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October 27 Thursday Bicycle touring from Sand Bar State Park, Vermont to Hemmingford Quebec Hoo boy. Regularity is getting to be a killer. Of course I had to go immediately upon getting up and there are no restrooms or even outhouses within a reasonable distance. When I said "It's poking out," the only assistance Sharon could be in this unfortunate predicament was to offer me a plastic bag and some toilet paper. Don't you love bicycle touring? I snatched it and looked desperately around. The lake and beach were on one side; rush hour traffic on the other. Oh, what to do, and in a hurry too. I decided to go back into an alcove that leads to the locked men's restroom. In the corner I set the plastic bag neatly on the cement and carefully crouched my posterior near the eminent target. Fire one. You guessed it. Missed. I needed another plastic bag to get it into the first bag. Then I double bagged it and tied it to the back of my bike until I could dispose of it in a toilet. Kind of gives a whole new meaning to brown bagging it. I carried it to the South Hero Citgo gas station and flushed it. I promptly renamed the station Shitgo. As we cycled along, Grand Isle traffic decreased as we passed the ferry terminal. The sun was breaking through the clouds and sparkling across the water. We stopped at Hero and went to Hero's Welcome, an antique general store connected to a post office, where friendly people greeted us. There were three wooden round tables at the front of the store against a window. Fresh roasted flavourful coffee perked in four canisters on the counter. I sipped hazelnut coffee while writing postcards. The sun cascaded across Lake Champlain and streamed through the window pane warming my bones. Oh, man, cycle touring doesn't get much better than this. We cycled on a detour to visit Samuel de Champlain's statue and St Anne's shrine. There were picnic tables and we ate our lunch of hot chocolates, coke, bananas, cake and cinnamon bread that Sharon warmed in the frying pan. In St Anne's shrine, candles were burning. There is a church plus a huge outdoor seating area. Across the road Stations of the Cross are in a fenced area. A huge house is being built on a hill back of the church. Donations must be good. Just before the Quebec border we bought jalapeño cheese. A road crew had signs "Workers in Trees" set up along the roadside. The sign cracked me up. As I pedalled along, I scanned the trees for a branch manager leaning on a shovel, but I didn't spot any. Maybe they wear camouflage leaves when their working in trees? Or maybe we are so close to Quebec, it is actually a French sign for three workers? We didn't have any hassles at the border. At a gas station we bought a Quebec map that shows greater detail for roads leading to the airport. We cycled to Hemmingford and camped by a ball diamond. We ate a barbecued poulet. We set up our cycle tent behind the grandstand. As we bedded down, two guys came around the corner. I told them we were cycling across Canada. They said "Sorry, man," and left. I don't know if they were saying sorry because they intruded upon our privacy or because we were cycling across Canada and felt sorry for us. We have noticed that when we tell people we are cycling around the world their eyes glaze over, and they mutter "Good luck" or some such and wander off. They just don't know what to say. I guess cycling around the world is incomprehensible to most of them. So, I've gone back to "We're cycling across Canada." |
