Day 61 Campbellton, New Brunswick
Amqui to Campbellton
Distance: 104 km
August 23, 2006

Since our group has, in many ways, devolved into much of a circus, one of the riders purchased a clown horn; he likes to honk it at every opportune moment-sometimes directed at the clownish drivers who demonstrate their idiotic driving skills, but more often to announce arrivals, and to punctuate the many bizarre situations we find ourselves in.
This morning a herd (gaggle?) of ducks came wandering near our campsite; he gave the horn a toot, and they reacted like they had just heard their home-coming call as they all came waddling over to us, as if this was the standard procedure.
What else could we do, but feed them our daily bread; it was a fun way to start the day (especially for me as I am such a fan of ducks.)

The Fun People had decided that this was going to be ‘wear underwear on the outside day,’ so those brave enough followed through with the plan; five of us, myself included put our undies over our bike shorts and hit the road.
It was fun for a while, until we stopped at a store of sorts and had to endure the leering looks of the men, and the hostile glare of the women-no words were exchanged whatsoever (none needed to as the message was clear, our behaviour was not appreciated.)
Some of us in the group are more at home with the attention, or more like, are attention seekers, so this only bolstered the activity as we set back out onto the road.
I lasted until about midday, until I could no longer take the questioning looks, and honks from trucks, so took them off before we went into a restaurant packed with truckers.

The riding conditions have been a bit sketchy of late, what with no shoulder for long stretches that have forced us into the roads.
We had a couple of close calls today, again from people overtaking coming from the other direction; one guy decided to start over taking right beside us, with a boat in tow that almost took the whole line of us out (5 people.)

Besides near death experiences that we have become alarmingly accustomed to, the scenery, amazingly has changed quite dramatically; we’re in the fly fishing capital of Atlantic Canada now, so our ride snaked along besides twisty, turny rivers that often had people in big boots, fishing for salmon.
It almost looked like we were back in BC again, as we are in the hills again with the rivers that run beside them.
The weather has taken a really cold turn; none of us seem quite prepared as we have been so used to the heat wave that had Canada up in arms this summer; it’s either too hot or too cold; why can’t we be like Goldie Locks and her porridge and get it ‘just right?’