Caboteers Part Five: Is An Ocean Is Not An Ocean

7 September 2024

The events in this post occurred on August 20, 2024.

Coady thinks today's ride is the best one on the trip. There aren't any big hills, and we'll be riding along the northern coast of Cape Breton.

As before, we're instructed to leave our suitcases outside of our cabins and to take our day packs with us. The guides haul our stuff into the vans while we eat breakfast.

We step outside to fog and mist. I guess this is going to be how it is. It's too warm for a jacket. Others are wearing them.

We set out on wet roads. At the first intersection, we come upon a chalk drawing of a bike and an arrow. It's far more elaborate than anything I've seen on an organized ride. 

I'm stopping for pictures whenever it's convenient. Since there are so many of us and we're spread out, I'm not worried about holding up the group or falling behind. 

There are two vans. One has the bike trailer and the other a boxy trailer for more bikes, luggage, and whatever else. The other two guides ride their bikes with us. One is near the front, and the other sweeps. Every ten miles or so, we'll see one of the vans. If the driver wants us to stop, they'll be outside the van, waving us in.

That happens at a church in Margaree. Laid out on the bike trailer is an array of snacks. Heddy points me to the last of the iced shortbreads from the High Wheeler bakery in Baddeck. Mine!

There's time for pictures.

The sky is clearing!

But the roads are still wet.

The van pulls us over again at Larch Wood Enterprises because they want us to look at the hand-made cutting boards. We walk into a small warehouse and up a flight of stairs in our cleats. We're ferried to a narrow showroom where everyone but me seems to want to buy a cutting board.

Granted, they're intricate.

I just don't see why anyone would want to take a knife to something like this. These belong on a wall.

While folks get in line to buy theirs and have them shipped or stashed in the van, I go outside and follow a path to the back of the warehouse.

Oooooookay.

It's an oddly manicured patch of lawn in an otherwise rustic landscape. I walk back to the warehouse and tell people that they need to see the grounds. A few people go.

We set out again on more rolling hills. And then there's water.

At the top of a small hill I pull over again.

 Others are catching on that when I stop, it's time for the cameras to come out.

The van motions us over at an ocean overlook. It's the ocean, but it's not the ocean. It's the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

Janice relaxes.

Next, we visit La Bella Mona Lisa, an art gallery. We're really spread out now because a handful of folks stayed on at Larch Wood.

I wonder if this is the mountain that's going to kill us tomorrow. Probably not, but it looks scary anyway.

Jane, one of the guides, tells me, "If you liked that little man, you'll like this place." She's referring to the sculpture back at the cutting board place. "The artist does a lot with square cows," she says.

Cows and bananas.

I would put this clock in my kitchen if I had the space.

I'm not going to buy any artwork; I have no wall space at home. I get a pair of earrings (glass and silver, no cows) instead. I don't know how we got onto it, but the shopkeeper tells me that everyone clears out of Cape Breton in the winter. "We get 120 mile per hour winds," he says. 

I find myself thinking about the smaller paintings as I leave the shop. I figure I can always look for them online when I get home. (Nope. No online presence, no online shop.)

We stop for lunch at a seafood restaurant. The bike rack comes with my own personal Araneus diadematus (the blurry, light-brown blob in the center of this photo).

I find something to eat without seafood in it. I've been going through my protein bar supply to supplement my meals. I'd rather have real food, but when I'm hungry after a ride, half a bar will have to do.

We start to see signs and road names in French.

We ride on and enter Cheticamp. The very name makes me nervous. The Cape Breton Highlands are on the other side of town, and the Mountain Day from Hell that I've been losing sleep over is now one day away.

I'm trying to stay calm. After I clean up, I seek company. Heddy and Dave S are planning to meet on the lower deck of the hotel to flesh out winter ski trip plans. Her room is in an outbuilding behind the main hotel. I wander back there.

One of the guides, Tom, is sitting outside his room with a beer and a cooler full of flavored carbonated water. I help myself to a can and we chat. He mentions the winter winds too, and that it's not as cold up here as it used to be. "The Gulf would freeze," he says, "and you could walk all the way to Prince Edward Island." He used to hold ice-biking events on the lakes here. Not anymore.

We migrate to the lower deck of the main hotel building. Behind the hotel, clouds are doing interesting things.

In front is a view of the Gulf.

Now there's a big group of us on the deck, drinking beer and selzer. Someone brings out wine. Codey fills us in on tomorrow's double-mountain ride. The first, he says, is French Mountain, longer but easier, with stretches of 15% grade. The second, North Mountain, has a section with a steady 18% grade, "the hardest climb in Canada." And they're putting us on it? I already know I can't do 18% without my wheel coming off the ground. I'm losing my battle the heebie-jeebies.

I want to go for a walk along the water. I manage to convince Heddy, Ginger, and Jeff to go with me. We head towards what looks like a working dock.

A cormorant bobs in the water.

"What are these?" Jeff thinks they might be crab traps. (They are.)

We go back up to the street. I duck into a drug store to buy dental floss, the little travel spool having run out in no time. The others want to go back to the hotel. I continue on, taking a recommendation from some folks in our group whom we pass, to walk on the boardwalk that starts behind a restaurant.

Again with the angular ornamental lighthouses.

Tic-tac-toe:

We're on our own for dinner. I'm with a group that has chosen a restaurant on the water, the one the boardwalk is behind. Seated at a long table, I'm facing the water. 

The sun is going down. "Anyone wanna go watch the sunset?" I have a few takers. We go down to the boardwalk behind the restaurant.

Heddy notices the flowers first. (I looked them up; they're toadflax.)

Behind us, on the support beams for the restaurant, the noctournal spiders come out. There are loads of them. 

They're mostly Larinioides sclopetarius. (This one, I realized later, is guarding her egg sac, and there appear to be spiderlings hatching from it.)

I do remember to turn around every so often to check on the sky.

"Look how pretty she is!" I'm slowly winning people over.

It's just Malcolm and me now, walking back to the hotel. Our rooms are in the main building. We walk up to the front door. It's locked. My key doesn't open the door. Malcolm has two separate keys. Neither works. 

He calls the number on the hotel's sign while I look for other doors. There's one on the deck next to the front door. My key doesn't work on it either. I'm not panicking yet; it's only a bit after 9:00. There's plenty of time to sort this out before I need to be asleep. 

The door opens from inside. It's Frank. Again. Two nights in a row. 

"We're locked out," I explain. Elaine opens the front door for us while at the same time, Malcolm relays that there's a way in "around the back." He adds, "They lock the front door at 9:00." 

Once we're in, I reset the front door deadbolt and go upstairs. Funny, I think: one of my two windows looks out to the water. I could have watched the sunset from here.

A handful of people are out on the upper deck, drinking beer and being bitten by no-see-ums. I check the door, which they have left slightly open. My key doesn't work on it, and the knob is in the locked position. I tell everyone to be careful they don't get locked out too, and leave them.

I need to set out my clothes for tomorrow, do PT for my back, and get ready for bed. I need to calm down. I need to listen to some of my bike tunes on my phone while I putter around. 

There's one song that gets me up the big hills. I listen to it twice before I switch to shuffle. As I'm stretching my back, it comes around again.

I call Jack, read a bit from the book of Mi'qmac legends, and get into bed on time. I fall asleep eventually.

At 3:30 a.m. I'm wide awake. My mind is racing, my heart not far behind. What is it? What is it that's been stressing me out for the past year and a half? I've figured out the social life part. It's not that keeping me awake right now. What is it? It's tomorrow. What about tomorrow? The second mountain. What if I push myself too hard and I get hurt? What if I tweak my back and can't ride for the rest of the trip, or even in Bar Harbor? All it takes is one bad move. What if I hurt my knees trying to get up the 18% grade?

What if I get in the van for the second mountain ascent? 

I fall asleep.