Days 120-121 North Sydney-Whitbourne

So I’ve made it to Newfoundland, my tenth and final province on this amazing cycle journey across Canada. Tomorrow I will make the last push to St. Johns and my final destination to stamp complete this part of my tour but it’s not with a heavy heart as it’s also the beginning of my next journey. Which I’ll post about as soon as I have a solid plan (the next few day while exploring Newfoundland).

But before we just ahead to the next adventure there is the last few days to tell you about.

It was a great day for some bike riding and progress on the projects. The ferry was amazing and a fun laughter filled 16hr ride (minus the few hours for sleep) that included some great conversations with a nice family from Newfoundland about Canada and art and projects and sharing your work. There was the fortunate introduction by blue (an old monochromatic nut job) whose bizzare political views pinpointed the similar looks of bewilderment that was on our faces from Sandy and Geena from New Brunswick which sparked hours of jokes and laughter and a general good time. Can’t forget about Zack the quiet guy from Ontario going to meet up with his wife and explore Newfoundland for the first time like us.

And the myriad of other little snippets of conversations and questions from a bunch of really nice people.

All those conversations with a surprisingly very nice sleep started the day of right. A beautiful sunrise and breakfast helped to solidify the good feeling and the excitement upon entering Newfoundland where we were immediately introduced to the steep hills everyone has been telling us about. Those hills didn’t dampen the spirits one bit in fact the energy and good feeling got a jump start upon meeting Paul from Minnesota. Now I ran into Paul about 10km out from the ferry on his way to the ferry and we had a great conversation about our respective journeys but mainly about the feelings that this sort of travel generates inside you. It’s always amazing and inspiring to meet like minded folks and it re-energizes that spirit within.

The good feeling and positive energy coupled with the wonderful weather and a fantastic tailwind helped to quickly propel us to our stop about 50km and still lingers long into the evening.

Tomorrow brings the last ride of my cycle tour across Canada to St. John’s. It is starting to set in that I have ridden across Canada from Seattle and it’s impressive even to myself when I look at it as a whole. The last four months the focus has been on the day to day and that’s how this types of journeys happen. Not by focusing on the big picture all the time but grinding out the little bits. Tomorrow also starts the solidification of the next phase of my cycling journey that will take me from St. Johns down to Key West, Florida and over to Cuba for a circumnavigation of that wonderful country and back to Florida for what I imagine will be a much needed rest.

See you tomorrow St. Johns!

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