Bringing Someone Home from the Bar...the Gas Bar, That Is

Our style of travel has been, thus far, chaotic, to say the least. Erractic and unpredictable are also words that come to mind. Nick and Dominic learned on their first bike trip 10 years ago, that planning a route is all but impossible. It goes like this:

Rise, eat, look at map, decide a direction, ride generally that way, eat, coninue riding, eat, consult map, ride, eat, etc. Eventually it starts to get dark, or you get tired, and you look for a place to sleep, wherever you may be at that time.

In this fashion, we have run into many nice people along the way, in towns, at grocery stores, along country roads...but not so many bikers. Indeed, spread out along our respective ways, camping where night falls on us, rather than in a hostel with fellow adventurers...it doesn't make for good networking.

But there is one thing that brings us bikers together--our appetites. In country like this, where big distances separate the towns and gas stations, or "gas bars," as they are called here, stopping at every single one would not be that crazy. Just like for motorists, gas bars provide fuel to help us keep moving. Grab the fattiest, chocolatiest, sweetest concoction you can find on the shelf and "throw it in the furnace," as Gretta says. "It all gets burned up anyway."

We were ahead of our budget on day two, so we filled our bellies in a roadside restaurant/gas bar, then sauntered over to the convenience store side to see what else we could jam down our gullets. And this is when we met our first touring friend. He too had a hankering for some fuel.

Aaron, we would later learn was his name, had biked all the way from Vancouver, B.C., and was on his way home to St. John's, on the east coast of Newfoundland. We shared stories about past adventures, he good-naturedly cracked jokes about us being American, and we happily rode together in this fashion until the afternoon came, and we grew tired. 80 km, a new record, was child's play for Aaron, who had biked over 5,000 miles so far, and routinely surpassed 150 km a day (that's almost 100 miles). But Aaron, the smart biking Canadian that he is, knew that time horizons (apparently now preferred to the term timetables) are a bunch of a hogwash, so he joined the hunt for a spot to camp. We found a road to a powerline that looked promising. Here it is, with a strange setting on my camera that made everything look yellow. (It's actually all green this time of year.)

We played cards that evening, fended off mosquitoes (we were not as successful as we thought, we'd learn the next morning), ate a huge pot of quinoa, split pea soup, (pre-dinner and post-dinner were candy bars and P.B.&J mixed with Texas Hold 'Em, a trail mix Aaron had bought while in the States) and had ourselves a grand time.