A milestone to Upsula

"May the wind be at your back, and the sun on your face."
-Irish proverb

When he learned of the trip, friend Ben Spencer in Montreal hand-delivered a card to my house, wishing us luck. He signed off with this saying, and it has stuck with me. If there was ever a day where this proverb came to life, it was today.

The morning started with Bruce making us all coffee. He had been up since 4:15am, and seemingly waited all morning for us to get up just so he could do so. Mike, Pat, and Brian absolutely loved it, and are now more determined than ever to find something similar to what he used. He left shortly after, and we never saw him again during the ride.

It was an absolutely beautiful day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the wind was right behind us as we left camp. Our first order of business was finding water. There are fewer towns in Northern Ontario than there were in the Prairies, and the water here has a boil advisory, so we were running really low. We had to bite the bullet and buy water for the first time so far, because we weren't finding any along the way that we could drink. Thankfully, jugs of water aren't overly expensive, but we certainly won't be making a habit of it.

We made good time as we cruised over 25km/hr. We saw Lisa again over the course of the day, always just a bit ahead of us, and funnily we seemed to stop for breaks at the same spots. The scenery is beautiful: lakes, rivers, streams, and trees line the highway. We even saw some wildlife today. Mike saw the most with 4 moose and a black bear. It's amazing to see a moose up close. They are enormous animals, yet graceful at the same time. They run away as soon as they see you, even if you're far away from them. We will be seeing plenty more of them all through Ontario.

We had originally expected to take three days from Dryden to Thunder Bay, but it became apparent during the day that we could do better, and decided to do it in two. We had been waiting for weather like this to push long days, and we now had our opportunity to really cover a lot of ground.

We didn't realize just how much ground we would cover. We had to go 165km to get halfway, but about 140km in, we figured we should try to push for 200km. Upsula was ideally situated for it, so we decided to go for it. The sun got low and the shadows got very long, but we managed to do it! It's a pretty big milestone, and who knows if we'll do it again. We may not get another opportunity! It also leaves us with a relatively short 135km into Thunder Bay tomorrow, which is ideal as we will be switching time zones (it didn't switch at the border as we previously thought).

Funnily enough, near the end of the ride we saw a Blind Bay Road, the same as when we were in Sorrento and stayed at the community centre. Ironically, we are staying on the lawn of the Upsula community centre tonight. The bugs are out in full force, as mosquitoes and blackflies like to make dinner of us. They won't get much better as we progress, unfortunately!

When we get to Thunder Bay, we will have complimentary rooms at the Valhalla Hotel. We're really looking forward to the bed and the shower. Friends have been great to set that up for us! A big thanks to Steve Demmings and Paul Pepe.
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