O Canada. Our home and native land.

Campground morning one with Chad is rather tits. Awesome. Great. Just the day before, he couldn’t stop talking about butts and boobs in Montreal. Now it’s quiet and calm.

Coffee brews and waste is made. The weather forecast is calling for cooler temps and mucho precipitation today. Rain for sure. The radar shows some ketchup and mustard coming right at us. Hopefully it’s not too eventful; I don’t like riding in lightning. We push out and the cooler temps feel marvelous. The rain hits, soft at first. Then heavy downpours. Then nada. Rinse and repeat. A couple times over. I pedal through it. Rain is no problemo. A few hours and kilometers later and the sun is back out and with it coming the higher temps.

True patriot love in all of us command.

The bulk food section of the Cornwall Ontario Walmart is phenomenal. I’ve never even seen a bulk food section in a Walmart before. I’d call it flourishingly fantastic and I’d be lying in that we all know the proper (what’d ya say, Hammer?) terminology for rn rn fr fr is ROBUST. Damon would agree. This may be the most robust of all Walmarts I’ve coming across on my long distance pedal parading aboot. Serio. FR FR. As I mix and match my own trail mix and prepare to scribble a couple numbers next to some French words, I can’t help but wonder, is this version of the ultra greedy mega corporation aka bike touring Mecca is even realer bc there’s such a large Muslim population here? I keep my thoughts inside my head as this Iranian-Canadian milf eye fucks me walking down the protein bar isle. Call her eye fuck Fatima. Nice eyes lady, that’s all I get but that’s all I need.

Moments later , I’ve cashed out and I’m standing guard on Chad’s bike. He went side questing again and showed up moments earlier and right now now it’s once again moments later and I’m approached by some straggly looking white man, who kinda hanging was there looking at me for way too long already. Cynically I verbally receive some sort of smashed up wordage that I don’t catch and then the word “bike”. I have no idea what he’s saying. None. I can’t decipher it. It could be English. Imma call him Donnie. Trying hard to understand what the D man has to say; I’m really giving this suspect ass dude the benefit of the… what the fuck? Donnie’s got ten very poorly inked letters permanently inscribed below his shirt sleeve and those letters spell out… white power. I immediately retreat from the conversation, and now I’m instead typing these words into my phone, ignoring his entire presence. He mutters more but now I really couldn’t give much of a fuck. He finally wonders off. Fatima walks out and passes me, giggling about something. They are still speaking French here and I’m well past Quebec. Yowsers.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

Damn, the TRUE north? Who’s that shit aimed at? Some kinda passive aggressive sub tweet. Anyway. Beach life is a thing up here. As I pedal the gorgeous Long Sault Parkway, it washes over me. We pay five whole doll hairs at Mille Roches Beach. I hope it’s someone’s name and not a sign that there’s millions of roaches here. Nope. Just sand, water and a ton of geese. Chad mentions that we’re probably swimming in tons of goose shit, so “try not to drink any water”. I don’t even go underwater. 20 kilos up and we find another beach. This one free. No geese. Even a pier to jump in off. Long walks off short piers. I prefer this one.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Days like today really drive home the old “it’s the journey, not the destination” cliche. We legit don’t even have a destination, rolling through Morrisburg, then Mariatown. I wonder if Morris and Maria ever met. Either way, the last actual campground was kilometers ago, so we’re pedaling for pedaling sake. The sun is getting low, big guy. It’s good to have Chad here on this ride, he’s always just enough but never too much. A real bro. Iroquois campground shows up; they don’t allow tent camping. We gotta stop calling parking an RV “camping”. Just like calling those uncertified volunteers, “firefighters”. You know what a volunteer cop is? A fucking vigilante. Eventually we find some seclusion along a discreet strip of land near Cardinal, Ontario. Remote sleeping time. The sun sets. The mosquitos come out. The tents pop up. And then the skies open up. A total downpour. Thunder. Lightning. All of it. Me inside the palace, dosing off and cramping up. For the win.