Today was our best day yet for connecting with the locals! We had a cheery send-off from a few of our Samuel de Champlain Park camp-families - including one young chap who asked his dad as we rode by (us now lost in the camp-site loops, looking for the 'short-cut' to the highway, which we gave up on finding after 15 minutes and ending up back at our same camp site :-) ... "are they delivering the newspaper?" A few remarked on how well-geared and ready to go we looked (in the rain, which would become quite torrential as the day progressed). We thought we would have a lovely morning interaction at "La Tea Da" cafe and tea room early in the day and about 15Kms from the camp, but found it is now a gunsmith and ammo shop so peddled on until we came across a rode-side gas station and Home Hardware. There we were kindly told we could sit in the display furniture to drink our coffee. Just as we arrived, a young mom with a trio of girls age 2, 3, and 5 years old asked us if we would like to come to her house for lunch and to dry off from the rain. She went on to explain that her mom and dad had ridden across Canada and she had provided vehicle support. Y really wanted to say "yes!" to lunch and visiting, but we needed to get to North Bay and find the bike shop for B's bike seat screw and Y's handle bar light. At the gas station stop Y mailed a package home and then we were on our way with 35Kms more to North Bay. Tim Hortons was just on the East edge of North Bay, so we stopped to get lunch. We were dripping wet so we installed ourselves at a table adjacent the window from where we could see our bikes and then took turns getting marginally dried off in the W/Cs and then ordered a yummy lunch. In the time we were at Tim Hortons we had several nice interactions: one man had just done a big ride from Winnepeg to Ottawa and his family had met him to take him home - he offered for us to stay with him in Winnepeg; another had been guiding cross-Canada bike rides in the 80s and 90s and suggested the local bike shop to visit for our needs; a girl was just going off-shift and helped us get settled in for our break there; and a cluster of elder gents, including one from Newfoundland, chatted with us at length and suggested places to shop in North Bay and places to stay on our route to Regina. We stopped in the rain at a view point over Lake Nipissing just as the sky was clearing for the evening, and then rode on to Sturgeon Falls. After four nights and mornings of rainy camping we chose to stay at a Sturgeon Falls hotel, which enabled us to review our packing and consolidate some things not needed in the rain, as it is supposed to be sunny days ahead. At Restaurant Pasta for dinner we must have looked quite glowing and healthy, as a girl in her late 20s told us we were such a good-looking couple, "like, from a Sear's Catalogue, and how old are you". We ate a delicious Pasta dinner and walked back to the hotel to work on our Blog pics and text.
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