycles and how she hated riding in the rain when she used to ride. I was about to ask her why she didn't ride anymore, but i was too dead tired to keep talking. Thankfully that saved me from embarrasing myself as i noticed the wheelchair she was sitting on. I suspect it's due to a horse accident. Damn horses are 20 times more dangerous than a motorcycle.
I took a bush camp spot instead of the spot overlooking the st laurence. I'm not a water baby, it's just not me. I'm more of an Ent fan. I saved 6 bucks in the process ($19 vs $25) and I was also closer to the washrooms/showers. The $6 i saved, went right back to them in firewood costs. heh. Win some, lose some.
My spot was at the very end of the campground which was fine by me. It looked like mostly tent spots, and not an RV place at all. this meant no TV, video games or loud music. it was quite heavenly.
I went out to a store and got some hot dogs and a can of green beans. Green beans? yes. Green beans. I'm not a huge fan of baked beans, too starchy and gives me gas. Gas isn't very good when you spend most of the day on your ass on a bike.
I decided to make doughboys to eat with the hotdogs and green beans. Got the fire going, attempted to make the doughboys using Bisquick. The can of green beans cooked nicely in the coals.
My hands were dirty with failure, literally. I had goopy biquick all over my hands and it seems i made the doughboys too wet and it started falling off the stick 10 minutes into cooking them. meh. I ate the hot dogs and beans and washed that down with a bottle of orange crush. Since the outside of the doughboys had cooked, i picked away at it and ate some with the dogs. It was still pretty good, except raw in places. I ate half of that and gave the other half to hot coals in the firepit. The coals didn't mind.
cleaning goopy bisquick from all over your hands is a pain in the ass by the way. you need a lot of water. water i didn't have on hand. reminder, bring more water.
I did 675km today. It may not seem a lot, but since i hadn't done this many KMs in one day in two years, it took a lot out of me.
munching on a hot dog, i hear the approach of some beasts. Clopclopclopclop... Two people on horses racing by about 60 feet away behind the camp sites across the trail. scared the crap out of everyone, because no one expected horses to be running around. Oops, i forgot this was a campground and RANCH.
I didn't do much for an hour or two except stare into the fire being all warm in my tshirt and shorts with a nice breeze blowing over once in a while.
I fell asleep to the sound of the wind in the trees... a gentle rustling and swaying. i couldn't ask for better.
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