[Absolut Speed]

Like Kevin, I made the trip to the great north to visit Eugenio. He showed me how to slaughter baby seals and make my own candles after harpooning a whale! I love Canada! Okay, not so true, but I again owe Eugenio a huge thansk for showing us the way from Montreal to the Vermont border. Of course, those lovely Quebec detours with minimal signage and marginal signage makes the trip extra great. I really owe you Eugenio!

Anyhow... Here's what I've written home from our bike trip in emails to the family:



Well, we made it to Richford, Vermont (via Toronto,
Montral & burlington). The ride from Burlington to
Burton Island was nice, but we had a late start,
imagine that. However, it was ot our fault. Quebec
is awful with detour directions... and we had a
Montreal native showing us the way! By time we got to
Burlington, our small motel where we had reservations
sort of closed. Well, the manager was there... with
some friends... who were clearly drunk. So then we
had to find a place with a vacancy for under $100.
Now that was a bigger challenge than one would expect,
but apparetly this weekend was a Quebec holiday, so
they all come storming across the border. I wish you
could hear my impression of them saying "holeiday" and
"boyooder" because yeah, I'm all "aboot" that.

So to get to Burton Island requires a ferry trip.
About 15 minutes to the last ferry, we figured we were
about 20-30 minutes away. We stopped and asked a nice
older couple for a ride via their pickup to the dock,
and they kindly obliged. So it turns out the
concessions on the island close at 6:30 too... about
10 minutes before the ferry gets there. No worries,
the park ranger was having a BBQ for the staff and
invited us over. So we sat on the ferry dock on Lake
Champlain drinking water and eating some snacks before
showering and heading over to the ranger's house.
Pretty nice.

From Burton Island to Lake Carmi was a fairly easy
day, though dinner was another challenge again. No
real close by place along the way to get food, so we
sweet talked a park worker into giving us a ride from
our campsite down along the lake to the top of the
entrance after we unloaded our bicycles. Then it was
just three miles to the general store where we were
able to get some filling subs.

We went to sleep, only to hear sprinkles hitting the
tent after midnight. It's pretty much rained
(lightly... I guess...) since then. Took the tent
down in the rain, rode to the library here in Richford
in the rain, and it looks like we'll be back out in
the rain sooner than later since I'm hogging the
computer and Kristen's finished with it for her summer
school class too.

The bummer is tonight's campground had a par 3 course
and I was looking forward to a little something
different to do... not that pedaling, taking photos
and stopping now and again to relax isn't fun!

Take care, we are!

-Scott & Kristen

PS Kristen's begging to not go back outside. Someone
send us some sun! She's awful picky, today I asked
what's best, 70 and rain or 105 and dry as a bone in
Moab. She didn't like either choice.


Didn't expect to write again so soon, but the opportunity arose. The bike shop that adjusted my derailer and rewrapped my handlebars in Newport, VT is across the street from the library.

We survived the rain. We crossed into Canada last afternoon and I kid you not, with a straight face, the Canadian border guard said, "Are you lost or something?" Well not quite. Crazy? Maybe. Lost? No. So we rode to Glen Sutton where there was supposed to be a restaurant since we decided to skip dining in Richford. Turns out the restaurant is closed on Mondays, or at least I'm led to believe since French looks a lot like sanscript to me. So on to the convenience store at the Canadian campground. They had ships, Reese's Peanutbutter Cups and peanuts. That's about it. Oh, and mosquitos, lots of mosquitos. One flock as able to pull Kristen off her bike, but her shoes were clipped to the pedals of her bike, and the weight was just too much. So after taking an inventory of our wet tent, wet clothes, no real dinner and the 10 trillion to one mosquito to mammal ratio, we decided to keep going past our intended stop. So back to the US, where the 30 seconds it takes to stop at the border was just long enough to incur a dozen or so mosquito bites. I will say though, it was a pretty darn scenic ride through Quebec. So we found a motel in North Troy, population 543. No one was there, but while we twiddled our thumbs on the porch and swatted mosquitos, the proprieters showed up. So now we have a room at the motel/restaurant, and guess what, the restaurant is closed on Mondays. I know, we were shocked too. Meals are almost impossible to find up here! So we walked to the N. Troy Pub & Restaurant (not to be confused with the motel & restaurant or the North Troy bed & breakfast. Well you're not going to believe this... closed. However, the small grocery store across the street was open. We had a microwave in our room, and the wheels started turning. well, not too fast, because it was still raining cats and dogs and the streets of N. Troy were like small rivers. So we had some scrumptious microwave dinners and pizza rolls (and white snack cakes). It's okay, we're burning calories! So then it was off to bed, but not before seeing the forecast which is calling for 1-2 inches of rain Wednesday. yeesh. Well, today was pretty uneventful other than spendig a lot of time willing ourselves up over the hills. Had a real meal in Newport and a chance to write this, now on to Brighton State Park near Island Pond. Again, if any of you can do something about the wind and rain, we'd appreciate it!

[Crazy Canuck]

Eugenio, the Crazy flea plague Canuck, I should say.

Edit by trackbird:

It's "flea" as in the little bug, not "flee" as in "to run away". I figured I'd correct that so nobody though you had people running back to the US from Canada.....