Day 74 – As I promised, today was a day of very little activity, with wall-to-wall sunshine, and another goodbye.

Last night after cooking Naheer and I went for a walk over to the office, which involves a lovely stroll right across the greens and fairways of the campground’s own golf course, just for the exercise and not all because of the huge tubs of ice cream that Naheer had spotted earlier in the freezer.

Many of them looked identical, sort of vanilla with bits in, and none had labels, but somehow he knew exactly which was maple toffee crunch, cookie dough or vanilla chocolate chip. It’s a gift. Kaitlin was much too busy for any of that sort of thing.

They left early this morning, hoping for an early breakfast stop, although not the very early start they had planned. I’m sure the extra sleep will do them good, as they have a long day ahead and hope to see the Atlantic this evening. I woke up and automatically started to pack up before remembering that I was staying put, and went straight back to sleep.

Back on my own again I did the only obvious thing – I serviced my bike. Coffee and a bagel, WD40, bike grease, tools and chain oil on the side. Once I’d cleaned everything up a bit it was clearly time for new brake pads, so out with the old and in with the new. Except the old ones were pretty stuck and I had to borrow a tool from the guy cutting down saplings on the riverbank. These pads have kept me safe through the last several thousands of miles, always reliable, in all weather. Koolstops, if you’re interested, and worth the extra money every time.I think their heaviest use has been when I see a sign but don’t realise it’s funny until I’ve gone past it – slam on brakes, ride back, camera out. On the ten-mile descents in the Rockies I don’t think I touched them.

Then I cycled 8km to the same place N&K had gone for breakfast, where I had lunch and bought a takeaway salad for supper. Plus a couple of beers. And an apple.

The campground is lovely, and has many unusual buildings dotted around. As well as the golf club, large play areas and a barn for dances, there’s a small outdoor theatre where they have bands in the summer and other events year-round:

“Good evening, Tents ‘n’ Trailers!” (They loved it, what a crowd, my kind of people)
The TNT Dance Hall – with the most charming name you could imagine.
Also this, with weapons primed for a super-soaking:

Back at the tent I shut my eyes for few minutes, which now feels like a very odd luxury during the day. I think the message “cycle” doesn’t switch off that easily. It was a scorcher today, so most of my day was spent in, or finding, shade. Or having a shower. After supper I picked up messages, phoned home, had another ice cream, watched the sun going down, then incurred the scornful looks of a few people having an evening round of golf by mucking about on my way back to the tent: :

This has been my idea of the perfect day off on this trip, and the only task remaining, apart from the usual endless packing up, was to Get Rid Of One Thing. Now I know that I haven’t mentioned this much lately, but I have been doing it. Just very irregularly. Today I said goodbye to a fond companion – my copy of National Geographic, given to me all the way back in…wait, where was it? Kelowna? I can see it being handed to me, but my brains gone, sorry. Anyway, it’s good bye to the melting ice caps, Chinese pollution, Rolex adds, the flight dynamics of humming birds, and much else besides. I’m leaving it on a picnic table to be adopted by the next campers, or not.

My two favourite pictures from this edition:

I’m afraid this won’t be posted until tomorrow now as it’s such a long walk back to the office, but I’m sure you could have guessed most of my day by now anyway. See you all back on the road tomorrow, heading east, of course, for Moncton, and hopefully a visit to a very weird and fascinating natural phenomenon, if I can only find it…