day 33

june is fading fast and i need to start getting down to business. i've vowed not to take another rest day until sault-st. marie at the very earliest. gogogo!

whoa! totally gorgeous girl on the bike path. so what do i do? "um, excuse me... i was wondering if i could trouble you for directions. i'm not from around here - i'm *cough* cycling across canada." ok, so maybe not exactly like that, but pretty damn close. i get the all too often used me-and-my-boyfriend-have-been-wanting-to-go-on-a-big-bike-ride-someday line and like magic, i know exactly where to go. "oh ok... i guess i could just keep heading west. thanks, bye!"

gorgeous day by the way... girls dressed in very little... what could possibly go wrong?

*boom* and derek enters a whole new world of pain. they call this world "sliding across gravel". here's what happened... on this road i was on, there wasn't a shoulder to ride on. along the center lines, there were pylons set up because there was some construction going on. basically, what this meant was that no cars could pass me. so with these cars piling up behind me, i was feeling kinda guilty (and hurried) so i went to pull off to let them pass. hmm... mental picture assembly: thin road tires... 32-34km/h... loose gravel... steering and stability completely comprimised... fleeting, memoryless moment... [sense of inevitability] fall hard on my left side, skidding to a stop... [extreme frustration] rising slowly, crutching gravel with eyes clenched... [pain everywhere] then i just loose it. i let out this massive roar.

"luckily" though, i was the only thing damaged. the bike, trailer, and clothing i had on were all reasonably unscathed.