Day 22 - Tuesday June 22 - Nipigon to west of Marathon (166 km)

"Wildlife and the Wild Life"
Today was a high-on-life kind of day. We slept in until 7 since we didn't get to bed until around 12:30, and the rain had stopped so we enjoyed breakfast by the stream. We put some laundry on, and I hit the road ahead of Dad around 9am. There was construction, and about 7km of graded pavement (which makes for rough riding), but after that the roads improved markedly. I got chatting with one of the construction workers, and she told me that she was 60 years old. I'd have sworn she was 40, and she told me that the secret was "keeping active... and eating well, of course" - amen sista! I caught up with Debbie (the fellow rider from our campsite) and we rode together for an hour and shared our stories - so fun. By this point it had started to rain again and it was quite foggy, but it was relatively warm (compared to how it's been when it's rained), and as long as I kept moving I didn't need extra layers or rain pants. The fog sort of obscured the view of Lake Superior, but this served to bring the immediate roadside details into sharper focus: the rusty red rock faces (cut away to make room for the road), wild strawberry plants, and sprinklings of wildflowers in vibrant yellow, orange, purple, and white. I met another cyclist, Brett, on the road around 11:00. Brett is my age, is from the US, and is doing a large bicycle tour including parts of both countries. His love of travel, cycling, and family were immediately apparent, and his excitement and enthusiasm were so contagious. Parting ways (he was heading west) he dinged his bell and whooped as he rode down the hill. It's so exciting and inspiring to meet others on the road! Shortly thereafter I met my Dad for lunch. He'd had quite the morning - the battery in the car was dead (from leaving the cooler plugged in and having plugged in the computer last night to update the blog - whoops!). Luckily, the owner of the campsite had a charger, and he was soon on the road again (after folding the laundry and putting away the tents that is!). After lunch we rode together for a while, and then Dad backtracked to get the car while I continued on. At times, visibility was less than 100 feet with the fog, but it seemed to change a lot throughout the day (this may have been due to us going up and down into and out of it rather than it actually clearing or thickening). We saw lots of wildlife today too - a deer, a bunny, a heron, and... I was about 20 km from camp (Dad had gone ahead to check in) when I came around the bend at the top of a particularly twisty hill and came face to face with a bear! Ok, well, maybe not face to face with it - it was about 20 feet away across the ditch - but it was most definitely too close for comfort. I hesitated for a moment and almost reached for my camera, but survival instinct won and I booked it, hoping that it was more interested in the plant it was eating and/or didn't see me. Safely away... that was SO COOL to see! We arrived at our campsite around 7, got cleaned up and made dinner. Now we're just relaxing in the restaurant/general store at this campsite to use the internet, and are looking forward to going to bed at a decent hour!