122 kilometers through Winnipeg!
Well the sleep was pretty poor last night since all of the buildings in the campground seem to illuminate the whole park at night. That however can be negligible but the security guy booting around the campground on his motorised quad until 2am was not. I wondered how long it would take me to get a sniper rifle so I could shoot him.
In the morning I ate a grapefruit and some bread with peanut butter before packing up and getting back on the road. The wind was with me again and I was making good time despite my little butt problem (your probably tired of hearing about it so I will leave it at that). Near Winnipeg there is a crop with a light purple flower that almost looks like a little lake from the distance. Very beautiful indeed when mixed with the yellow canola crops gracefully blowing in the wind.
Driving into Winnipeg the highway turns into Portage ave. which goes right to the core of downtown. It was fairly busy but I felt pretty safe and traffic would drive around me or not even come into my lane. I quickly tracked down the Mountain Equipment Coop store and though they didn’t have the tire I needed they did have a reasonably priced sleeping bag which weighed roughly half the weight of my current winter bag. There are no tall high rises in Winnipeg but it still has a kind of bigger city feel to it. There are people walking everywhere in the middle of the day who seem to be on a mission to get somewhere quickly. Normally I wouldn’t notice but it had been a while since I had been in a city this size or larger.
Next I pedalled off to Natural cycles where I tracked down a spare tire and showed the crew working there my bike. The store was dead since there was a Folk Festival today and the rest of the weekend. Outside the store I was trying to decide what to do when a backpacker from Quebec said hi and asked if I had seen a man walking across Canada. “You mean Pierre Paul” I blurted with enthusiasm. “YES!” exclaimed the young bearded man with the backpack. I showed him the video and we both had a good chuckle when I explained the story of how he got ahead of me in Osoyoos. I can’t how but he had heard of him which is cool to know he has a follow of some sorts.
Next a man asking for change came by and talked with me for a while. It is a sad story as usual for street fair and you never know how much is true but it was hard not to give him about $5 in change. I also explained why I thought the people of Haiti might need it more in certain ways due to more dire poverty. He seemed okay with that and I went on my way looking for a place to eat. I rode around for a while unable to really find something that suited me in the downtown so I crossed the river into the Eastern part of town and stopped there. Winnipeg seems to have little trendy pockets here and there but I really didn’t have time to explore and I wanted to get to the town of Lorrette where friends of Ray Lebel’s fiancee Pam were going to put me up for a night or two.
It was around 3:30pm and the heat was stifling in this part of the city since it is just dusty old industrial area near the train tracks. I got back out onto the Trans Canada where I soon turned South back into a head wind toward Lorrette. I managed to pass the turn off but quickly sensed something was up before confirming with the sometimes trusty GPS on my phone.
I easily found the house on a gravel road just a few turns off the main road to Lorrette. I was greeted by two anxious dogs: a beautiful beige Great Dane and a Chocolate Labrador retriever. Then out came Reva and Harley Irvine to save me. I knew the dogs were not dangerous, they were just doing their job and I could tell they wanted to be friends – I love dogs!
Harley had to go to work so I hung out with Reva and talked about travelling to China and Ecuador among her travels and southern Asia for me. They had a pool which I dove in as I hadn’t been able to swim in any of the dozens of lakes I rode by on this little journey. After a beer or two her mother Roberta who is the friend of Pam’s who offered to put me up arrived followed by her husband George. Ray and Pam eventually showed up and we had a wonderful spaghetti dinner, ice cream and few glasses of wine.
What a wonderful family who were more than accommodating to me. The helped me everything I needed and made sure I ate lots of food and drank plenty of beer. By the time 11pm rolled around I was done for the night and had to go crash.