Day 40-Pancake Bay, Ontario
Wawa to Pancake Bay Provincial Park
Distance: 163 km
Temp: mild and overcast/rainy

We set out late this morning as we’d stayed in a motel overnight and had to get back to the campsite to take down our tent since we’d set it up anyhow, in case we decided to go back to camp the night before the ride (we decided against it.)
Since we got to camp late, we missed breakfast so ended up eating at a truck-stop with really bad service, putting us even later into the morning.
We were on the road shortly after 10am; hours after the rest of the group had set out.

As mentioned previously, some kilometers come easily, and tick by relatively quickly, and other times it feels as if you have to fight for every one-today was one of those days.
It seemed like the whole ride was uphill (much of it was, at 1220 meters of climbing ) but adding Hedwig to the mix turned the ride into one of the most challenging so far; with all elements conspiring against us, I felt like throwing either myself, the bike, or both over a cliff-mentally I just could not wrap my head around this one.
Even though we have passed the half way point, there is still a huge amount of distance to cover; I try not to think about that too much, as I cannot quite digest it, but one comes up with other ways to break the ride down, like day by day.
However some days, like today seem like an eternity; there are a few different mind games at play to get one through; if it’s a ride in distance around 140km, then after the first 40k, it’s ‘just another hundred to go,’ or conversely, after 100, then just 40 to go, both work quite well.
If it’s a ride like today, around 160km, thinking ‘only 60 to go, then 100’ doesn’t quite work as well, or conversely, 100 done and only 60 to go also doesn’t sound so encouraging, so one has to come up with other inventive ways to get through the tough ride.
Whining and moaning seems to occupy some time, but that has an expiration date as Lewis will only listen to so much, so then I have to internalize it, which isn’t as fun somehow.

One interesting thing that we have been observing along the way are discarded bottles along the side of the road; at first we couldn’t figure out what they were and why they had been scattered along the side of the road; they are the smaller plastic pop bottles with a liquid inside that is clearly not the original pop.
The color of the liquid varies-but is generally an ice-tea color.
Finally, to our horror, we deduced what the contents of the bottles are: pee.
Whose pee?
Truckers’ pee.
The lazy bastards can’t seem to get it together like the rest of us to pee outside, or in a bathroom-ok, so they are on a tight schedule, McDonald’s needs their egg McMuffins, but can’t these people at least hang onto the bottles instead of flinging them out the window for others to come across?
Since my other mind games weren’t working today, I had time to think about this one: these pop bottles are small, how do they aim properly into the bottles while operating a multi-ton truck and not get pee all over themselves?
Perhaps this will explain why some of them seem to swerve in towards us-are they trying to aim their unit into the tiny bottle opening?
Seems plausible.
Or conversely, the numbers of bottles we see are numerous, but are not proportionate to the number of trucks that pass us; in fact the number of bottles seems somewhat proportionate to the number of psychotic drivers who try to scare us/run us off the road.
Could it be that the type of person who pees into a bottle and chucks it out the window is the type of person to try to terrorize us?
Very possible.
Another possible theory: often men’s level of self confidence is tied into the size of their genitalia; could it be possible, that since presumably some of the men can aim their peckers into these pop bottles, they must have small ones’, which, according to the popular theory of small pecker=low self esteem, then these small-peckered men who can fit it into the pop bottles have low self esteem and low confidence, and must thus make up for it in some way, like picking on those who are smaller than them (why do they want to drive such massive trucks, obviously trying to make up for something lacking?) so the most obvious target, are cyclists.
Just a theory.

Another observation is the extremely disturbing find of dirty diapers also tossed from cars-yech; what is wrong with these people that they somehow justify tossing their crappy nappies into the wilderness for others to come across:
”Oh look honey! Another diaper full of crap! How sweet-and look how healthy this child is, getting a diet of corn.”
I think there is some correlation between people who travel long distances and having a low chromosome count-I mean really, what up with all that?