Days 57-58 Winnipeg-Hadashville-Kenora

I didn’t get any pics of the fireworks show for Canada Day because like the majority of fireworks events throughout my life I fell asleep before the went off. I did manage to get a picture of the awesome sky that night, the colors were amazing!

.

The next more began the long trek out of Winnipeg and back on the Trans Canada to points East. As I was heading out I passed the Canadian Mint and it struck me how open and inviting the campus was and the stark difference from how we our government buildings in America are presented (Do not approach, your not welcome is the predominate attitude).

It wasn’t too long before I came upon a Milestone for this journey. I crossed the Longitudinal center of Canada, so I am officially more than halfway across.

About 35km outside of I had my first equiptemnt malfunction of the trip and it was a big one. After a lot of miles and the lack of tightening and maintenance on my part, I broke one of the support rails on my saddle.

It is a devastating feeling to have your seat fall out from underneath you. After inspection I was able to push the saddle forward to move the break into the bracket to secure it, the problem with doing this is that the new position puts my knee out of alignment which besides pain the geometry of my pedal stroke is off and I have lost a bit of power. In hindsight I should have turned around and went back to Winnipeg to get it fixed, instead I trucked on and made to my destination in the hopes that the bike shop in Kenora, ON will have a replacement bracket or a new Brooks.

(No luck in Kenora so now I am going to truck on to Dryden with the same hope while keeping my eyes peeled for a metal shop that could weld the break for me at a reasonable price.

I was a long hot day out on the road. I did run into a nice young couple from Edmonton who are doing the same tour. We had a nice long chat about touring and travel and the usual stories of woe and hardship. They stopped for lunch so I bid them farewell and limped on to my campsite for the night.

Not a bad view from the campsite. Little did I know that the decision to save some money and camp was the worst decision of the day. The mosquitos and horse flies were relentless. This morning when I woke up there were about a million little beady mosquito eyes salivating at me through the mesh of my tent, it took everything I had to venture out and pack up the site. Needless to say I was very happy to be back on the road and heading up into more favorable terrain as I have finally left the Prairies.

These hanging rocks on the side of the road reminded me of the 80’s movie Red Dawn, so it was fun to relive that movie in my head for the next hour and a half.

The other milestone of the day was that I made it to my 5th province of the trip. Goodbye Manitoba, hello Ontario!

I ran into a nice guy Doug about 30km out of Kenora and we road together for sometime and had a really good conversation about Canada, biking and the US. The nice thing about riding with someone else is that the miles go by so fast. So after we parted ways I have about 16km left to Kenora.

The route to my hotel took my all the way through town and Kenora is a pretty awesome little tourist town right on the Lake of the Woods.

Here was a cool mural in downtown Kenora, the subject matter is relevant 🙂

And my dinner stop for the night. The Ye Olde Chip Truck like it says is “World Famous”, I’ve never heard of it before and I’ve been all over the world (but I’m just one guy). Whatever the notoriety The Chip Truck has been a Kenora staple since 1957 so with that and the fact that it was literally right across from my hotel convinced me to give it a go, and it did not disappoint, the chips were amazing!

Tomorrow is back on the road tentatively to Vermilion Bay but if the legs are good I’ll truck on the Dryden and see if I can get the saddle fixed.