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October 28 Friday Bicycle touring from Hemmingford Quebec to St Eustache Quebec I got up at 2 AM. The sky was clear with lots of stars. Before we went to bed, Sharon and I had discussed the best route to the airport and ended in disagreement. I want to make a sweep around Montreal; Sharon wants to beeline it through Montreal. She is worried that my way is too far and we are going to miss our flight. We are only about thirty miles from Montreal; I can see the city lights glow on the horizon. We kept wondering about the sunset and why it was so light and then realized it was the light from Montreal. We have practically two whole days to get to the airport. I'm chomping at the bit to get going. There's not much traffic this time of day. Sharon gets up at 6:30 AM. It's still dark. There is ice on our tent poles. Frost is everywhere; even on my shoulders. At a corner in town, I turn right and cycle two miles before realizing Sharon isn't behind me. The only reason I found out is because last night we had gone to Louie's Motel on someone's suggestion that he may let us across Canada cyclists stay for free. I guess nobody had told Louie about that. Louie want $50. We didn't stay, of course. So, on my way past this morning, I said to Sharon (only she wasn't there) "Looks like Louie rented them all." No cars were in the parking lot at all. I waved to Louie, then stopped and waited a while for Sharon. No Sharon. Maybe she flatted, I think. So I cycle back in the direction I had come. Sharon is on the corner waiting for me to return. Without speaking, I speed off in the correct direction. We are whipping along on our fully loaded touring bicycles, churning past smelly farmyards. I don't care if I sweat because we are having showers tonight. Our first since Roger and Suzanne's. Sharon isn't impressed with my fast pace and she lags behind -- I think she's low on iron. When I stop and ask for a banana, she throws it at me. It bounces off my jersey and onto the ground. And she powers off. I quickly inhale the banana and pound off in pursuit. At a road construction area she has been forced to stop. I offer a peace pipe. Across an oiled wooden bridge with deep grooves, Sharon's bike tire slips between two planks and pinches. Her tire starts to slowly lose air. We ride along the river, admiring the tranquility while truck traffic zips by on the other side of the river. We cycle across a one-lane bridge. The wind is shrieking in my face. We're tossed from side to side as we cross. Thankfully, the cars behind us don't pass. We cycle across a bridge onto an island. As trucks pass we're buffeted sideways by their wake. Scary. The trucks' draft pushes us away as they pass, then sucks us back into the lane after they go by. We white knuckle our handlebars and will our bikes to stay in a straight line. At the end of the bridge, we turn right with the wind and cycle happily along. At a nearby fort we find refuge behind a rock wall and eat lunch. We wait for a ferry to take us and our fully loaded touring bicycles across to Oka. Actually the ferry is more like a barge. It is pulled by a power boat. We talk to a priest who has the day off and is hiking in the hills. He points out three churches on a hillside. There is an abbey that makes great cheese, he tells us. Sharon has been bugging me the past month that I should get a haircut. My hair is starting to get long and she thinks it would be a good idea to get it neatly cut, considering we are going to Europe. At Oka, as we are traveling down main street, I see a barber's shop. I say to Sharon that I should get a haircut. She says good idea. We park our bikes against the side of the barber shop and I go in. Fifteen minutes later, I return with a Mohawk. Sharon is not impressed. She says she can't believe she didn't see this coming. She says she couldn't figure out why I had been so adamant about going to Oka. I tell her she is getting a little slow. Maybe she is low on iron. Hey, I say to her, if you're going to get a Mohawk, what better barber could you get than one in Oka? He did a professional job, taking great care to get it just perfect. It looks kind of funny with glasses. Oh well, ever since I was little I wanted a Mohawk, so now I have one. It'll be much cooler and I won't use much shampoo. Sharon says she hopes my head sunburns. Perhaps she thinks the sun will bake some sense into it? We mail film and Sharon's journal home. The road to St Eustache is busy 344. At a junior high school we cycle in and ask for showers. They say they don't have any. Maybe they don't like dudes with Mohawks? A teacher there gives us directions to Sportif, where he says we can take a shower, and also gives directions to a laundromat and grocery store. Sportif turns out to be a tad on the ritzy scale for two slovenly cyclists, but an aerobics instructor takes interest in us and asks her boss which succeeds in getting us in. The showers are deluxe; the soap smells terrific; the whirlpool is deliciously hot. The doctor and lawyer clientele are not quite sure what to make of me new hairdo. I bet they took me for a lawyer right off. Or, with my bulging muscles, maybe they thought I was a white Mr T? We buy groceries. I look for new cycling shoes, but have no success. We arrive at a laundromat just in time for the lady to walk over and lock the door in our faces. It is 8:24 PM and the laundromat closes at 8:30. No way we are getting in there. As we get back on our bicycles to leave, I forgot that I had unbungeed my dirty clothes and we ride away. When we stop at a shopping mall a few blocks later, I discover the open laundry bag perched precariously on my rear rack. Amazing that it hadn't fallen off. I check the contents and find I'm missing one hot chilly sock. We retrace our path and find it near the laundry. Still dirty. I've heard of bread crumbs to mark a trail before, but never dirty socks. No one dared touch it; it must be close to radioactive. We had planned on camping at a church where we stayed on our first pass through town a month ago. We cycle into the darkness along a bike path. I've pumped up Sharon's leaky tire four times now, but it's losing air faster than ever. We have a new bicycle tire. We bring our cycles to a stop and decide to install the new tire at a school under the glare of an anti-vandalism light. Sharon says she feels a shimmy in her tire after we put it on. Rather than stopping to check out her bicycle tire, we continue and come to the edge of town. Oops. Somehow we missed our church. I recognize where we are and realize we've probably cycled about 15 kilometres past the church we were looking for. We hang around an Esso gas station until 11 PM to get cheaper phone rates. At 11 PM, we each call home and say goodbye to our parents. We cycle a ways and try to find an overnight spot in some construction rubble, but it proves lumpy. We wander around in the dark for a while before we give up. We cycle into a residential section and find a park. We are out of sight of the road beside a building. As we set up our tiny bike touring tent, a dog barks next door. Mangy mutt. |
