8/9/09: Off day in Caraquet, New Brunswick
Check out Barney’s blog on http://www.nwpassage2.blogspot.com/
Now after writing about how hard it’s been getting to get up out of my tent, we go into an off-day for today. GLORIOUS. Yup, slept until nearly 8am. Then I just lounged in my tent, doing nothing. Barney is up and we talked a bit between tents about the festival last evening. Only problem here is WHO is going to go get the coffee so we can sip java in the tent as the warm Atlantic region’s summer sun is just starting to warm our bodies inside our vinyl cocoons. Great to be alive! Problem is that the nearest coffee place is 4K away.
So here I sit blogging with a massive coffee jones brewing in my body. Whoops, wait a minute…….SCORE! There’s a very nice retired couple next to us, the gentleman is from W. Va, and his wife is from Quebec. Well, she came out of the camper talking to Barney – with a coffee cup in her hand. So I went out and asked her if she may have some extra coffee on the pot. She said she did not, but she could brew me a quick cup. So I stood at the camper door talking to them as she brewed me up a quick cup of java. The couple is from FLA, and up here on vacation. Thery’re here at the Acadian Conference quite by accident. The gentleman is well acquainted with Cleve, Ohio, and we talked a bit about downtown Clev as he remembered it – back in the 50’s with trolly cars and Euclid Beach. So now, with my coffee, I’m back in the tent, and I’ve gotton on the net and turned on the Randy Backman Vinyl Tap program on the net http://www.cbc.ca/vinyltap/ - again - and listening to the “Summer of Love” program as I blog this morning. Great stuff. Ahhhhhhh…..this hot java is just heaven! Well, go to wait with last night’s description as Barney is ready to roll to town for his java fix. So I’ll head out on this fine morning to get breakfast and then come back to finish things up.
So let’s finish with last evening. We ended up riding into the town of Caraquet for dinner, and we didn’t get it rolling until nearly 7pm – or later. We got on our steeds sans a ton of gear. Let me tell you, after riding a fully geared bike all day, and then you strip it and ride – you feel shaky, almost having trouble controlling the weightless steering section – this from not having to manhandle the two front panniers and the handlebar bag that just take any fine feel to the steering totally away. I feel like I’m darned near learning to ride all over again when I first get on the gearless bike. Did a quick stretch on Rt 11, and then got on this paved bike and hike section, which was just outstanding. It eventually rolled right along the coastline, with the Gaspe Peninsula way off in the distance to the north, shinning brightly from the setting western sun. The breeze with nice and warm, and the evening had turned out to be just spectacular. So we road about 3 miles to town, and turned off at this church.
At the church the townspeople were readying it for the big light and sound show that was to kick off at dark. The place was all lit up with lighting equipment, and surrounded with scaffolding and sound equipment. It was going to be quite a big production. The streets were already being cordoned off, and people were beginning to filter down to the church for the big show. So we road another mile into town and go to the first restaurant we see. Looks like a house that’s been converted to a restaurant, and the menu is posted outside. So we took a look……and I had sticker shock! The seafood chowder was like 14 bucks, and the entrees were on the order of 23-36 bucks. I looked at Barney and kind of said: “Dude, this is a bit too expensive for my blood. Do you mind if we continue looking?” And he was totally cool with that.
So we went across the street to a seafood restaurant. I ran inside real quick to check the menu: Seafood Chowder - $7.95; Entrees - $13.00-24.00. Perfect. We waited a bit for service, as these waitresses, or maybe it’s this culture, is very lax in the promptness dept. I’m so used to getting my water glass refilled endlessly, to getting a menu as soon as you are seated, to getting your bill immediately. Nope, not here, it’s an art to WAIT. And we waited a bit to get the menus, and we waited a bit to have our orders taken, and we waited a bit to get our bills, and we waited a bit to get water refills. But the food was very very good. I got the seafood chowder, as did Barney, and then I got……drum roll please…….seafood casserole. Barney now chuckles as I order basically the same freaking thing – some sort of shrimp or seafood casserole whenever I can my mouth into one. It’s rich, creamy, seafoody, and I just mop the leftovers up with bread and my tongue. Love the stuff.
Had a great meal, and then it was off to the ice cream store to get dessert – a big old thick and creamy 6-inch high cone. Did that and then I headed back to the Hillie to sleep while Barney stayed to watch the production at the church. I headed back in the dark via the bike trial. Now it was pretty tough starting, with my eyes not adjusted to the dark yet, and the first 300 yards were in this tunnel of trees, so I was riding in like total darkness, just praying that no one was walking or riding in the same lane as me. Once I got through the tunnel I was pretty good. The cool sea breeze was blowing against and across the bay a small peninsula was dotted with lights. Further to the north off on the horizon, way out on the Gaspe Peninsula, was the faint hint of lights. It was a beautiful ride back along the bike trail despite the rather precariousness of riding half blind on a blacktop bike trail. But, I saw not a soul. Had it all to myself for a good 20 min of riding. Rode a final stretch along the road and back to the campground where I just crashed in a big way. I had turned on the radio, and found a Boston station, and just set the radio next to my pillow and fell asleep.
Barney told me in the morning that he heard my radio going, in addition to me snoring and talking in my sleep. Imagine that? Now I did wake up very late at night to turn my radio off, but Barney’s snoring was so freaking loud that I actually turned my radio UP to get back to sleep. So I guess Ryan had a point: Barney and I are both a couple of Huskavara chainsaws at night. We’re two chainsaws doing our duet late at night.
Ok, so that was last evening. Barney and I just got back from breakfast this morning, and I’m out here on the picnic table in the shade, listening to another of Bachman’s Vinyl Tap shows and blogging. It’s sunshine, about 75 –degrees, and there’s a moderate breeze out of the north. I’m only about 300 meters from the ocean bay, and I just may do a dip later when I get done here. We rode to the same dinner spot from last evening to have breakfast today. It was a pleasant ride. Got the same server for breakfast as last night’s dinner. She was efficient, but still had a case of the slows, as Barney was just chomping at the bit for coffee while she spent a good 10 min clearing our table in bits and pieces. Finally, Barney piped up for a cup of java. And then it took another 10 min to get our menus. Well, at least she’s consistent!
Again, no Grand Slam on the menu, so we had to improvise and create our own – by getting two different breakfasts. We each got the pancakes, which I slathered with 3 packets of red raspberry jam and syrup, and then we each got the 2-egg breakfast with toast, sausage or bacon, and with home fries. I added a third egg to that. Probably had about 2500-3000 calories in just one stinking meal. But wow, did that hit the spot. I’ll have to say that since we started doing the restaurant thing at night, I’m just loving the great sea food and new dishes, but I’m not getting anywhere as full as I used to on 2 12-inch subs each night. Also spending a good deal more in my daily budget on a much higher class of food. Boy, it’s so easy out here to eat seafood each night. The stuff is just grade A for a dinner, and oh so delicious! So I spend about 25-30 bucks on a dinner and it’s great, but I’m not full. And I wake up in the morning and need like another 2000 calories right off the bat to get me started.
I’ve noticed, as I’m jabbering about eating, that my upper body is loosing a little tone, having not done any upper body for nearly three months. Originally, Ryan and I had these grand illusions of doing pushups, situps, pull-ups, all that stuff after our rides. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Right! You get done riding and you’re a wet noodle. Throwing more PT into the day is just not happening. There are days when I’d get done riding and just want to do three things: Eat massive quantities of food, have an ice cold beer, and then just crash in the tent. Do calisthenics after a ride? Who was the idiot who thought up that idea? Ummmmmm…..Me! Was that ever a pipedream. So, I need to get er going again once I get done with this trip, as I’m developing man boobs and broomstick arms. No more guns here folks, my guns are now pea-shooters! I’ve lost a bit of lean upper body muscle tissue for sure. My legs, they’re bloody pistons that can just turn it on all day long. They have not grown in size, quite the opposite, as they gotten leaner and much stronger, more geared to endurance for the long haul. As I tell my clients, you become what you train for. And I’ve become a long distance cycling machine, with tons of leg, lung and coronary endurance, but with little to any endurance for the upper body musculature.
So Barney and I finished breakfast and then tooled down to the marina and took some pics. Then we headed back to camp along the bike trail, and I looked down at my odometer and noticed that I was at 4999.2 miles, and told Barney as an aside. So we waited until I hit 5000 and then stopped and took some pics of the event. That got us talking about how many pedal revolutions I had generated in nearly 3 months of riding. And so, just for poop and giggles here’s what we came up with. Say I’m averaging 80 rpm (this is an average between climbing and descending and flats). So that translates to 4800 revolutions per hour, and 24,000 per 5-hour day. So for a week that would be roughly 175,000 revolutions. For a month that’s 700,000 revolutions. For three months I have about 2, 100,000 revolutions. Two million pedal revolutions. Well, that’s it for now.
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