Wanderlust

That time I cycled across

Canada and other stories

Allison Watson

Copyright © 2013 by Allison Watson

All rights reserved. This is my way of offsetting some of my lung transplant related medical expenses so please don’t steal my stuff. The scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book, prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the writer at adwtsn@gmail.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

ISBN: 978-0-9921688-0-3

Cover photograph © by David Watson

Editing by Edit 4 Me, Cindy Ficza Watson, and Alison Che

For my siblings, who never say no to an adventure.

I love you.

Contents

Let’s Go on an Adventure

The Best Place on Earth

Parsley Ruins Everything

Wild Rose Country

Ponies are Evil

Land of the Living Skies

Rainy Emerald Island

The Day of the Moose Burgers

Our Taxi Hit a Camel

Spirited Energy

Turning Twenty

More to Discover

My Intestines Tried to Kill Me

Canada Day

The Quest for the Sunset

La Route Verte

French Cats

Be…in this place. Être…ici on le peut.

An Unconventional Staycation

The Gentle Island

There is a Hole in My Stomach

This is Canada’s Seacoast

A Fly Went Up My Nose

Welcome

The End

Author’s Note:

All of these stories are told to the best of my knowledge, from memory and my travel journals. Studies have shown that memory is fluid and evolving and that one perspective is never the same as another. Stories change with telling and retelling and the fish keeps getting bigger. While I hope to have accurately portrayed the size of my fish, I can not help but note that it may have grown over time.

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a multi-system disease, affecting the lungs and digestive system. In the lungs, thick mucus causes increasingly severe respiratory problems. It is difficult to clear bacteria from the lungs, which leads to cycles of infection and inflammation. Mucus and protein also build up in the digestive system, which causes digestive difficulties and nutrients must be absorbed with the aid of digestive enzymes. As a person with CF ages, co-morbid diseases such as diabetes, arthritis, asthma, osteoporosis, liver disease, colon cancer, and more become a concern. A lung transplant can prolong the life of some people with CF when their natural lungs fail.

(Source: Cystic Fibrosis Canada, cysticfibrosis.ca)

“All books are fantasy unless you are actually writing a true book about true people and even in that case normally the process of selection of facts means that you are lying. You are creating art out of something and you are somewhat fantasizing.”

- Neil Gaiman

Let’s Go on an Adventure

TO BEGIN, I just want to state that our cycling trip across Canada was never meant to be about a cause. It didn’t start out about raising money or awareness for cystic fibrosis (CF). My brother, David, and I were just two students who wanted an adventure and I just happened to have CF. After we actually committed to the idea of the trip and then got ourselves some gear, we realized how uncomfortable it would be to have to camp every single night.

Since we liked the idea of a roof or two, we thought we should use our connections through the local CF Chapter in Moncton – of which Dad is a member – to see if we could get a roof over our heads for a few nights. That was when we realized that we would probably have to do it for a cause in order to find people willing to help us on our way. Most people are skeptical when you say you want to “cycle across the country for fun!” but when it turns into a cause then they will be more apt to open their homes to you. Since I have CF, it seemed like the obvious choice.

We created a website to give people a better idea of what we intended to do and in which time frame. I made up a rough schedule of where we were expected to be every night (which turned out to be surprisingly accurate), and we contacted Cystic Fibrosis Canada to see if they would spread the word about our trip. We thought that because I had the disease and was planning to cycle across the country they would be supportive, as it would make an ideal ‘feel good story.’ As it turned out, we were quite wrong. The Moncton CF Chapter was extremely supportive but Cystic Fibrosis Canada didn’t respond to any of my emails. We did however, get a huge response from Kin Canada, which is not very big in the Maritimes but they do a lot of fundraising for CF research elsewhere. They were incredibly enthusiastic about the idea of the trip and helped us make a lot of great connections. They were so incredibly supportive to the point that it was a bit overwhelming. So yes, we totally exploited my disease as a way to get a roof over our heads for a few nights.

In the end, however, we did raise quite a bit of money for CF research, as people would just hand us cash as we cycled down the road. I would tell them that they should give it to the actual CF Foundation because then they could get a tax receipt, but they kept saying they wanted the money to help us out. We felt guilty spending that money. Every time I convinced David to get a hotel instead of camping in the rain, or when we splurged on a meal instead of cooking, we felt as though the money could have been better used for groundbreaking research. In hindsight, we should have dined out more and stayed at many more hotels, but we were young and it didn’t feel right to spend other peoples’ money. We would perch in front of the motels over our stove, cooking french toast or mac and cheese. Nevertheless, we were grateful for every warm bed and meal which came from the generosity of people along our route.

I also want to make it clear that the trip was totally David’s idea and I just piggy-backed on it. More specifically, it started with David and one of his high school friends and I happened to jump on the idea. One newspaper that interviewed us during the trip described it as ‘my adventure’ and that David was just ‘supporting me.’ That could not have been more wrong. It was his trip, his plan, his adventure, and I just happened to join in. Sure, I have CF which made the journey more challenging, but this didn’t lessen the fact that it was ‘our adventure’ rather than just mine. I felt uncomfortable when people would want to talk to me instead of David about the success of the trip when he was also pedaling every meter. In fact, he definitely cycled more than me; he was the one who biked into a town for food or milk while I set up camp or had a nap. He was the only reason I made it across the country as he mentally pushed and pulled me the entire way. He motivated me and yelled at me to get out of the tent in the mornings because “it didn’t matter if my butt hurt because so did his and we had no other way home!”

Despite my protests, no one really listened when I told them that it was David’s trip as much as mine and acted like I was somehow the only inspirational one. I hope that he doesn’t resent me for it. I feel like he has always had to live under the shadow of growing up with two siblings who have a disability (our sister Amy also has CF). My parents tried really hard to spend equal time with all of us; David had his ‘five minutes of parent time’ when we had our ‘five minutes of physiotherapy.’ But realistically, the healthier child is sometimes left behind when another child has medical requirements. I always felt that my parents did a good job about spending time with all of us equally, but I have a skewed view. It was very much an equal trip and while cycling across the country was a celebration of health and ability, it was never supposed to be ‘the Allison show.’

This story is about how I dealt with cycling for three months while dealing with a disability, and how I have always tried not to be defined by my disability – with mixed results. This is my perception of the events; if you want David’s side, you’ll have to harass him into telling his story.

“There will be a point in your trip where you will be beyond Hope.” - David’s Friend, Day 2, May 9th 2008

The Best Place on Earth

WE FLEW INTO VANCOUVER with our bikes in pieces crammed with our gear into two boxes. A member of Kin Canada had graciously offered to host us for three days while we adjusted to the time change and learned to put our bikes back together – probably should have looked into that ahead of time. We were surprised that the four-hour time change actually worked in our favour. As university students, we were both in the not-conducive-with-the-real-world habit of staying up and getting up late. Thankfully, when it was 9:00 p.m. in Vancouver, it felt like 1:00 a.m. for us so we were ready to head to bed. This also led to us waking up super early, which fit perfectly with our cycling schedule.

The members of Kin Canada Vancouver held a dinner in our honour the day after we arrived. Everyone was unbelievably supportive of and excited for what we were trying to do. I felt extremely awkward. As I mentioned, we never initially meant for it to be a fundraising event and were not prepared to have people give us money or encouragement. Also, I was – and still am – a typical introvert who is not proficient at small talk or mingling. I can talk to a large crowd comfortably as long as I don't have to talk to individuals. Lots of people wanting to talk to me makes me want to hide in a corner. However, I was the one who people wanted to talk to, so I tried my best to show how much I appreciated their help, and to not be so awkward. We really did appreciate their support and could not have made the trip as smoothly without them.

The next day, May 8th, 2008, we dipped our back tires in the ocean – well it was actually a marina, but it lead to the Pacific Ocean so we figured it counted. We then set off on our epic journey full of energy. One of David’s friends was joining us for the first few days, and shortly after we set off in all our energy and triumph, he got a flat tire. And twenty minutes later, another one. Although there is not one particularly memorable event or day that sticks out during the ten days we spent in British Columbia, those first days taught us everything we needed to know for the rest of the trip.

Day One. I learned that there was nothing I could have done to prepare me for the intensity of the trip on which I had just embarked. I had spent the four months prior in fierce competition with David to see who could exercise the most each month (the prize was a Tim Hortons gift card). As a result, I spent a lot of time with my amazing friend Alison, going to the gym and attending every exercise class offered through the university. We spent hours sweating in step classes, trying to flex our bodies into impossible positions for yoga, and lifting ‘just one more’ rep of weights at the body toning class. She was good at kicking my butt every time I tried to wimp out. I also cycled around Halifax as much as possible but it wasn’t enough to prepare me for cycling for eight hours that first day.

The first major hill was by far the worst. It was not on the main highway because a bridge was being replaced resulting in a steep detour. Detours are a bitch. They always involve going a long way in the opposite direction of where you want to be, and on a much steeper road. I made it halfway up the detour road before I had to stop. I tried pushing my bike a bit but it was super heavy (we progressively got rid of more and more gear as we made it across the country). So I gave up on that, geared down to the lowest gear, and went up at a snail’s pace. My struggle up that hill made my brother and his friend incredibly nervous for the success of the rest of the trip. They were both rolling their eyes at me as I gasped for breath at the top of the hill that they had both motored up. I was too busy trying to catch my breath to care. I was also damned proud of myself for making it up the hill. Even though I thought I was going to die, I had made it to the top. And if I could make it to the top of that hill, I could do anything.

This attitude lasted until the next hill.

Day Two. I learned not to underestimate the healing power of a good stretch. That morning, muscles I had only read about in textbooks started aching. For the first month, we stretched before cycling, and then we would cycle for 30 minutes before stopping to stretch out everything once our muscles were warmed up a bit. David's back bothered him a lot during the trek through British Columbia, and he would have to stretch it out every hour or so which was fine with me since I could rest and eat gummy bears. Stretching provided a little bit of comfort to the level of pain that our bodies were sending our way. We were sore to the point where everything hurt. My body had a rotation cycle where I would be in pain in a different area each day. The first day my legs hurt, the second my back, the third my shoulders, the fourth my wrists, until the tenth day, when finally only my bum and right knee were complaining. I'm still not sure if it took a week for my butt to get sore or if, at that point, everything else had stopped hurting long enough for me to notice my bum was sore. After the first month, we became quite slack about stretching since our bodies had either stopped fighting with us or had become accustomed to the pain.

That second day we also learned the benefits of following the old highway instead of the newer ‘more direct ones.’ We decided in Hope to part ways with David’s friend and take highway number 1 through the valley, instead of the more popular Coquihalla Pass, which we were told went over the mountains instead of winding around them. We still had massive climbs but the road generally followed the river and wound through the valleys instead of plowing overtop of them.

Day Three. I realized that prior to this trip I had only talked to men about their cross-country cycling experiences; no one had mentioned what it might be like for a woman. That day I discovered that it looked like I would be menstruating at random on and off for the next 83 days. I guess it was my body’s way of making absolutely sure that I would not get pregnant while under that much physical stress. Or maybe it was because my bike seat was so damn hard that my vagina and uterus decided to get revenge for the torture I’d been inflicting on them. It was especially annoying as we camped that night on the side of the road – in bear territory.

It was spring and the bears were hungry so we were super careful to cook away from the tent and hang all our food and garbage in a tree. That was not enough for me as I had read that bears are attracted to the smell of a menstruating woman. I was terrified that a bear was going to attack our tent and then David would have to inform our parents that I had been mauled to death by a bear because my body had turned me into a baiting signal. Somewhat equally tragic, that day we also discovered that we had forgotten we would need a can opener, despite having mostly canned food. While David set up the tent that night, I learned how to open a can of tuna by bashing it with a rock. We had bits of dirt in our tuna that night, and there was fish juice everywhere, which doubled my fear of a bear mauling. The next day we bought a can opener.

Day Four. We learned how much our parents were stressing about our trip. We had an old cell phone with us – this was before smart phones were affordable. However, even fancy technology couldn’t have helped us on the valley route with no cell reception. The first day, the phone showed one tiny reception bar but unbeknownst to us, our texts did not actually go through. For the second and third days, we lost all of the signal bars but we figured our parents would assume that we had no reception and that we would have contacted them if something was seriously wrong. We completely underestimated their concern for us. The fourth day, it was Mother’s Day and being good children, we found a payphone and fed it all our change to make the long-distance call. Unfortunately, they weren’t home, so we just left a short ‘Happy Mother’s Day!’ message. When we stopped that night for our first real, sweet, soft, comfortable bed and hot cleansing shower in four days, I also used the motel’s computer to email and instant message home. Thankfully, Mom was online and was very relieved to talk to me. Before getting our Mother’s Day message, Mom had been prepared to call the police to find us as they hadn’t heard from us since setting off. To her, we had just disappeared into the mountains and we were certainly dead somewhere in the middle of the woods; resulting in sleepless, worry filled nights on her end. Good thing she didn’t know about the bears. Dad had wisely told her to wait a few more days before calling anyone as we probably just did not have cell reception. I profusely apologized and from then on we tried to faithfully text, call, or email home daily.

Day Five. We learned not to trust a motorist’s idea of a flat road. We had stopped for lunch at a gas station that had picnic tables and as I was waiting in line to buy some milk, I chatted with a woman who had just driven from our destination. She told me that we were lucky and had such a good section ahead of us because the next 100 kilometers was incredibly flat. I thanked her and after eating some pasta salad, proceeded to climb an incline that went on for kilometers. We cursed that random stranger every pedal of the way and after that we stopped believing when drivers said the road was ‘mostly flat.’ Everyone we talked to had an opinion about the road we were about to cycle but unless they had actually cycled the stretch, we discounted their information. Most people don't really pay attention as to whether they are driving along an incline or decline unless there is a sharp sudden hill with great views. The best information we received was from other cyclists or transport truck drivers who have to pay closer attention to the road.

That day, I also discovered that I had a weak right knee. It started to send shooting pain up my leg every time I moved it. This was not a pleasant discovery. Discussing it with a very generous couple who hosted us that night, we learned that knee pain is common for cyclists – I was excited to be considered a ‘cyclist’ – and that besides a lot of rest, there was not much I could do. I obviously did not have the luxury of rest so I learned to just push on through the pain. The generosity of that couple taking in complete strangers on a minute’s notice was the beginning of us being overwhelmed by the generosity and hospitality of many Canadians along the way.

Day Six. We discovered that RV drivers are much more terrifying on the road than any transport truck driver. Everyone tends to give transport truck drivers or – ‘semi drivers’ as they are known outside of the Maritimes – a bad reputation but they at least had to take a specific driver’s training course unlike the kind, elderly German couple who rented a giant RV and are now cruising around the country unaware of the massive dimensions of their vehicle. That night we watched a sweet German man try to maneuver their RV into a parking spot at our campground. We watched in horror as he almost took out several trees and a picnic table. However, when we went to ask them for some butter to help us cook our pancakes, they were very generous, so we couldn't really complain. That couple with their RV made me extremely nervous whenever a giant RV passed too closely. The worst was when RV drivers were also hauling a car or a boat or, even more terrifying, a car and a boat as I had doubts on their ability to accurately gauge their size. RV drivers, as a majority, gave us less room on the road when passing us on the highway than the transport trucks.

Day Seven. I learned that there was a reason we had brought a bike repair kit and book. The previous day, my rear derailleur – which is responsible for changing the gears on the back wheel – had stopped working properly. It is essential for climbing up mountains as you are constantly changing gears, so it was important that it be working 100 percent. David managed to fix the derailleur that night using the step-by-step instructions in the book. I carried on happily – happily being a relative concept – the next day. We also learned that we were carrying way too much stuff so we dumped some unnecessary items at the campground. I had an extra pair of bike shorts, I had picked up from Frenchys, that I had worn that day. However, they weren't skin tight like my brand new ones and they ended up riding up my legs and crotch. I made the decision to make do with my one really good pair the whole way. Only David would care if (when) they got unbearably smelly. I’m sure that one pair of shorts didn’t actually make a significant weight difference but every little gram adds up.

Day Eight. We learned that we had to do a better job covering our food at night. That night, we stayed at a campground and we thought we could make do with hiding our food under the picnic table. We were wrong. The eight-dollar cereal, which we had grudgingly bought at the only store we had seen that afternoon and had been so excited to devour, paid for our mistake. In the early morning we were woken up by the sounds of either one very ferocious crow or a pack of angry crows making a nuisance of themselves. We cursed at them for waking us up so early and tried to get another hour of sleep while ignoring their caws. When we finally got up, we realized why all the crows in the area had been so excited. They had managed to pull the cereal box from underneath the tarp under the picnic table and then pecked it to shreds. They were officially cereal killers (heehee). We were so angry that our very expensive box of cereal had been destroyed. David still wanted to eat the bits that were left in the box but I convinced him that it would probably be a dumb idea because he would surely catch some weird crow disease. We packed up feeling super annoyed (David went without any breakfast), and set off for the day.

That day we learned that, while crows may be super annoying, people can be quite helpful. We were a half hour down the road from the campground when a car pulled over in front of us. The driver got out and was holding something out towards us. As we got closer, we realized it was a pair of pants. Turns out, they had fallen off David's pannier after he had stripped them off when the sun had warmed us up. He thought he had stuck them securely in with his sleeping bag under the bungee cords but obviously not. The very helpful man had stopped to pick them up thinking they belonged to someone who he could track down. It would have been really inconvenient for David to have lost his only pair of pants. We thanked the man profusely, warned him about the crazy crows and overpriced cereal, and carried on our way thankful for friendly helpful people.

Day Nine. We learned that mountains, or any scenery, are beautiful but can still get boring. When we finally made it around the mountain we’d stared at all day, we were rewarded only with the view of a brand new mountain. The new mountains were stunning but the initial beauty wore off after the first four hours of staring at the white-capped cliffs. While the entire trip didn’t consist of only mountains, the cycle of seeing beautiful scenery and becoming bored with it, quickly became frustrating. Surprisingly enough, the Prairies had scenery that varied from day to day.

That day we also learned that our (my) fear of bears was justifiable, as we pedaled past three of them grazing by the side of the road. One of the bears was an adorable baby on a hill with no mama in sight. There were two cars pulled over and everyone was out of their car taking pictures. We, however, did not stop to take a picture as we had read all the ‘bear safety booklets’ about being wary of a baby with no mama in view; we were worried that the mama might run out of the woods and eat us. I knew she would get the scrawny cyclists first since they would be the slowest. So we pedaled away as quickly as we could, fuelled by the fear of being mauled to death.

Day Ten. Our last day in British Columbia, we learned about the beauty of the country and the importance of taking breaks, because it was one of the hottest days of the entire trip. Considering it was still May and quite cold at night, a day of 30 degrees was a shock to our system. We cycled into Mt. Robson Provincial Park that day and asked the information center employee about the campgrounds in the park. We were told there were two campgrounds, one near the entrance and one 70 kilometers in. Seeing as it was only noon, we wanted to go a bit further but not for another 70 kilometers, so we asked if we were allowed to camp in the woods. The woman was very confused why we would want to do that and kept saying “there is a campground right here.” We left the information place only to climb a massive hill. The sun was beating down on us and I thought I might slide right off my bike due to the layer of sweat all over my body. We agreed on an hour rest once we were halfway up the hill so we dug out the tarp and tried to make some shade to sit under using the bikes to prop it up. I napped for the hour while David played cards and looked for berries to eat. Eventually, we decided there was no more delaying the climb, so at two o’clock, we set off again. We felt better and were rewarded with an incredible descent after the peak. The road leveled out after that and wound around the valleys with no more massive climbs. It was still super hot but we were able to find a little bit of shade that made us feel better.

We set up camp at the most beautiful lake we had seen that trip. Maybe it was because we hadn’t stared at it all day or maybe because we had heat stroke, but Moose Lake was stunning. It was the perfect mountain scene. There were snow capped mountains on three sides of the lake with a closer mountain on the fourth side. There was still some ice on the far side of the lake which made it glimmer and shine. The lake was surrounded by fir trees, adding to the depth of the view, and the water was so calm that their reflection could be seen in some parts of the water. We had been to Lake Louise as children and had been impressed by the sight, but this seemed much better since it was so unexpected and there weren’t a million tourists running around. As icing on the serene Canadian view, there was a boat in the water with a man fishing. We made supper beside the lake by the boat launch area on the little beach, waded in the freezing icy lake, and watched the boat come back to the dock. We set up our tent on the little beach beside the lake hoping no one would yell at us. In fact, the only person we saw was the fisherman who greeted us that night and again in the morning when he returned to continue fishing. We all watched the sunrise burn the fog off the water while a beaver swam by with a stick in its toothy mouth before continuing on our way into Alberta.

Parsley Ruins Everything

THE ONLY TIME prior to our bike trip that David and I had gone across the country was 11 years earlier in 1997. My parents had loaded up our red minivan, stuffed in three children, and set off on a legendary road trip. They packed a suitcase full of books and Archie comics as an attempt to keep us from fighting the entire way. They also took out the middle seat of the van so we would have space to stretch our legs and occasionally lay down. This helped a lot during the long days with minimal stops.

Looking back on it, I can’t believe how crazy my parents were to attempt this venture. Adding to it, Amy and I had more needs, requiring physiotherapy twice a day and a lot of medication. Our aerosol masks meant that we could not just camp on the side of the road, as the machines required an outlet. Amy also had moments that we called ‘hunger attacks’ where she would just suddenly sugar crash and almost pass out if she didn’t get food immediately. We always had to have food and a drink on hand at all times, which I’m sure caused a headache or two along the trip. However, this pattern of always being prepared for hunger has transferred to all of us to this day.

The other major block on the trip was the fact that I was the world’s pickiest eater and therefore was pretty much impossible to feed at a restaurant with real cutlery and tablecloths. Once on the trip I ordered a plate of mashed potatoes as my supper, which I then refused to eat because the chef had sprinkled parsley over the top. There was apparently a ‘weird green taste’ which ruined everything. It would drive me crazy if I ever have to deal with a child-like version of myself. Mom, being infinitely patient, simply sent the potatoes back and asked for a plate with no parsley. This may sound crazy to some parents but I was perpetually underweight and needed every single calorie possible. I do not know how my parents dealt with my nutritional habits as I would only eat certain vegetables and meat, and sometimes only biscuits or crackers and cheese…or only eat the potatoes in the fish chowder. When I was really little, (before rational thought kicked in) I threw up a lot of my meals after eating. Not intentionally, but for some reason I couldn't keep food down. I would also tell my parents I was full when I hadn't actually eaten very much and just plain refused to eat anything else.

The doctors didn't know what to tell my parents about my eating habits, and would suggest something different at every check-up. They were convinced that I was playing mind games as a way to control my life. As a result, for a few months I got stickers for finishing dinner, then after that was not successful, they thought maybe time outs would work for not finishing my food. That didn’t work either so the next option was to bribe me with dessert or family time. When that didn't work, the doctors eventually decided that maybe I was actually telling the truth and that I simply wasn't hungry.

I ended up having a feeding tube inserted when I was 18-months old, which stayed there until I was six years old. The doctors initially told my parents that it would be a temporary thing, but it remained until my weight was stable and I was eating enough to keep gaining weight. This was during my vomiting phase so I was still getting calories at night but calories from real food would have been preferable. The feeding tube did make me gain weight and was a huge success. However, as a result of the need to always gain weight, I have a weird relationship with food that has continued to this day. My entire life I have been told by dietitians that I need to either focus on maintaining or gaining weight with a daily diet of 2500-3000 calories. As a result, I have a skewed view of healthy eating and the guilt associated with food. Most people feel guilty when they eat a piece of cake, I feel guilty if I don't eat the piece of cake. Contrary to most people, I need to buy the option with the highest calories at the grocery store and eat my protein before my salad to ensure that I maximize my caloric intake.

As kids, Mom would make dessert for Amy and I to eat with every meal and they were always very high-fat. We went through a phase of eating peanut butter pie every week until we both got to the point where we never wanted to see another peanut butter pie again in our lives. David probably has weird issues with food too as there was always junk food in the house but it was for his sisters and that maybe he shouldn’t eat all the cookies. It is fortunate that he was such an active kid with good metabolism.

I find that people, who are being friendly with weight-gain advice, like to suggest eating McDonalds or other fast food to gain weight. However, I like to eat healthy and I like ‘real’ food and I do still need to eat vegetables with real vitamins due to the fact that my body has such trouble absorbing nutrients. The most common reaction I get when people hear that I need to gain weight is either “well I can give you some of mine” or “I wish that was my problem.” I usually respond with a smile and laugh saying something like “yeah, it’s not so bad” when really I want to start ranting about how gross Ensure tastes. I realize that gaining weight for most people is a simple task and can be achieved by eating too many desserts or white bread – if the latest diet craze is to be believed – but for me it is incredibly difficult. I know that most people struggle with wanting to lose weight so when I frame it as a weight issue, instead of a ‘I get to eat whatever I want’ problem, people tend to be a bit more sympathetic and give me fewer angry glares when I eat a chocolate bar in front of them. The best thing I have ever had anyone say to me when I mentioned needing to gain weight was “yeah, I can imagine it must be hard, it is hard anytime you have to focus and pay attention to what you are eating.” That is pretty much the point.

So even with the family’s crazy diets, my family somehow made it across the country and back. I’m not sure if David would have been a picky eater if we weren’t his siblings but he was too and refused to eat anything with ketchup. The very rare times we had fast food, he would order a burger with no condiments, refusing to eat it if there was ketchup on the bun. Maybe he was just trying to be as cool as his sisters or maybe he was truly just picky. Amy and I were just as bad and would only eat chicken fingers with sweet and sour sauce. I’m sure mom and dad wanted to leave all three of us at the hunting camp in Northern Ontario – we were desperate for a place to stay – and pick us up on the way home.

On the road trip, Amy and I would read for most of the trip but David was not a huge book lover at that age and would try to get us to play driving games. Instead we would just yell at him to be quiet and tell him that he should learn to read a book like us. We were not the most sympathetic sisters. When it got dark, we would actually talk to him as books did not have a backlight option in those days. In Edmonton, Mom and Dad had had enough of our bickering, and bought David an old Gameboy from our cousins. However, his enjoyment did not last long, as Amy and I, like proper older sisters should, immediately decided that we both deserved equal time with the Gameboy and made him share.

David didn’t remember much about the road trip because he was nine at the time but our cycling trip did bring back a few memories, such as the totem poles in Hope, British Columbia and the ‘Welcome to Edmonton’ sign in Alberta. We both, however, remembered how boring Northern Ontario had been to drive through and that filled us with, what turned out to be appropriate, dread for cycling through Northern Ontario.

I’m extremely thankful that my parents refused to let having two kids with disabilities stop them from taking family trips and showing us the country. We road-tripped across Canada, down to Boston, and stayed at cottages in Prince Edward Island, and I’m a better person for it. I learned about the vastness of the country, each province, about different cultures, and the importance of getting a headlamp for nighttime reading. My parents showed all of us that we shouldn’t let any disability hold us back, and that we needed to live our lives despite any obstacles.

I credit my parents with giving me the confidence that I could take on a challenge like cycling across the country. Although not directly due to my parents’ influence, one motivating factor was that I wanted to prove to myself that I could do anything that David could. I always had a complex where I felt as though I needed to prove to everyone that I’m just as physically capable as someone without a disability.

My parents always pushed Amy and I, teaching us to ignore any limitations that the world tried to throw at us. I took this literally and still find it hard when someone tells me that I can no longer do something. Now that I’m at the point where I’m quite limited in my physical abilities, I still want to be able to prove that I can still do everything I used to even though I’m living with 24% of my lung capacity. It is difficult to admit to myself that I do have limitations. When the doctor asks something like “how far can you walk without stopping?” I want to say that I never have to stop and that I can walk as far as necessary. Rationally this isn’t true, and I do need to take breaks when walking but I find it challenging to admit this to myself. I’ve lived as though I have no limitations, which helped me create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now, though, this mindset is somewhat irrational, because I can’t walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded, I have not lost my determination – or stubbornness as some may call it – so I continue to climb stairs while huffing and puffing the entire way. My weakness is not being able to admit that I have a physical limitation, as that would be admitting that my life is being controlled by my disability. With that in mind at the beginning of our trip, I set off to prove to myself that I was just as capable as anyone else of cycling across the country.

My parents taught us to take advantage of opportunities, to travel, and to not let other peoples’ expectations define how to live our lives. Take advantage of every moment, and if you have the opportunity to pile your children, their books, and their medication into a van and drive across the country, you better damn well do so.

“This is how horror movies start…follow the strange car into the woods.” - Me, Day 15, May 22nd 2008

Wild Rose Country

THE HARDEST DAY of the ‘mountain’ stage was the one we spent cycling into Edmonton. We had spent the night camping and had met the most interesting family. Actually, let me back up to a few days before. My knee pain had continued through British Columbia and was getting worse as we headed into Jasper. By then it was a sharp stabbing pain whenever I pedaled that made me want to cut off my right leg. I tried cycling with my feet unclipped from the pedals because I thought maybe the pain was being caused by the position of my foot. When that only helped for a few hours, I tried clipping my feet back in and pedaling harder with my left leg and let my right one have a break. Surprisingly, that tactic was not very successful either. The only thing that seemed to help was not moving, which was not really an option when the only task I had to do for the next three months was cycle. So I popped some Tylenol and carried on in a lot of pain. In Jasper, when the pain got so bad that it was affecting my ability to walk up a flight of stairs, I thought maybe I should stop using the wrap we had make-shifted into a brace and get myself a real brace. We took a day to rest in Jasper and I went to the pharmacy and got a knee brace, which helped a little.

The day before we biked into Edmonton was clear with a forecasted ‘chance of showers,’ which meant 100 percent showers (have I mentioned yet that the summer of 2008 was one of the rainiest Canadian summers of that decade?). We were making good time and David wanted to push on so we wouldn’t have to go as far the next day. I, however, wanted to stop as the pain in my leg was getting almost unbearable. It started to rain while we were discussing our options, and a few minutes later, we passed a rest stop/campground so we decided to take a break in their cooking shelter. I voted on staying there for the night, as I was cold, wet, and in pain, but David wanted to carry on because he was worried the next day would be crazy long if we stopped too early. The campground seemed abandoned so I argued that we probably wouldn’t have to pay, which appealed to David’s cheap side.

We decided to stay and tried to light a fire in the sectional woodstove in order to warm up and dry off. There was some dry wood in one of the sections but all I managed to do was smoke up the entire shelter. We made supper with our little stove and hung up a few things to drip dry. Then the family showed up. It was a family of four, a very nice young-ish couple and two young girls (both under five). The children helped to break the ice as they ran around madly screaming. Although, people who meet while camping in the rain tend to have a lot to talk about (“staying dry?” “wet enough for you?” “don’t let anything touch your tent!”), without the help of rambunctious children crawling over picnic tables.

The father quickly started a fire in the section of the stove that was empty (and I had thought it was empty because it was the section that wouldn’t work – I would not make a good explorer). They offered us some of their hotdogs and then asked us about our camping plans. We stammered awkwardly until David confessed that we were probably going to sleep in the shelter unless we get kicked out. The father was not going to have any of that. He told us to pitch our tent in his lot and if the camp warden showed up, he would tell him that we were old buddies.

This is the point when my mother’s voice should have been in my head reminding me not to eat food from strangers or at least not to camp with them. However, since my parents would be the ones who offered the tired cyclists their campsite and hotdogs, I heard only the voice of my tired self no longer caring. We accepted the man’s generosity and followed his car into the woods to his campsite. We set up our tent behind their tent and screen house. Since I was bone tired, I crawled into our tiny tent and proceeded to drift off to sleep. However, before I started counting bicycles, the father of the friendly couple proceeded to spray the tent with what he said was a water repellent tent sealer that would prevent any leaks in our tent. He offered to give the can to David who politely refused. They returned to the shelter to eat some of the s’mores the family was making, complete with homemade marshmallows. I was left alone listening to the rain on the tent and as I tried to sleep, I started to wonder if the tent sealer should have been sprayed while someone was actually in the tent. Surely the fumes aren’t good for the lungs? Was it poisonous? What if it wasn’t actually tent sealant instead it was poison and the family was going to steal our bikes and food while we died in our tent? My thoughts quickly spiraled out of control as I drifted off to sleep. When David came into the tent a few hours later, I asked him if I had been poisoned, to which he rolled his eyes and told me to go back to sleep.

In the morning, we woke up to beautiful sunshine, alive and not poisoned, and we quietly took down our tent and returned to the shelter to make breakfast. David told me that the family offered him some weed as well as a homemade s’more so he was not worried about them running off with our bikes. He also told me that they lived an hour’s drive north of Edmonton and gave him their address in case we wanted to come visit them, their weed, and the bear that they had tamed to scare away the social worker who kept trying to take away their children.

With that in mind, we set off toward Edmonton. It was a sunny, warm day and we made good time for the first few hours. The generous family passed us in their ancient station wagon, loaded down with camping equipment, bikes, and screaming children, and honked at us for a solid minute. I’m sure it scared all the other drivers. We ate cold sandwiches and very sketchy mac and cheese on the side of the road for lunch, and in what quickly became tradition, I had a power nap wrapped in our tarp. I’m sure people thought we were homeless, because well, we essentially were.

We carried on to Edmonton, and being unprepared, we did not have a map of the city, but we did have a place to stay with a friend of the family. About an hour after lunch my knee started to hurt again, and on top of that, it became incredibly hot. I was still hungry for some reason and became downright miserable. I can’t really explain what happened but while cycling up one of the exit ramps to get us on the highway into the city, my soul broke. I saw my motivation and determination leave my body and get hit by a truck on the highway. The exit ramp was on a bit of a hill so David had sped off ahead of me as he always did on hills to avoid losing any momentum. He was out of hearing range so I couldn’t vent to him about my hatred of everything. I stopped biking and sat on the side of the road and cried. I cried and screamed and basically had a good old-fashioned meltdown. I vowed not to get back on my bike and that I wasn’t going any further and I would have to find another way home.

After being cried out, I realized that no one was going to come save me. I had to be my own knight in shining armour. It was a very deep thought coming from someone who was crying on the side of a highway about not wanting to cycle. It also helped that by that point David was out of sight so I literally had no other option. I assume he would have come back eventually if I had sat there long enough, but he must have sensed that I needed to figure this out on my own and he just waited for me at the top of the hill. I ate some gummy worms, giving me enough of a sugar boost to make it up the rest of the ramp. Once I reached the top, David asked me what took me so long. I replied that I was yelling at the cycling gods for getting me into this mess. He did a classic non-react and said “alright, as long as you’re okay” and took off down the road. I thought the worst of my day was over as we finally made it to the tourist info center on the outskirts of town.

We stopped, got a map of the city, and figured we could make it to our friend’s place in an hour or so. We were so confident that we even stopped at a Swiss Chalet and had a good home-style meal. Our host family for that night had generously offered to pick us up but we figured we could easily make it on our own. We checked the map ‘sponsored by McDonalds’ and failed to notice the actual scale of the thing. I think we were distracted by it telling us where every single McDonalds was in the city. We took off through the downtown area, crossed a bridge, and figured we were almost there. That is when we realized how big ‘one block’ on the map actually was. We were at number seven and needed to go to number 2178 before we turned to make it to the right road. We groaned and cycled down the road. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we could have gone straight there, but stopping and starting at every stoplight made us lose a lot of momentum and time. We followed the map but the house we were looking for was on one of the subdivision roads that did not run perpendicular to the main vertical road. We cursed the road engineers who had gotten creative and had drawn some swirls in the straight grid design that embodies most Western Canadian cities. It also didn’t help that we didn’t know how the houses were numbered on the crossing streets.

When we finally reached the proper intersection, we had to guess which way to turn to find the road. According to the map, half of the road was on the right side of the street but ended in the middle of that subdivision, yet somehow picked up in the middle of the subdivision on the left hand side of the road (confused yet? we sure were). I wanted to turn right, David wanted to turn left. I won the fight but in hindsight, should have let him win. We rode around the ‘right’ subdivision looking for the street and were so happy to find it and then so sad when it was a hundred numbers off the house we were looking for. I stood in the middle of the road and cried a little while destroying the stupid McDonald’s map. David told me to get off the road because I was going to get hit by a car and that would not get us there any faster. We called the family and they told us we were in the wrong subdivision, so we set off, now in the dark and crossed through the crucial intersection once again to the left subdivision. At 9:00 p.m., three hours later than expected, we finally found the house. Seeing the house and the worried family, I had an overwhelming sense of relief and exhaustion. We biked 197 kilometers that day. It was one of our longest days the entire trip and we felt every kilometer. It was such a hard day both physically and psychologically that I felt a deep appreciation for my bed and the fact that no one sprayed weird chemicals in the air right before I tried to go to sleep.

Ponies are Evil

DAVID AND I have always been pretty close. We spent our high school years riding horses together, and we could read each other’s emotions pretty well. This was convenient when we were cycling because it meant that we knew when to give each other enough space and this helped keep us friends, even after three solid months together. We kept our horses at a friend’s farm who charged us pennies for board and we tried to pay that back by cleaning the stalls, fencing, painting, and anything else to be helpful. As a family, we had a large paper route at the time which meant that our parents expected us to pay for all our horse-related expenses ourselves. I appreciate now how much that made us financially responsible and helped when we reached our adult years. We learned that we couldn't spend all our money on clothes or movies when we had to buy feed or shoes for the horses. I’m sure my parents would have helped out if we were in dire straits but they made it clear that it was our responsibility. I think we are better for it.

Our sister, Amy, spent some time with us at the barn but around this time her horse got sick and had to be put down, and she discovered boys, so that left just David and I. I spent pretty much every afternoon of my teenage years at the farm, riding and doing chores. Until I went to university, I never realized how much riding horses kept me physically active and healthy. People always comment about how easy it is to ride a horse but until you actually try to stay on a horse when it’s trying to buck you off while running blindly through a field, I don't think you get to comment on the leisure of the sport.

One Saturday afternoon in the fall, David and I decided to do the Mannhurst loop. It was about a three hour loop on mostly unpaved road; it was ideal as we did not want to get shot by ambitious deer hunters. We were having a great time until we came upon the place ‘with the ponies.’ We hated these ponies. Any other person would think that they were adorable, but we had history with the little buggers. We knew that in the corner of the field where the fencing came together, the ponies could walk underneath it easily and get onto the road. They especially liked to do this when horses were passing. The stallion pony, aka Demon Stallion, was the worst, because he always wanted to either mate with the female horses or challenge the other males in the group.

On Canada Day, a few months before this particular ride, four of us were on a long trail ride to Havelock and had to pass the ponies. The Demon Stallion, of course, escaped the enclosure. He kept following us along the trail, so we turned around and headed back to the farmhouse, hoping to find someone who would deal with him. My mother was riding a younger appaloosa gelding with piercing blue eyes. The Demon Stallion took those haunting blue eyes as a mating challenge and determined that he was going to fight the gelding for the right of the herd – as if my mare was going to go for a little punk pony like him. We were all standing in a sort of semi-circle in the driveway of the farmhouse when the Demon Stallion decided to make his move. He started snorting and pawing at the ground. The gelding took this as a direct challenge and reared up in the air, kicking out with his front legs. This was not just a little jump like my horse sometimes did before starting to gallop, but was a full-body rear like you see in the movies. It was the type where if not handled well, the horse can get thrown off balance and fall backwards on the rider. Thankfully, Mom had spent her childhood trying to get an old farm horse to do that exact trick. Maybe she was just in shock and didn’t have time to react, but thankfully she didn’t pull back on the reins and instead just held onto his neck for dear life. Her horse made it safely back to the ground and fortunately someone ran out of the house at that moment to lead the Demon Stallion back to the pasture. I swear I saw the Demon Stallion give a smug look to all of us before he was led away.

On the fall day of mine and David’s ride, we hoped that we could just pass the ponies with no drama. With this in mind, we decided that our best course of action was to canter past the farm and hope that the ponies didn’t notice. We took off past the pasture with fear in our hearts and were generally pleased with our cleverness. Realistically, the ponies were at the far end of the field and didn’t even notice us. We were celebrating our success when we noticed that there was a dog following us. Usually dogs would just run and bark behind us for a few minutes before returning home. We yelled at this dog to go home, but he ignored all of our pleas. David, in his frustration, turned his horse around and tried to run down the dog but the dog just thought that was a fun game. His horse wasn’t really into chasing down the dog anyway. Our horses were pretty used to dogs. However, they were still a bit skittish when one starting yapping at their feet.

Horses have an innate flight response to anything that makes them nervous, something that is not always helpful when a dog is running at their feet. This flight response taught us to respect nature since any animal could frighten a horse and leaving us aching in the middle of a field. Partridges and pheasants were the worst culprits because they would fly directly at the horses. They seemed to live in one field in particular, which also happened to be the best field to let our horses run. The pheasants nested in the strip of trees separating the hay fields. We would canter along the field and were always prepared for a pheasant to fly at our heads and spook the horses. Those birds made sure we were always on our toes and kept our thigh muscles strong. Other wildlife, like deer, we hardly ever encountered considering how often we rode through fields and forests. We probably made too much noise for them. Bears however, were less intimidated by us. We learned to watch for signs of bears, (mostly poop or tracks) and changed our route or turned home if we thought we spotted some. Even with our caution, we still managed to see a few at the most unfortunate times.

Once, returning from a long trail ride, we caught sight of a bear at the edge of a field we needed to cross. The one aspect we had in our favour was that it was downwind from us so the horses didn't notice. It, however, smelled us. There was a cub with her so we knew she would defend her land if she felt threatened. We all stopped talking and tried to trot quietly through the field as quickly and non-threatening as possible. Horses can pick up on nervousness so everyone kept whispering to each other to “stay calm!” This was not as helpful as you might imagine. The bear rose on her hind legs probably just to sniff the wind better but it terrified me. It didn’t help that on that day, I was riding double with Amy on the back of a very large horse named Pebbles. I had absolutely no control over the situation, all I could do was hold onto the back of the saddle, hoping I did not fall off in the field and get mauled by the bear. Thankfully, we all made it safely through the field and forever referred to it as the ‘bear field.’

That day in the fall, we fortunately saw no bears but we had no idea what we were supposed to do with this dog that continued to follow us. We contemplated turning around to try to find its owners but neither of us wanted to go near the ponies again. In the end, we decided to keep going and hope it found something else to distract him. We thought maybe it was a modern-day ‘littlest hobo’ that was trying to warn us about something or prevent us from getting injured. We named the dog ‘Hobo’ and continued on our ride. He stopped barking at us and wasn’t getting underfoot so the horses didn't seem to mind. Sometimes we thought he had left until we saw him happily bounding through a field never letting us out of his sight.

We rode by a house where there were some children and their dogs playing in the yard. The dogs started barking and playing with Hobo. The parents came out and yelled at us to control our dog and to get him away from their children. We tried to explain that he wasn't our dog and we didn’t know what to do with him. They didn't seem to believe us or understand why two teens would be riding horses with a dog that wasn't theirs. To get them to stop yelling at us, we tried calling Hobo with “come here Dog,” which remarkably didn’t work. What did work, however, was riding away and so he was forced to decide whether to follow us or stay with the family. Not surprisingly, it decided to follow us. When we got back to the barn (nothing else exciting or ‘hobo-worthy’ happened so he must have worked his magic), we still didn't know what to do but we knew that we couldn't just leave him there. No one else was around at the barn so we didn’t have anyone to ask for advice. Eventually, we decided the best move would be to drive Hobo back to the pony place and drop him off there. After untacking and putting the horses back out in their pasture, we both picked up Hobo and threw him in the backseat of the red '89 Chevrolet that Dad generously shared with us. Hobo was quite happy to be in the car so I drove back to the pony farm. Hoping that no one was looking, I let Hobo out of the car, wished him the best, and hoped maybe tomorrow he would want to settle down.

The summer before I entered my final year of high school, I decided that it would be fun if my horse, Sydney, had a foal. I’m not quite sure what motivated me to make this decision. They had bred one of the other mares at the farm the year before and it had been a big success. There is nothing more exciting than having a foal on a farm. So, through many conversations with Alanna, the farm’s owner, I decided I should orchestrate the pregnancy of Sydney. A month after she had her sexy afternoon with the stallion from across the road, (although the Demon Stallion was still quite willing, he didn’t make the cut), we called in the vet to learn if she was indeed pregnant. I found out that I was about to be a horse mom (Horse Godmother? Life Decider?)! In fact, I learned way more about pregnant horses than I ever expected to. I bought her the expensive, fancy feed required to make sure she got all her nutrients and vitamins, and I took her for trail rides up until the 10th month of her term. After that she was too big for a saddle to fit comfortably. In the 11th month, she was too pregnant for heavy exertion but I still exercised her to make sure she would be healthy for the birth. Then the day came when she was close to labour. I was so psyched that I spent the entire week with my head in the clouds, having no idea what was happening at school or other aspects of my life. I spent every possible second that week at the barn.

I went out to the barn that fateful morning and was told that all signs showed she would give birth that day. I wanted very much to skip school but as fate had it, my French Immersion oral exam was scheduled for that day. In retrospect, I suppose that I could have re-scheduled the exam, but it didn’t occur to me at the time. At school I discovered that I had been given an afternoon timeslot, which did not work for me. After begging one of my friends to switch her earlier time slot with me, she agreed; but only after I’d promised her my firstborn – child that is – not my foal.

Dad graciously lent me his cell phone that day so I could take it to school, and I had given everyone at the farm explicit instructions to call me as soon as anything happened. I got the call right before my exam, telling me to come out to the barn as soon as I could. However, I still had the exam to complete! I was a mess. As I was obviously overexcited, I have no idea what I said to the poor instructor. The exam involved reading scenarios and responding appropriately to the scene. All I could think about were situations involving horses and foals. This caused a problem since no one had actually taught me any farm or horse-related vocabulary, so I kept flailing saying “foal-eh” or “la farme.”At the end I apologized and said "Ma cheval va avoir son bébé!" and sprinted out of the testing room, no doubt bewildering my instructor.

My parents had been kind enough to lend me the Chev for the day, so I jumped behind the wheel and drove dangerously fast out to the barn. Fortunately, I met no traffic and made it in time to see the foal take his first wobbly steps. It was a thrilling moment, a feeling I had never experienced before. I had orchestrated the life of this beautiful little animal that could barely stand on his own four feet. I was told to quickly clean up the placenta so Sydney would not eat it. Then, equally important, I took her for a walk to make sure that she pooped. It is very important that horses poop after giving birth; it means that all internal organs are working properly.

Naming the foal was quite stressful and took me several days to do. It seemed like such an important life decision. I finally decided on Aussie, or Auz, as it related to Sydney and seemed adorable. I can’t imagine the pressure involved in naming a child. At least a horse isn’t going to later tell me that the name I chose ruined his life and was the reason for all his failures. However, having a foal was an overwhelming amount of both fun and frustration. I taught him to get used to a halter, walk on a leadline, to be comfortable with someone picking up his feet, and eventually, to get accustomed to having someone on his back.

When the time came to go to university and I realized that I would be living a three hour drive away, I sold him to Amy. After selling him, I recognized keeping Sydney was not very realistic either. The owners of the farm were kind enough to buy her from me to keep her in ‘the family,’ making the separation much less painful.

Amazingly enough, I got a passable mark on my French Immersion oral exam that day, and I have never needed to show that piece of paper to anyone. It seems ridiculous that I even went to that exam as I learned more about life by raising a foal than I did through testing.

“Apologizing for no good reason…a part of our heritage for over 160 years.” - David, Day 20, May 27th 2008

Land of the Living Skies

SASKATCHEWAN MARKED the start of our ‘Prairies’ leg. I had psychologically divided the country into five sections; Mountains – British Columbia and Alberta; Prairies – Saskatchewan and Manitoba; trees and mosquitoes – Northern Ontario; Southern Ontario and Quebec made up ‘central’ Canada; and Atlantic Canada. These categories fluctuated somewhat once we discovered that half of Alberta is actually a giant prairie. Even so, we had begun our prairie leg and should have called it the ‘F.U. wind’ stage. It was windy, with more wind piled on top of the wind. It blew into our face, sides, and back. It blew our tent around and ruined everything we attempted to cook evenly on our stove. It never stopped. The days were either ‘strong wind’ or ‘not so strong wind’ days. The wind was worse than the mountains; at least the mountains ended and we were able to coast down the other side. With wind, the best we could hope for was to have the wind blow in the same direction as we were going.

One of our best ‘wind in our favour’ days happened on our day into Saskatoon. David hadn’t been feeling well ever since we left Lloydminster two days prior. We weren’t sure what was wrong with him; he described his symptoms as ‘more tired than usual’ and ‘sore.’ To me, it sounded like he had been cycling for the past 20 days. We spent the night after leaving Lloydminster with a family in Delmas. It had been one of those days where knowing we had a place to stay that night had motivated us to really push ourselves. I very much wanted to stop cycling at 4:30 p.m. but David told me that he wanted to sleep in a bed that night. This meant I had to do the last 25 kilometers into town. I did get him to agree to stop and cook some food for me though. On top of feeling ill, he was also grumpy that day as his brake squeaked with every tire rotation. It was bearable for the first 30 minutes of the day but after six hours of biking, it was driving us crazy. We had tried yelling at them and then, somewhat more practically, greasing them, but nothing worked. Eventually, I was able to tune out the squeaks but David was ready to throw his bike into the ditch.

After I’d eaten some pasta I felt prepared to tackle the last 25 kilometers. There were some people who drove up in a station wagon (we attracted stationwagoners) about five kilometers out of Delmas, and they told us they were the ‘welcoming committee from the family.’ It was great to see people but it felt weird having someone driving and cheering beside me. We appreciated their energy, but at that time I was so tired that I wanted to curl into a ball on the side of the road. David and I discussed why we were never as enthusiastic as people hoped, and we concluded that it would be exhausting for us to be constantly super enthused about our trip. It was great that other people were excited for us and wanted to cheer us on, but sometimes I think they were disappointed that we did not jump for joy with them. I’m not that energetic in real life, so I was definitely not able to muster up everyone’s desired energy levels when I was cycling every day.

The woman cheering from the car window gave us directions to the house we were headed towards, saying it was the “first house on the only street, you’ll see it.” These small Prairie towns put us to shame since we claimed to come from a ‘small town’ of roughly 1400 people. A ‘small town’ in the Prairies consists of one road and a gas station. We finally made it to the house and were unloading our stuff when we realized that my sleeping bag was no where to be found. It had somehow fallen off my bike without either of us noticing. David jumped back on his bike ready to backtrack and search for it, but our host family stopped him as two of them jumped in the car and went on a quest for the sleeping bag. Meanwhile, we were introduced to the rest of the family and neighbours who were gathered in the kitchen. I forgot everyone’s name immediately and was grateful when they told us to sit and eat.

The family fed us an overwhelming amount of food for which we were immensely grateful. David ate something like six bison burgers and some ribs, while I managed to consume only one burger with veggies. While we were eating, the sleeping bag explorers returned triumphantly. They found the bag on the side of the road about five kilometers outside of town. While David socialized and looked at the family’s very old car, I called home to check in, and went to sleep. In the morning, they fed us bison sausages; thanking them profusely we took a ‘doggie bag’ for lunch, and continued on our way.

We still had a headwind that morning so I focused on perfecting my drafting skills behind David. Before this trip, I had never known that you could get much of a draft from each other while cycling. It made sense once it was explained to me as it’s the same theory as drafting off a transport truck while driving a car. However, for cycling, you have to get your front tire as close as possible to the other person’s back tire to feel any reduction in wind resistance, making it very hard to perfect. It is also necessary that the draftee maintains a constant speed and does not swerve unexpectedly, otherwise the drafter can have their front tire hit the back tire of the draftee, usually resulting in a crash of both participants. It would have been a disaster if I had tried this at the beginning of our trip since we were both still getting used to our bikes but I felt confident on day 22 that I could get away with it. We tried to take turns drafting off each other for the rest of the trip but I know that David got the rotten end of that deal. I’m sure I drafted off him much more than he off me.

Leaving Delmas that morning we had our first cycling accident. Sure, David had fallen once in British Columbia when he was trying to motor his way up a driveway that unexpectedly turned into soft sand. He had gotten stuck, stopped, and in very slow motion fell over because he couldn’t unclip his feet from his pedals in time. This time, I was drafting off David but must have forgotten to warn him that I was pedaling an inch from his tire. He moved slightly to the right where my front tire just happened to be and this, of course, threw me off balance and I went crashing to the ground. It took great effort but he was able to stay upright and come to a very wobbly stop. Thankfully, I fell to the right on the shoulder of the road and not into the oncoming traffic on my left. I had some pretty nasty scratches on my right arm and leg, which scabbed and burned off with the hot sun after a few weeks, leaving me with a sexy, permanent shoulder scar. At that time, I washed off the blood on my arm with some water while David inspected my bike. After I stopped shaking, I got back on my bike and we carried on. It could have been much, much worse.

That night we camped in a field beside a gas station that was advertising an ‘RV Park.’ I inquired about it to the woman tending the gas station. She tried to convince me that I didn’t want to stay there because they had no washrooms or running water. I told her I just wanted a piece of grass to camp on and she said we could stay there as long as “she didn’t know about it.” After thanking her, I used the gas station washroom, filled my water bottle, and set up camp.

The Prairies presented us with a unique, previously unencountered problem: trying to find camping spots on the side of the road. In British Columbia and Alberta, there were logging trails and paths we could go down to camp in the woods, but the Prairies didn’t have such paths. Everything along the highway was farmed. We spent a lot more time trying to find camping spots than we did in any other part of Canada. Thankfully, we had many places to stay across the Prairies so it wasn’t as much of a problem as it could have been. We camped that night in the ‘RV Park,’ which, as warned, was literally a patch of grass surrounded by a few trees and we were thankfully the only ones there. It wasn’t bad.

David was feeling horrible so I set up while he laid on the tarp and tried to rest. It then proceeded to downpour. Fortunately, with there being open sky everywhere, we saw the downpour blowing in and were able to pack up everything and tie a tarp up onto a tree for make-shift shelter. We hid under the tarp as it poured for about 15 minutes. Eventually the sun came out and we cooked supper and got ready for bed. Neither of us slept well that night, as my right side was aching from the fall and David just felt generally crappy. Our ailments caused us to worry about the next day; neither of us was positive we could make the 92 kilometers into Saskatoon.

In the morning, I had a very tough time getting out of the tent because I was so sore. Eventually, David, who had already eaten breakfast and packed up as much as possible, yelled at me to hurry up or he would collapse the tent with me in it. I cursed at him and achingly dragged myself out of the tent and onto my bike. Once we got to the main road, we discovered for the first time how beneficial the wind could be when it works in your favour. We flew down the road, averaging 25 km/hr, compared to our usual 11-15 km/hr. David had sections where he could just coast down the slight downhill with the wind pushing him. He swears he didn’t pedal for ten minutes as he cruised along the flat road. I still had to pedal a little bit since I was not as heavy, but it required little effort. The one downside was that David’s brakes were still squeaking, but we were both so happy about the speed that the noise didn’t really bother us. We made it into Saskatoon in half the time we had estimated. It was one of those days where we both wanted to keep cycling, however, the host family we stayed with that night had some of my medications that I had mailed to them before leaving, so we had to stop. Mind you, a day to rest our aching bodies didn’t sound so bad either.

One of the hardest things on the trip was trying to arrange host families. We could never tell them exactly what day we would arrive until the day before. A crazy headwind or an injury could delay us by a day, or we could have a killer day one day and not want to stop where we had previously arranged. Thankfully, Mom was home fielding our texts and responding to emails from our website. She was invaluable as she made all the connections we didn’t have the time or resources to make. If we took a similar trip now, we could easily do all the organizing with a smartphone, but we didn’t have access to that technology at the time. Our host family in Saskatoon was very generous and the father took our bikes to a shop to get tuned. David got his brakes de-squeaked and a new chain, and my brakes were tightened. Our rest day in Saskatoon was also a beautifully windy day, the kind of wind that would have worked in our favour had we been cycling. We were both slightly resentful about our need to rest instead of taking advantage of the wind. However, that afternoon it started to pour and we were quite happy we had a roof over our heads rather than a raincloud.

Besides the wind, the other part of the Prairies that sucked was the ticks. We didn’t have ticks in the Maritimes (or maybe we just never paid attention to them) but when David’s friend from Dryden stopped to chat while driving through Saskatchewan, he invoked in me a fear of ticks. He told us stories about how their heads would burrow into us if we didn’t pick them off properly and how that head can live for days on its own. He also told us that once one burrowed into his skin and he didn’t notice until it was a giant welt, which was painfully removed with a knife. Maybe he was just messing with me, but either way, it freaked me out. I became a tick-watch aficionado for the rest of our trip. We were prime tick targets given that we spent so much time camping in the woods and fields.

The day after we had our tick lecture, we camped at a real campground in Foam Lake, Saskatchewan – the ‘Best place in the world to live.’ The previous day had been very long, ending with David staying up late that night to watch all three over-times of an NHL playoff game. So he was quite tired heading into Foam Lake, which may have explained why he didn’t manage to warn me in time before swerving around a dead skunk, leaving me to run over its little smelly body. We got some firewood at the campground and had one of our few fires that summer. Remembering to look for ticks, I checked my legs and then took off my socks and shoes. There crawling on my foot, was a black tick. I screamed and tried to flick it into the fire but may have flicked it towards David instead. He was less than thrilled about having a tick thrown at him and swiped it off himself while telling me that I needed to chill out. Thankfully, we made it out of Saskatchewan without any more tick sightings.

Rainy Emerald Island

MY FIRST BIG ADVENTURE leaving home on my own, apart from university, was the summer I spent in Ireland working at a horse/English camp. Children came from Spain and France to learn English and ride horses. I was a counselor, chef, horse trainer, and sheep herder. On the weekends, I would travel around to see various parts of Ireland by myself or with one of the other counselors.

One such adventure was when I went to see one of the biggest castles in Ireland. It was supposed to be amazing, and since I only had one day off that week, I thought it would make a good day trip. Despite the fact that the rain began as soon as I boarded the second bus of the day, I kept going. As I had already bussed for two hours I refused to give up at that point. I made it to the castle and walked around in the rain. It was pretty impressive sitting all alone on the hill with the village and sheep pastures below. I was glad it wasn't the 1600s, when I would have had to try to attack or defend the castle. Except as a woman, I probably would have been inside sewing or cleaning, oblivious to what was happening outside. Actually, more realistically, I would have died at birth because they didn't have any proper treatment for CF in the 1950s let alone the 1600s.

With these thoughts in mind, I walked around the castle, being much too cheap to pay to go inside, despite the fact that the castle was my only destination and the reason I spent the last few hours on a bus. I told myself that it wasn’t going to be impressive on the inside anyway, and I figured the view from the outside was why all the tour buses were lined up outside. By that point in the summer I had already seen a lot of castles around Ireland and was bordering on castle-overload. There was a castle ruin at the bottom of the initial hill so I tramped through the field to look. It was still pouring so it was only two minutes into the field when my sneakers became waterlogged and another ten for my waterproof jacket to give up. I was drenched, alone, and miserable in Ireland. Leaving the ruins, I saw there was an actual path that did not involve walking through the sheep pasture. I walked back up to the castle to get another look and take a few more selfies – I was the queen of selfies that summer. Then I got back on the bus to the farm.

Unfortunately, I had to switch buses in Limerick and there was an hour layover. After calling the farm to arrange a pick up later in Mallow, I wandered aimlessly around the city trying to keep warm while seeing what the city had to offer. Apparently, they, or someone, had just won a large sporting event because there was a parade and everyone was out celebrating on what appeared to be the main street. I watched for a few minutes, but since I didn't know who the team was or even what sport they had just won, I found it hard to join in the festivities, nevermind that I was still cold and just wanted to go back to the camp. I walked back to the bus station and confirmed that the bus was leaving in twenty minutes from slot 16. Fortunately, the bus was already waiting and I got on the bus thinking it would be warm. I was right and happily surprised when it pulled out ten minutes later.

I was less happy after five minutes when I looked out the window and noticed the bus took the exit for ‘Galway’ instead of the one for ‘Cork.’ I asked the people beside me where they were going and they said “Galway.” It was then that I knew I was in trouble. I ran to the front of the bus and asked the bus driver to confirm that I was on a bus heading in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go. He said that indeed I was and that my best option was to get off the bus at the next stop and on the one returning to Limerick. Sniffing back tears I asked him how I managed to be on the wrong bus when I had been in the right spot. He replied that my desired bus did leave from slot 16 but left ten minutes later, adding that I should have known when the bus left early that I was on the wrong bus. And here I had been thinking that maybe buses ran early in Ireland. He dropped me off at the next stop and I ran across the road to wait for a return bus to pick me up.

A bus arrived about twenty minutes later. I showed the bus driver my ticket that was not valid with his route and told him my sob story with teary eyes. He let me on the bus without paying extra. Returning to Limerick, I discovered that the bus to Cork had already left and there were no more buses running that night. At that point, I felt like just giving up and jumping on a plane back to Canada. My feet were wet, I was lonely, tired, and just wanted to go home. The people at the terminal said there was a train back to Mallow, but I would have to get myself out to Limerick Junction since the train didn’t go through the town. I called the farm and told them I had a change of plans and that it looked like I was stuck in Limerick for the night. They told me it would be best to just take the train back home and they could pick me up from there. Really not wanting to stay in Limerick without my medication, puffer, or aerosol machine (which I particularly did not like to be without overnight), I agreed with the farm owners to head home and I tried to get a cab.

The cab driver I approached didn't want to take me to the train station because he said it was too expensive. I said that I really had no other option and would he please just take me there. Fifty euros later, I was at the train station, ticket in hand, waiting for the train’s arrival. When it arrived 30 minutes later, I sunk into a seat, exhausted and frustrated. I eventually arrived in Mallow and was met at the train station by the camp owner who asked how my day went and if I enjoyed the castle. Being too tired to explain about the worst day I’d had in recent history, I just said it was all fine.

People say that everything happens for a reason but I still do not know the reason of that disastrous trip. Maybe it was so I could appreciate my next day off when I stayed at the camp and simply read books outside in the sun. It did make me super paranoid whenever travelling, about double and triple checking my bus’ destination before actually boarding. Or maybe the lesson was that I should have just paid to see the inside of the castle since that was the reason I was there. Or maybe it was just that no matter how bad my day, there was something to look forward to at the end. That particular day when I finally reached the train station, it was comforting to know that someone was waiting for me with a cup of tea and some dry socks at home.

Although I said that I didn't like to be without my aerosol masks for a night, I did choose to leave my machine behind for several of my overnight trips to save on lugging it around. It was a super heavy machine. The aerosol machine I had for that trip was a 10lb beast not conducive for backpacking. It was slightly smaller than the one I had at home in Canada and could run on battery, but it was still pretty cumbersome. The morning of a trip, and again after returning, I would be sure to do a long aerosol mask with good chest compressions. I was also faithful about taking my puffers every four hours while away. At most, I would only be away for a night or two, so I was really only skipping one full day of aerosols, and I was healthy enough at the time not to feel any adverse effects.

One weekend I decided that it would be fun to cycle what is called the ‘Ring of Kerry’ around the Iveragh Peninsula. The only Internet access I had that summer was through very slow dial-up in the main house at camp or the library in town, so I didn’t use it often. As a result, I did very little research on where I was going, but still set off full of confidence. I had found a bike in one of the sheds, managed to pump some air into the tires, and made sure the brakes mostly worked. Since it hadn’t fallen apart on the few trips I’d taken on it around the area, I figured it was good enough. It was an old bike but I figured it would last me a few days. I took the train for 45 minutes into Killarney and set off from there. I went southern to Kenmare for no real reason other than its beautiful scenery. After the first long hill around the lake outside of Killarney, the scenery was breathtaking. Or maybe it was breathtaking because I was on top of a steep hill. I discovered there why newer bikes have so many gears: it helps for climbing hills. Six gears were not enough; one gear would be way too hard while the next one up was too easy. While catching my breath and cursing the bike, I took in how picturesque and green everything was. The mountains and fields were at least fifty different shades of green and the sky added a contrasting deep blue. As I continued around the peninsula there were countless views of the mountains and Atlantic Ocean. The roads were typical European style – meaning they were quite narrow and had absolutely no shoulder.

Tour buses and RVs flew past me, barreling up the hills and adding another element of adventure to my trip. I thought for sure I was going to get flattened by a tour bus but they always managed to miss me even when there were cars coming from the other direction. I had a blast cycling that peninsula. It was the complete opposite of my castle trip and I loved taking in all the views by myself. I was very content to cycle quietly along the road looking at farms and tiny villages.

My plan was to stay at a hostel that first night, but having naively assumed I would simply come across one when I was tired of cycling, I ended up sleeping on the side of the road beside an inlet. I had packed a lot of food and water so I did not go hungry. The farm had insisted I take their mobile phone so I could text them every day and report on my safety which I did before tucking in for sleep. I don't think they wanted to be responsible for one of their employees getting lost while on a crazy cycling adventure.

I slept in a duvet cover that I had taken from the farm to use as a sheet at the hostels since they often charge extra for bedding. For the most part I slept well, considering I was essentially sleeping on rocks. It rained a little bit, but I pulled the sheet over my head and somehow managed to get back to sleep. I woke up when the sun was rising and as it rose I watched a seal play in the water. It was beautiful and would have been quite serene if I wasn't cursing the fact that I had been woken up so early. I ate some bread and set off.

The second day started off kind of rough. I saw on my map that there was a ‘short cut’ through the peninsula. Having overestimated how far I would make it the first day, I thought a short-cut was in order if I wanted to catch the afternoon bus the third day. The road led me over a cliff instead of around it, and onto a backcountry road where the dirt was winning the battle against the aging pavement. The terrain was rocky and barren on all sides except for the random sheep that seemed to live everywhere in Ireland. A tractor passed me on my way up a hill and the farmer stopped to ask if I needed directions. Just to be safe, I double checked that I was on the right road – a wise move considering there were no road signs. I said something like “Is this the 130?” He replied in a very thick accent, “I have no idea what the road number is, but if you are going around the peninsula, this is the road to be on to meet up with the main road.” He continued on his way and I kept climbing the dusty hill as the sun climbed over the mountain. I made it back to the still-beautiful main peninsula road, curving its way around the side of the mountain. There were sheep impossibly grazing on the side of the cliffs who gave a startled “bleep” as I cycled past.

While the sheep made for a beautiful backdrop, I had spent the last month feeding and herding sheep, and I was at the point where I no longer appreciated their adorableness. Somehow, it had become my job to feed and look after the sheep on the farm. If they escaped, which they often did, I would have to herd them back to their pasture and fix the broken fence. I hated those sheep so much. On my first day of work, Bill, the owner of the farm, refused to tell me how many sheep there actually were. Instead, he wanted me to give him a head count every day. Mind you, I had no idea what he was saying because I couldn't understand his accent (I could understand everyone else, just not him. I felt better about this when the veterinarian later told me that no one else in Ireland could understand him either), so when he asked me how many sheep there were, I understood the word ‘sheep’ and wandered around them to make sure they generally looked alright. When I returned with no answer for him and upon his fourth repeating of the question, I finally understood what he meant and just made up an estimate of how many sheep I thought I had seen. I said “twenty…five…?” while trying to read his face to see if it was even close. He laughed and told me to try again the next day. Maybe he said, “try again now,” but I didn't want to ask him to repeat himself for a fifth time.

Every day for my first week I had to count the sheep without him telling me how many there were. Sheep are incredibly hard to count as they refuse to stand still and all look identical. If one wanders to a different section, I would have no idea if I had already counted it or not. The lambs also like to jump around, trying to mess up the count. I finally got it right the last day of the week with a ‘32’ and still had to count them every day for the whole summer. It made no sense at the time, but a few weeks later I understood the system when I counted only 31. I told Bill there was one missing, but he was obviously skeptical and told me to either find the missing sheep or count again. When we found a dead lamb in the field I knew, sadly, that I had been right.

I stopped for the night on my second day of the bike trip when I passed a hostel, and decided not to push my luck. After cooking up the last of my food, I wrote a bit in my journal and quickly drifted off to sleep. The third day, I was starting to feel the effects of not having an aerosol mask, so I sucked back my puffers and hoped it would be enough until I got back to the farm.

The road mostly followed the shore so it was fairly flat, minus the one massive climb before coasting back into Killarney. The climb was your average European mountain road with a ton of switchbacks. It was quite narrow and had tour buses zooming up and down it at remarkable speeds. There was an added obstacle of a very strong side-wind that kept trying to blow me into the traffic. Every time a bus drove by, the change of airflow threw me off. I finally made it back to Killarney with lots of daylight left and a surprising amount of energy, feeling that maybe I should actually try cycling back to the farm.

While pondering this idea and waiting for the bus, a man asked me if I was seriously cycling with my bike. He said the tires looked so worn that they could give out at any moment, and he seemed not to believe that I had just made it around the peninsula. This worried me enough that I boarded the bus and returned to the farm. The guy must have felt bad for badmouthing my bike because while on the bus he offered me half of the pita he was eating and told me all about how he was named after Pope John Paul. His prediction of the tires giving out never came true and I continued to ride that bike around Southern Ireland. I took it on many excursions: on back roads, getting lost in the small villages, and even out to the castle to kiss the Blarney Stone (it did not make me chattier). The cycling I did in Ireland was the reason I had so much confidence later on my cross-Canada trip. I knew that if I could cycle around the Irish coastline on an old, heavy bike with only six gears, I could probably make it across Canada on a newer bike with 18.

“People who keep their money in the bank aren’t very nice people.” - Fisherman, Day 29, June 5th 2008

The Day of the Moose Burgers

THE DAY WE CYCLED into Russel, Manitoba was quite memorable. It was sunny and we were on a roll. We had a hotel set up in Russel for the night thanks to the Kin of Saskatchewan. Between the prospect of a bed and the impending rain, we were pushing ourselves to make it to the hotel. It was a long day full of wind, and an incredibly flat section of the Prairies. I really enjoyed the Prairies; they were more rolling than I had anticipated, with many interesting sights. That day, however, was one of the flat and boring days. We were excited when we started to see signs for the hotel as we assumed that we must be getting close. We soon realized our assumption was not correct; the signs were advertising to people in vehicles – those who might miss the first sign but surely wouldn’t miss the second. Or the third. By the fourth sign, we were frustrated and had pretty much given up hope of a hotel actually existing.

Whoever put up the sign that said ‘10 km until hotel!’ must not have known the true distance of 10 kilometers. We went 10 kilometers according to the odometer on David’s bike, which we tested every time there was a ‘testing km in progress’ along the highway. So, ten kilometers later, there was still no hotel and I was hungry and tired. I wanted to stop to cook supper but David was determined that the hotel was just another kilometer down the road. I tried the argument that if it was right down the road, wouldn’t we see it? He scoffed at me in his annoying way and kept cycling. Then we reached a gully. We arrived at these gullies every so often and they must have escaped the memories of every single person who told me that the Prairies were “flat enough to coast right through.” Instead of steep hills, there were gullies that suddenly drop the road into a valley that you hadn’t noticed before. I coasted down this long hill thinking “this is fabulous,” while actively trying to live in denial about the other side of the valley. The other side was a long, sharp, steep hill with still no hotel in sight. I sighed and focused on climbing up the stupid hill. Everything was stupid by that point. The stupid cars breezed by us and then more stupid signs for the stupid hotel appeared.

‘Only 5 km until hotel!’

Argh!!

I eventually made it up the long hill and the road resumed being remarkably flat. We were able to see the grain elevator for the town of Russel in the distance. It was encouraging to see some of the town but it took a long time before we seemed to get closer. Every time we moved forward, the town kept moving backward. It is fair to say that I was pretty hungry and ready to eat my own arm by this point. Eventually, the hotel stopped moving long enough for us to catch up with it and we coasted in. We got our room (thank you, Kin Saskatchewan!), one in a row of rooms in the annex section of the hotel, each room having its own entrance and door. Those rooms were great for us, as it meant we didn’t have to drag our bikes through the hotel lobby while the receptionist stared and wondered if she should say something about their ‘no bikes in the room’ policy. They never actually did, probably due to our looks of hunger and exhaustion. We threw everything in our room and then proceeded to dig out our cooking stuff so we could make supper in the parking spot in front of our room. What can I say? We don’t like to spend money.

While setting up our stove, we noticed that other people had a BBQ set up in front of their room, so we did not feel so bad about cooking in front of ours. The men cooking on the BBQ started chatting with us and asked where we were from and what we were doing. We gave them the spiel about how we were biking across the country for CF, blah blah blah. I must have been crazily eyeing their food because they took pity on us and proceeded to share all of their food with us.

They were there for a fishing tournament that weekend and had just finished cooking some moose burgers from a moose that one of the men had tagged last fall. They gave us a significant amount of food with some cold beer to chase it all down. I ate one and a half burgers while David ate three and a half. He also ate quite a large amount of their fries, which the guys said would “go to waste anyway.” They then gave us some of their ‘leftover’ burgers, which we gratefully ate the next day under a tree during a thunderstorm. Those men surpassed any expectation we had of Canadian generosity – they even collected some money from their buddies and gave it to us later that night to “help us on our way.” This encounter was one of the many quintessential Canadian moments we experienced during that trip; moments where complete strangers were extraordinarily helpful and generous with no benefit to themselves. People like that are the reason why our trip was such a success. They also depict the reason why Canadians are awesome: because we always share our beer and moose burgers.

Our Taxi Hit a Camel

THE YEAR BEFORE David and my big trip, Amy and I visited Egypt. Our cousin had gone a few years before and told us great things. We had thankfully acquired portable aerosol machines so we no longer had to lug our giant ones around. They were battery run, lightweight, and much more portable than the ten pound machine that I had hauled to Ireland. We were both very thankful to the Moncton CF chapter for getting us those machines that made our lives so much easier. Although we still had to deal with all of our medications, it was nice to be able to just throw everything in a backpack and go. I used that machine on the cycling trip and it lasted the entire three month journey, although the motor did sound a bit worse for wear at the end.

When we arrived in Cairo, we (Amy) had fortunately arranged pick up from the hotel to prevent us from trying to navigate the metro at midnight. We retrieved our backpacks from the baggage terminal and met the driver in ‘arrivals.’ My machine had somehow turned on in my bag during the flight but the battery had not yet died, so it was still going at full force when I handed my bag to our driver. It was making a low humming noise and vibrating slightly. The two men driving us to the hotel seemed to find this hilarious and I was pretty sure they thought it was some type of sex toy. I was mortified, but since we were quickly rushed into their van there was nothing I could do. With the bags safely stowed in the trunk, we were off through the chaos that is midnight traffic in Cairo.

The next morning, after being awoken to the call of prayer, we went on a quest to see the famed Great Pyramids on the outskirts of the city. Crossing the road to get to the metro station was quite a welcome to Egypt, as the cars never seemed to stop for red lights or pedestrians. Seeing the traffic, it was obvious we weren’t in Canada anymore. After watching some locals cross the street without flinching, we waited for a local man to cross and followed him closely. We probably weirded him out as we basically hung onto him for our dear lives. Or at least that is what it felt like to us. Eventually, we learned the key to staying alive was to walk across without changing speed the entire time. That way, the drivers could estimate where you would be by the time they got to you and would merely slow down slightly and not have to stop. I tried the same method later, when I got back to Halifax, resulting only in honking and swearing. We made it to the metro station and confirmed with a local that we were going the right way through a lot of gestures and using a piece of paper that we had gotten a man at our hotel to write ‘pyramids’ on in Arabic. At least, we trusted this was what he had actually written.

The metro was incredibly busy and crowded but very modern and efficient. Our trusty guide book told us there were ‘women only’ cars at the front of most metros, and by that time, we were already tired of hearing “twins?!” and “pretty ladies!” yelled at us, so we were ready for the segregated cars. The cars were much quieter, but we could not escape the people trying to scam money from us. We quickly learned not to accept anything from anyone because they would want money for it eventually. A child (young boys and very elderly men seemed to be allowed in the ‘women only’ cars) would go around and throw packs of little candies on peoples’ laps. When the car stopped, he would go around and collect them back from everyone. If you had eaten the pack of candy he would stand and scream at you until you gave him money. We were very careful to let the packs fall on the floor and not to touch anything thrown our way. Our wariness around these ‘generous’ children came in handy later when we eventually reached the pyramids. We got off the metro at the stop that our handy guidebook said was the closest and planned to take a cab from there.

Taking the metro was a great plan, with only one detail we hadn’t considered: when we got to the stop, there were no cabs in sight. We wandered around the nearby empty residential neighbourhood wondering what we should do. The lack of tourists made us nervous and we wondered if we should get back on the metro, but then finally saw a cab. The only problem was that the cab driver refused to take us. He claimed he was too expensive (we told him just to take our money!) and that it would “save us money” to take the public bus heading that direction – one that happened to be driven by his friend. We insisted that we were more than willing to pay the money and would he please take us to the pyramids, but he refused saying the bus was the best option for us. He kept repeating “I treat you like my daughters!” while pushing us on the bus. That left us with no choice but to assume that the bus driver was actually who he said, so we got on the bus. The ‘bus’ was a 12-seater oversized white minivan that somehow stopped to pick up people who were waiting in the middle of the road. How the driver knew who was getting on the bus and who was just trying to cross the road, I will never know. The road appeared to be four lanes with cyclists, motorcyclists, and mule-carts that were figuring it out as they went. As drivers from the Maritimes, all we could do was sit in the back seats and hope we made it there alive.

After picking up a few people, a teenage boy who appeared to be no more than fifteen years old, got on the bus. He spoke English and started chatting with us about how his uncle had a camel business and we could go on a camel ride for a discounted price. Our cousin had told us the story of how her group had been talked into a horseback ride around the pyramids, and how they had somehow found themselves riding through the desert so we were prepared to get talked into a ride. However, to us, camels seemed more authentic. As we were not with a tour group, the only real way to do a camel ride around the pyramids was by dealing with some guy who had an uncle or buddy who just happened to offer camel tours. The teenager worked very hard to get us to commit (“The best rides in the country!” “The cheapest!” “The best camels!”). Eventually, the bus surprised us and actually made it to the pyramids. Except it wasn't the tourist entrance to the pyramids, it was the back village where families keep their camels and horses. The teenager basically shoved us out of the bus as the driver yelled for us to stay and that he knew someone who would give us an even better deal. He had obviously been planning the whole time to take us to his connection.

I thought we should stick with the bus driver since he, at least, hadn't led us astray, but by the time I went to talk to Amy about it, she was already out of the van. All I could do was follow. The teenager disappeared, never to be seen again, and we were hoisted onto two camels. Off we went on our camel ride through Egypt! Our (less) trusty guidebook said that the guides would often try to get onto a camel with a passenger, or encourage you to share camels, making things exceptionally uncomfortable and not worth your money. On the way to the pyramids, we each had our own camel but when we were coerced to get off the camels and take a cheesy picture with the pyramids ‘in our hands,’ we gave up trying to explain that we wanted our own camels. Honestly, I was starting to feel bad for our guide, who had the horrible job of walking in the heat to lead obnoxious tourists around (not us, of course, the other tourists) while they took pictures of everything and didn’t even tip him.

The pyramids themselves were very impressive. They are a lot closer to Cairo than the pictures would have you believe. For aesthetic reasons, everyone takes their pyramid pictures with the desert angled in the background, but if you moved your camera over a few inches, you’d have the city of Cairo in the background. We weren’t able to get super close to the pyramids with the camels (probably because our camels weren’t part of the regulated ones – we had the ‘black market camels’), however, we could get fairly close to the Sphinx of Giza. Turns out it is much smaller than I expected. Everything looks different in pictures when there is nothing in the surroundings to add scale. A lot of people say the same thing about the Mona Lisa.

When we returned back to the camels’ home, we tried to pay the tour guide but he said he didn’t handle money and instead led us to their ‘papyrus room’ where a woman came out to try to sell some to us. The woman pushed to get us to buy some papyrus with our last name emblazoned on it. Every time we asked if we could pay, we were given another cup of tea or showed something else to buy. We were told that the woman’s husband had to be given the money, it was not her concern. Eventually we got frustrated with our inability to pay so we just walked out. The man magically appeared as soon as we were out the front door. Not surprisingly, he was finally ready to take our money. We were then left on our own, not knowing where we were supposed to go. The pyramids were just up the hill, and we still wanted to get a closer look. We could vaguely see a parking lot of tour buses so we headed that way. After walking by about 30 other camel and horse tours, nervous looking tourists, and plenty of camel crap, we finally made it to the pyramids.

We spent some time walking around the pyramids area, and despite being told there was nothing worth seeing inside the actual pyramids, we paid to go underneath one and into the tomb. There really was nothing to see as all the artifacts are in museums in London. This didn’t stop the man at the entrance of the pyramid from confiscating our camera (I suspect from pictures getting out that you are really paying to see an empty room of sand blocks). We weren't sure if this was another scam – we were getting increasingly suspicious of everyone – so we took the memory card with us on the off chance we would never see the camera again. After climbing out of the pyramid, we did get our camera back and snuck some pictures of us hugging a pyramid while the guard, whose job it was to keep tourists from climbing or chiseling pieces off, was not paying attention.

While we were snapping photos, we watched a couple from one of the many bus tours take a ‘gift’ from one of the children. Naturally, he demanded money from them so they tried to give it back. He refused saying the item was theirs and they owed him money. They looked flabbergasted and tried to get one of the guards to intervene. He did nothing but laugh. We then watched them walk around the pyramids still holding onto the item with the child pestering them. When a different kid came to try to give us a ‘present,’ we replied with a firm “NO!” He was a clever kid and threw it at us thinking we would, on reflex, try to catch it. We instead stood and watched it fall to the dusty ground, but he didn’t give up. As we walked away, the kid tried again to throw the plastic wrapped item at my hands. He really thought better of my reflexes than he ought to have, as I just raised my hands in the air and walked away.

On our way out of the area, we walked by the smaller, less impressive tombs. A man in front of one of them generously offered to show us around the room which was normally closed. I agreed and went in before Amy could say anything. He showed us some of the hieroglyphics and where the tomb had collapsed. After a few minutes, I said thank you and left, naively not realizing that his outstretched hand meant he expected a tip. When we were in a cab returning to the hotel, Amy told me that he did not look impressed as we walked away. The fact that I should tip him didn't even cross my mind, as I was not used to visiting countries with automatic tipping. I have gotten better since then. We had decided that one intense bus and metro ride was enough stress for one day, but then our cab driver proceeded to run into a camel, continuing the pattern of absurdity that defined our day. It wasn't a hard hit just enough to make the camel in front of us lurch forward, totally pissing off its rider. The rider and cab driver proceeded to have a shouting match in Arabic and soon the driver of the bus behind us decided to join in too.

I assume it went something like this:

Camel guy: Hey, watch where you’re going, can't you see I'm on a camel here?

Cab driver: You are in the middle of the road and going 5 km an hour, how was I not supposed to hit you when you stopped suddenly? Why are you riding a camel on the road anyway?

Camel guy: You asshole, some of us are trying to make a decent living! Those tourists in your cab want to go on a camel ride?

Cab driver: Well, there is no need to ride a camel in the middle of the road! I already tried to get them to go on a camel ride and they refused, perhaps I can take them to your uncle’s carpet shop instead as compensation for hitting your camel. Bus drivers: Hurry up, assholes! I have some tourists in my van that I have convinced I am taking to their destination but am really going to take to a pottery factory first. Muhahaha.

Cab driver: It wasn’t my fault the guy was in the middle of the road!

Camel driver: Watch where you’re going next time and take them to my other uncle’s papyrus shop instead, I get fifteen percent commission there.

Bus driver: Whatever, just get out of the way!

Cab driver: Fine!

For all I know, they could have been talking about the previous night’s game. We made it back to our hotel without any more mishaps or unwanted factory tours and I read up on the culture of tipping in Egypt.

Tipping was not the only cultural difference we found in Egypt. Being two white women trying to get around the country and making purchases, we were faced with many unfamiliar cultural experiences. We knew that vendors were overpricing everything for us, but there was nothing we could do. At one convenience store we bought a can of Pringles, having both immediately craved them from the moment we saw them. We also picked up some water and a few other salty snacks. Amy paid and was given back change. She took a second and looked at the coins since it was the first time we had been given back any change. As she stood there, the man got a guilty look on his face and then gave her back a few more piasters. He must have thought she was onto him scamming us. It all cost much more than we had expected, but since we had no concept of the pricing, couldn’t read the labels, and communicated mostly with excessive hand gestures, we did not have much of a defense.

When we arrived in Luxor via train, we immediately tried to book the train back to Egypt for a few days later so we would have a seat. We were told the train wouldn’t be running that day which made no sense because the sign above the man’s head said, in English, that the train to Cairo departed daily. The next day, we went to the train station again only to be told it was full. Our hostel attendant offered to get our train tickets, but we were not surprised when he also said that there was no train. However, he was able to arrange bus tickets for us with a “no problem! You’re like my daughters! The bus is very comfortable!” Since we seemingly had no other option, we gave up on the train and agreed to book tickets for the bus back to Cairo.

It wouldn’t be a proper trip without doing some cycling, so Amy and I rented bikes on our first day in Luxor and tried to find our way to one of the old temples. Unfortunately we missed the turn for the temple and ended up cycling far outside of town. We were passing a field and stopped to ask for directions from a woman waiting at a bus stop. I asked her if the temple was ahead and she said yes. We realized later that she probably hadn’t understood our question. After cycling through a very poor part of the town, or it might have been its own town by that point, some children started running after us and screaming for money. We almost got knocked over and yelled at each other to pedal harder to avoid getting overrun by the children.

We made it through the swarm of children but suddenly realized we had gone much too far. This meant turning around and going back through the mass of kids. We were more prepared this time and started sprinting as soon as we passed the houses. The children and dogs still ran after us screaming (and barking) for cash. I was worried that I would be lost forever under a pile of screaming children and if they knocked me over, I wouldn’t be able to get up again. Eventually, one of the many elderly men who were sitting outside and watching the spectacle, yelled at the kids to leave us alone. Finally, we returned to the more touristy area of Luxor and discovered we had missed what should have been a very obvious right hand turn towards the temple. I’m not sure how we missed all of the tourist buses, because they were all parked in front of the entrance. The temple was, in fact, beautiful and worth all the hassle in the end.

At the end of our day, after getting lost and almost trampled by children, we went on a sunset boat ride on the Nile. We were the only ones on the boat and were quite happy to sit quietly with our feet in the water watching the sun and fishermen working. However, our captain was working hard for a tip and kept chatting about anything and everything. He also had us play some random rope game where he tied our hands together and had us try to get free. Next, he tried very hard to persuade us to smoke from the shisha. Clearly, we didn’t want to as we have both avoided smoking anything our entire lives due to obvious health reasons. We didn’t feel like explaining our health problems, and that forcing a shisha pipe onto us really isn’t a good way to earn a tip. Eventually he was satisfied with just taking our picture while we awkwardly held the pipe as far away from our face as possible and forced a smile. It was worth it all in the end, with a gorgeous sunset over the water.

The next day, on our bus tour to the Valley of the Kings, we were chatting with the only other person on our tour, an American who was studying in Alexandria. We told him about our train woes and he told us that ticket officers will not sell tickets to white women or sometimes women in general. This confirmed our suspicions that the hostel must have been giving us the run around because they probably got a cut on the bus tickets. The student offered to buy our train tickets when we got back to Luxor, but by that point we had already given the hostel our money for the bus tickets and buying two extra tickets just wasn’t feasible with our budget.

That night on the horrifically long overnight bus ride back to Cairo, we were wishing we had taken the American up on his offer – budget be damned! The train ride to Luxor had been quite comfortable and I managed to sleep the entire ride. We sat across from two Egyptian men, who Amy said kept looking at me and laughing, presumably because of my sleeping in public or maybe they just instinctively knew I was simply hilarious. The train was comfortable and short, and having experienced it made the bus ride that much worse. I can not overemphasis how hellish that bus ride was. It was a cramped, stifling hot drive that went on for eternity. There was barely any leg room and the driver blasted Egyptian cartoons on the TV during the entire ride. I was fortunate to be able to catch a few hours of sleep, since I was still able to sleep in most situations at that point in my life. Amy, however, could not sleep at all. The ride was even longer thanks to the bus stopping every bloody hour for a driver/passenger smoke break. The one blessing was that the bus was smoke free, a pleasant surprise, since smoking seemed to be encouraged everywhere else. Neither of us got much rest and by the time we watched the sunrise over the fields outside of Cairo, we both swore off buses and cartoons for the rest of our lives.

“Every day is beautiful.” - David, Day 34, June 10th 2008

Spirited Energy

MANITOBA HAD THE WORST roads we cycled in the country. As soon as we hit the province the shoulders disappeared and we were forced to cycle on the actual road with the cars, transport trucks, and RVs. We thought maybe it was because we were still on Highway 16 but even on Highway 1 the conditions did not improve. We went through Manitoba early June, and at the end of the month we heard about a horrific accident where a truck had hit and killed two of the four cyclists who were on a cross-country tour. We were horrified but not overly surprised that someone died on the Manitoba roads. Besides having no shoulders, drivers seemed to forget that cyclists have a legal right to be on the road and they just don’t look. To be fair to drivers, not all of them are scumbags, they simply aren’t taught to watch for cyclists, and people love cruise control on the long stretches of highway. Even the pavement itself was a complete mess. There were potholes and grated pavement on the side of the road making it hard to stay tucked on the far right side. We had to swerve our way into the middle of the road on more than one occasion, inciting frustration for us as well as the drivers. The road had a single lane so there was not a lot of room for cars to pass us with the oncoming traffic.

After our night in Russell, we had a cold and rainy day with long hills and horrible pavement. It didn’t take long for us to be cursing Manitoba and wishing we could by-pass the province. We regretted this wish at day 15 of Ontario but at that point of time, it was the hardest cycling we had had so far simply because of the horrible roads. It was hard psychologically to think that every passing car could hit us; we were both pretty tense. We stopped at Shoal Lake, planning just to warm up at a café, but everything was closed. That night we were supposed to stay with a family in Minnedosa, but decided we weren’t going to make another 60 kilometers in the cold rain. After calling the family, we checked into the only motel, which happened to be extremely old. I had a long soak in the tub while David watched TV and cranked up the heat. We created a make-shift clothesline to try and dry out our stuff and spent the evening mapping out our next few days.

The next day was the best one in Manitoba. It was another crazy wind-in-our-favour day where we were essentially blown into Portage la Prairie – (we kept calling it ‘Pohr-taje’ la Prairie, like you would ‘portage’ a canoe. Apparently it is correctly pronounced ‘Pohr-tij’ la Prairie like you are English and can’t pronounce ‘portage.’ Our attempt to francophonize the word was wrong as everyone was quick to point out). We had a brunch date that morning with some of the ladies from Kin Minnedosa to whom we apologized for not making it the previous night. Brunch was delicious but we were slightly impatient to get on the road and take advantage of the strong wind. When we mapped out our plan at the motel we thought we would make it to Portage la Prairie in two days. It was roughly 200 kilometers away, which was usually two solid days of cycling. However, once we caught that wind we were unstoppable. The road was flat and straight, and if it wasn’t flat we still managed to fly up the incline due to the 40km/hr winds.

We had a blast that day, finally being able to take advantage of the wind we had missed out when we’d stopped in Saskatoon. We almost forgot about the fact that we didn’t have a shoulder on the road, or that we thought we were going to die. We eventually hit an area that was a bit more protected by trees. Normally, this would make it easier for us, but on that day it was blocking our precious tail wind. As we continued on, actually putting effort into our cycling, we exclaimed bitterly that they should “chop down all the trees!” We passed Gladstone, the town we had been considering our initial stopping point for the night. The ‘downtown’ (consisting of one street) showcased a large stone with a face wearing a black top hat waving much like it was a ‘stone that was glad.’ Thinking that was clever, we then got closer and saw underneath the ‘Glad Stone’ were the words ‘Happy Rock.’ It was quite disappointing, and with broken hearts we decided to keep cycling. Eventually the road turned south where the 16 connects with Highway 1. Unfortunately, the wind did not want to turn with us and so we had an intense side wind. Side winds are basically headwinds at a different angle, so it was unfortunate that we had still not figured out a way to control the wind. It was only for about ten kilometers, so we pushed on. By this time we were confident that we could reach our new goal of Portage la Prairie.

As we were cycling on the cross-road, we noticed very dark clouds coming up over the horizon. We had been in the prairies long enough to know that we were about to get poured upon. The highway intersection and a gas station were on the horizon so we booted in that direction. Making it just in time, we got our bikes under a small shelter and went into the convenience store as the sky opened up. I called our host family for directions (“Surprise! We’re here a day early.”), to their house while it poured buckets. We tried to wait it out in the small store entertaining ourselves by looking at maps and postcards. The cashier kept eyeing us suspiciously, probably thinking we were going to walk off with a map or bag of chips under our skintight clothing. After we’d had enough waiting and staring, we set off into town in what we thought was the tail end of the storm. The storm was indeed ending but we still got soaked in about one minute as trucks flew past, splashing all the water from the road into our faces. We didn’t save ourselves any pain by waiting at the gas station. We were, however, rewarded with a beautiful rainbow as we made it to the house.

I crashed mentally, as soon as we arrived. Unfortunately, this was not conducive with socializing, but I was exhausted from our big push to make it to the city. We were planning on having one rest day with this family, but when I didn’t sleep well the second night and kept bursting into tears for no apparent reason while getting ready to leave in the morning, David agreed that we could stay for a third day. Mind you, it was also pouring again. Feeling close to flat out refusing to cycle, or perhaps even using the ‘I have a disability’ card, I was very relieved that he didn’t put up too much of a fight. The family generously let us stay a third night and fed us vast amounts of food. David went to a dance recital that the host daughter was in but I opted to relax, read, and sleep. I felt bad that I wasn’t socializing much, but all I could manage to do was curl into a ball and sleep, barely talking to anyone.

The family was so friendly and told interesting stories so I wish I had been feeling better. This is one of the things that I would change if I could redo the trip (another thing would be to somehow sneak a pillow and air mattress into our gear). I would try to be more social with all the generous strangers who let us into their homes and to be less tired. Not a social butterfly under normal circumstances, I am somewhat less than chatty when I’m tired. Hopefully everyone understood my physical and mental state and knew that I am not that anti-social. Some days I was actually happy to be tenting because it meant I could just veg out and not talk to anyone. So, that third day with the Portage la Prairie family, when I was a ball of emotions, David knew enough to leave me alone. After we – I – decided not to bike, I went back to sleep for several hours while he read. There were tornado warnings in effect for the area so I felt better about forcing him to spend another day relaxing. I figured I pretty much saved us from ending up in a twister with a cow or shark.

The next day I was feeling much better and we finally left, making it into Winnipeg that afternoon. We took the circumferential route around the city which basically led us into farmland. We were very skeptical of the route after all our troubles in Edmonton, but it turned out to work in our favour this time. There was one bridge where I thought I was going to get hit; it was very narrow and had no shoulder for walkers or cyclists. After watching a transport truck almost sideswipe a car, I became very nervous. The bridge had high stone shoulders and I was worried I was going to get flattened against the side. I think I would have felt better if it looked like I could fall into the river instead. Unfortunately, there was no other way over the river, so I took a deep breath, said a little prayer to the traffic gods, and went as fast as I could over the bridge. It all turned out okay. I was not flattened and we made it to our host-family who fed us very well and even bought us groceries for the next stage of our trip. They lived in a sub-division of Winnipeg and picked us up along our route so we didn’t actually make it into the city core.

The day after Winnipeg, our last day planned in Manitoba, the wind that had blown us into Portage la Prairie was trying to keep us in the area. It was the strongest headwind we had ever encountered. We were cycling with a man who was very supportive of our trip and had wanted to do a leg with us. It was great to have the company, especially when the wind became bad and he helped cut it for us. He was fresh and energetic so we suggested he could go in front so we could draft off him. For the first hour or so, he flew ahead of us and obviously was not prepared for how slow we – I – biked. We were very thankful every time a transport truck passed us as it helped break the wind and gave us a little breeze to push us in the right direction. We hit the ‘longitudinally halfway through Canada’ sign, which cheered us, but it was still only day 35; we were not halfway through our trip. Needless to say, longitudinally is very different than ‘following the highways.’

After hitting a section of trees that failed to break the wind for us as we’d hoped, we were both pretty frustrated. Feeling, though, that because this man was cycling with us, we should not give up and dampen his enthusiasm. When we realized that we weren’t making any headway and suddenly passed a campground, we decided to call it a day. It wasn’t worth exhausting ourselves just to make it a few more kilometers. Tomorrow would hopefully be easier. Maybe we should have used that attitude the entire way across the country. If we had, though, we would probably still be in Manitoba waiting for a tail wind. Back when we were preparing for the trip, everyone told us that prevailing wind in Canada is a western wind (meaning blowing towards the east) which is why most cyclists go from Vancouver to St. John’s. However, that summer, anyone we heard from (farmers, fishermen, cyclists) noticed that that entire country had experienced mostly eastern winds. This was terribly frustrating but there was nothing we could do about it.

So we said good-bye to our fellow cyclist, set up camp, and spent the afternoon pedaling around a little lake at the campground on a paddleboat. We are obviously suckers for punishment. Afterward, I had a much needed nap before making supper. We were discouraged that we had only made it 45 kilometers after all our efforts and hoped the next day would truly be our last day in Manitoba.

Turning Twenty

I HAD A MELT-DOWN when I turned twenty; despite the fact that I spent it in the Bahamas with my family, so really I should have been more than excited about my birthday. Mom has always been a believer in taking life up on all possible travel opportunities. So when my parents were invited to stay with a couple in the Bahamas, we knew it was only a matter of time before they went. Mom made arrangements with the couple who had invited us to visit over Christmas. Only they were going to be in the States so they offered us the use of both their car and house, to which we readily agreed. My parents, however, did not think to write down any important information, such as, the address for where we were staying, the host family’s name, or even their phone number.

When we arrived at customs we were asked the standard entry question: “Where are you staying?” That is when we realized that maybe we were not adequately prepared.

The uncomfortable conversation between Dad and the customs guy went something like this:

Where are you staying?

At a friend’s.

What are their names?

John and Julia.

John and Julia who?

Umm, we didn’t write down their last names.

Have you met these friends of yours before?

Well not directly…they helped organize a mission trip we did a few years ago with the church.

So these ‘friends’ of yours, are they coming to meet you?

Ah, no, we are staying at their house while they are in the States.

Where is the house?

We don’t know. There is a car in the parking lot with keys and our directions in it.

So let me get this straight, you’ve come here, have never met the people you claim to be staying with, don’t know where you are going, and claim there is a car in the parking lot with the keys in the dash?

Yup, that’s about it.

Sigh, people like you make me hate my job.

Sorry!

I’m only letting you in because it’s Christmas, next time write down some information.

Thank you! Merry Christmas!

We did find the car in the parking lot with the keys and house instructions in the dash. The house was all prepared for us and the host family had even left welcome gifts on our pillows. It was a great vacation, and because we, the kids, had never been anywhere for Christmas before we were thrilled to have our first sandy Christmas. Amy couldn’t come with us because nurses have the worst work schedules, so she called us enviously on Christmas Day as she was getting pooped on by babies.

My birthday, five days later, was a beautiful sunny day, but I was in a foul mood and full of teenage angst. I basically had a mental meltdown since I knew I had reached the halfway point of my life expectancy. The current life expectancy for someone with CF is estimated to be anywhere from 31 to 41. While the estimate is increasing rapidly, people with ‘milder’ forms of CF (those with only mild lung or digestive issues) are being diagnosed later in life. These people live longer than those of us with the ‘classic’ form of CF, which is pushing up the CF life expectancy rate. Personally, I have always looked at 40 as the ‘end point,’ so when I turned 20, I was struck with the knowledge that I was at least halfway through my life.

I know a lot of people have mid-life crises in their 40s, but no one ever talks about what to expect if you have a shortened life expectancy. At the time, I felt overwhelmed with the realization that my life was halfway over and that I only had 20 years left to cram everything in. I knew that there was no guarantee that I would live until I was 40 or that I would die the day I turned 40, but on that birthday I mourned everything that I would miss. Not knowing how to handle my emotions, I naturally took it out on my family. As a family, we are very close, but we don’t often talk about our emotions. We’re the ones making uncomfortable jokes at funerals so I never thought that maybe I should tell someone how I was feeling. It never occurred to me that I should talk to Amy about my feelings; having CF herself, she may have had similar emotions when she turned 20. Instead, I lay on the couch in the house and watched geckos crawl across the wall.

It is hard to describe what I was feeling at that moment but it was essentially a sentiment of being too old to have accomplished so little, or that I was not going to have enough time to fit in everything I wanted from life in the mere 20 years I had left. I will never have time to buy a house, I figured, because I will spend my life paying off my student loan. Will I ever find a partner who loves me and makes me happy? (Yes) Will I find a career with my lousy Bachelor of Science degree? (No) What am I even doing taking a degree with no employable outcome? (Good question, asked a little too late) Why am I working at Sobeys? (Rent money) What is the meaning of life? (42) All of these questions and emotions seemed to hit me that day.

While I was on the couch having a pity party, Mom yelled for me to hurry and get ready because we were going snorkeling. She was not putting up with my brooding while there were beaches to relax on and fish to see. Later, having almost drowned when I inhaled water through the cheap snorkel set we had bought, I was able to snap out of my funk for a while and enjoy the day. Yet, that night while my family was singing Happy Birthday and presenting me with a birthday Mars bar and candle on the side (no one wanted to turn on the oven to bake a cake in the heat), I became overwhelmed again with thoughts of the future and death. However, the sugar rush from the chocolate bar made me unable to mope again, so I helped David try to catch the geckos and throw them out of the house (we were not successful).

The next day, I felt much better and was ready for our flight home. I learned to compartmentalize my emotions and to push them away when other people were around. This practice also came in handy when dealing with my lung transplant related emotions; in other words, helping me not break into tears every five seconds. That day, I had no time to think as we madly packed and made sandwiches for the flight. Turns out we didn’t need to rush as our sandwiches were confiscated by the customs guard because Mom is unable to lie and answered “yes” when asked if we were carrying any meat. We told her afterward that she should have just fibbed since our ham sandwiches were not going to destroy the pork economy of America. Corn and soy subsidies were already doing that. I had almost forgotten about death and dying until we sat in the airport where televisions showed CNN airing and analyzing the hanging of Saddam Hussein. Thank you world for that birthday present!

“Nakita the Mosquita!!” - Me, mocking the ‘World’s Largest Mosquito,’ Day 47, June 23rd 2008

More to Discover

OH, ONTARIO. Why must you be full of trees and mosquitoes and lakes and rocks? And so big. So very, very big. It took us about three weeks to cycle from British Columbia to Manitoba, and then three weeks to make it through Ontario. It was extremely demoralizing. The first day we had in Ontario turned out to be a wet one, even though it was sunny when we woke up. We were not prepared for the showers. This meant everything in my right pannier got absolutely soaked. The sunny sky must have caused me to forget to carefully wrap everything inside my pannier in garbage bags as I usually did. Thankfully, the pannier held mostly just my clothes. Unfortunately, it also held my Ziploc bag of medications. Somehow the water managed to get inside the Ziploc bag and soak them. My main digestive pills were okay though, so it did not really concern me that my vitamins, iron pills, and Losec (one of my daily digestive pills) all melted together. I could have gotten Mom to mail me more at our next rest stop, but I did not realize that I should have been more concerned about the Losec. I had been taking Losec for years and had long since forgotten why, so I didn’t really think that they did anything. How little I knew.

We stayed with David’s good friend in Dryden (the one who spooked me about the ticks), so two days into Ontario, we were able to have two wonderful rest days to dry out, sleep in a bed, and do laundry. I should have appreciated it more, but I didn’t know that was going to be the last time I felt normal until we hit North Bay. Everyone says that northern Ontario is huge, and they laugh, but you can’t really understand the scope of the province until you are actually there. After we made it through Thunder Bay, we headed on the more northern highway based on the advice of our uncle who is a trucker. He had said it would be less hilly, and although it was less scenic and more desolate, we wanted the flat roads.

In Beardmore, 200 kilometers outside of Thunder Bay, we had scheduled a place to stay. We opted to make it there in three short days instead of two long ones. The first night, we spent at a rest stop in the middle of a construction zone. They were paving a ten kilometer stretch and most of it was still grated pavement. It was horrible to cycle on and was even worse with the rain. And lucky us, it rained almost every single day we were in Ontario. The second day, we went about 65 kilometers and when we passed a rest stop by a scenic lake, we figured it was as good a place as any to stop for the night. We spent the afternoon reading, playing cards, accidently feeding seagulls some Cheesies when the bag blew out of my hands (it was a sad moment), and going fishing for our carton of milk after it broke loose from our tie and started floating into the lake. I thought it had been a brilliant idea to keep it cool in the lake. David disagreed when he almost fell in trying to fish it out.

This is when I should pause for a moment and talk about food and cycling. I have never been a morning or a breakfast person; so eating solid food shortly after waking up has never been something my stomach has enjoyed. I always drink a breakfast shake, which is either the reason I hate solid food or a necessity as a result of my hatred. Due to this, when planning for the trip, we packed my shake powder, got ourselves a manual hand mixer, and would buy milk for the shakes whenever possible. I also had an intense milk addiction at the time and this was my main caloric source for the entire trip. David, of course, just ate large quantities of whatever else was available. When milk wasn’t available for breakfast, I would eat a bagel, muffin, or something equally light. I tried once to make the shake with powdered milk, but it was repulsive and I could barely get it down. For lunch, we would eat cold deli salads or sandwiches. I am not a fan of sandwiches and got tired of them after the first week. We started perusing deli sections looking for new pasta salads or mixes to try. For supper, we would make quinoa, rice, or pasta with a canned protein option and some sort of packaged sauce. Some meals turned out very well and some were unbelievably gross.

We had three ‘in case of emergency’ dehydrated camping meals. One night we tried one for fun to see if it would be any good. It promised us ‘teriyaki chicken with veggies;’ I’m not sure what they did to the poor chicken but it tasted like we were shoveling salt straight into our mouths. After three bites, we crossed our fingers that we would never need to eat the other two, and then made ourselves some grilled cheese instead. For snacks we had a stash of gummies, granola bars, and trail mix. We would buy fruit and vegetables and junk food at roadside stands or convenience stores. In hindsight, we carried way more food than was necessary. We could have gotten a flat tire in the middle of the woods and still not be hungry when rescuers found us a week later.

While in northern Ontario, the morning after our brilliant night at the lakeside rest stop, I woke up incredibly exhausted and possibly a tad grumpy. I had coughed most of the night and I wanted to throw the alarm into the lake when it went off. I did get up eventually, when David threatened to throw the tent with me in it into the lake. When on the road, I tried hard not to talk to David because I wanted to freak out over everything – I may have been feeling a bit bitchy. As if nature was trying to cheer me up, there was a deer grazing near the road. Instead of running back into the trees like a normal deer, it stopped grazing and ran alongside David. I pulled the camera out of my front bag, and the deer stopped following David and ran toward me instead. It stopped when it reached me, posed for a picture, and then ran off behind me when I returned to cycling. It was adorable, but it may have had rabies or was a vampire since it was so interested in getting close to us. The thought of a vampire deer cheered me up for a few minutes as we cycled into a town which boasted 5300 people on its welcome sign. We figured that 5300 people would need a grocery store and were expecting some fresh fruit and salad to eat with lunch. However, there were not 5300 people. Maybe 300 people. Maybe the other 5000 people and their houses were hiding in the woods with the deer and mosquitos. Before we continued, we ate our old sandwich meat and pasta salad in frustration. After lunch it started to rain and my bad mood returned.

The last 30 kilometers into Beardmore seemed like there was a continuous climb. It is possible that some of the incline was psychological as I was mad to be stuck in a never-ending loop of trees, rain, and hills. Ontario was already playing tricks with my brain. We did eventually make it to Beardmore, which randomly had a large happy snowman with a very colourful sign at its entrance. After being let into the apartment where we were staying (I think it was an apartment for a miner who was home for his week off), the rain stopped momentarily. We went for a walk around the town, took a picture of the snowman, and as we were buying some very expensive vegetables, it began to rain again. I slept very deeply for the rest of the afternoon, after which we cooked some delicious Hamburger Helper with veggies for supper and watched an intense National Geographic show about geology. The nap, food, and learning about tectonic plates did wonders for my mood, and I felt much better overall, except for my stomach which still seemed to be somewhat upset.

Let me pause again to talk about the not-so-glamorous side of CF (I have yet to find that elusive glamorous side). I have to take a ton of medication every day, as well as use an aerosol mask and do chest compressions twice a day. For me, it is just part of my daily routine. With cycling however, this meant that I had to carry (or, rather David carried) all of my medication and aerosol machine. Thankfully, I was able to take the small, battery-operated machine, but everything did add quite a bit of weight. We didn’t carry three months worth of my digestive medication because that would have been ridiculous. Instead, I mailed parcels of medication to various host families across the country. Every morning, I would use the aerosol mask, do my physiotherapy, down all my multivitamins and supplements, and go on my way. Having half of the lung function of an average person meant that I cycled slower and got tired easier than most people so we dealt with that by planning on shorter distance days and lots of breaks. I struggled with breathing much more on very hot or humid days, but we had so many rainy and cool days that it was not a big problem.

The biggest CF related obstacle I faced on the trip was that I had problems keeping down food when I had to start cycling after eating. I still don’t know if I can blame that on the CF, but I’m not sure what else to blame. It may have been due to being fatigued, or an infection, or something else, but involuntary vomiting on the side of the road became a regular occurrence. I would then feel sick from throwing up and wouldn’t eat anything else for a few hours. This first started on the day we left Jasper and didn’t really stop until we hit St. John’s. We tried waiting longer before starting off in the morning or after lunch, in order to give my stomach time to settle, but that didn’t make a difference. All my other complaints (knee pain, exhaustion, constant menstruation) could have happened to anyone.

Two days after Beardmore, I wasn’t eating very much, my stomach hurt, and I was starting to think that maybe Losec did indeed keep everything flowing. It probably wouldn’t have been as bad if I could have rested, but we were in the middle of nowhere getting eaten by mosquitoes and it was not a place to stop. And I literally mean the middle of nowhere. We were on the stretch of our trip where we saw nothing other than one hunting lodge and a million soul-eating mosquitoes for 200 kilometers. That night was the worst we had. Having felt sick all day, I was running on gummy worms and will-power. We couldn’t stop to properly eat since the bugs would attack, and therefore had to eat while cycling faster than 12km/hr, so as to escape their torture. We discussed the merits of having a pet bat and wondered if we could get our parents to ship one from Amazon by evening. Feeling pretty miserable by the afternoon I’d had enough. At the top of a hill, I declared that I was done and could we please stop. David, who wasn’t feeling well either, did not protest and we dragged our bikes up to where we thought would be a little breeze. There was no breeze, but there was a giant bog.

I tried to make supper while doing the ‘get off me mosquito’ dance and picking the mosquitoes out of the pasta. David somehow managed to set up the tent, occasionally screaming and sprinting around in an attempt to try to outrun the stingers. I really wish I was exaggerating this. I cannot over state how miserable we were. We layered as much clothing as possible, trying to leave no skin for the bugs to attack. They decided to attack our eyelids instead. Ignoring the ‘keep away from your eyes and avoid inhaling the fumes’ warning, we sprayed mosquito repellent everywhere. When that didn’t work, we tried tying the OFF wipes to our clothes and hair, but this, of course, did nothing. We choked down our mosquito peppered pasta and I called it a night, retreating to the tent around 5:30 p.m. David, being the amazing brother he is, stayed out and did the dishes. He also found a tree from which to hang our food. Yes, we were still fearful of bears, even though no sane animal would live in that area. Desperate, we contemplated sending up a bat signal in hopes Batman would come save us from the mosquitoes (he must eat bugs right?), but we figured that Batman wouldn’t want to be in that area either. David came into the tent around 6:30 p.m., we killed all the bugs that had followed him in, and then thought we could finally relax.

The mosquitoes had a different plan. Since our tent was a mesh frame with a nylon fly overtop, the bugs could get under the fly and attack us through the mesh. If we had any skin touching the side of the tent, they would found it. In the morning, David had a row of bites on his arm, the bugs having attacked while he slept. We had to awkwardly squeeze together in our tiny tent to avoid getting stung. The stinging stopped momentarily but the constant humming noise did not. It was a frightening reminder of the swarm awaiting us outside.

I’m not sure if it was from eating all the mosquitoes, the sketchy water we drank from a gas station a few days before, or general exhaustion, but in the middle of the night David was hit with his own bowel problems. His, though, were much more explosive than mine. He sat up and rushed out of the tent, making the bugs very, very happy. Being sleepy and selfish, I yelled at him for letting mosquitoes into the tent. I hope I apologized when he returned and explained his problem, but most likely I just yelled again. Sorry Bro! These troubles plagued him all the way through the next day. He would have to jump off his bike somewhere unfortunate, like halfway down a hill, grab some tissues, and run into the woods. It was painful just to watch and made me forget my pain for awhile. Apparently I had eaten only the magical mosquitoes, because while David was in pain, I was surprisingly energetic. Ignoring his grumbling, I pushed us the entire 153 kilometers to the French town of Hearst.

Hoping that physical problems would be our only major obstacle in Ontario, I was taken aback by the crazy drivers. Most of the drivers were responsible, but not all. When going up a small, blind hill one day before Hearst, a transport truck crossed fully over the solid yellow line when passing David. I don’t mean that the left-side wheels went over the line, I mean the entire truck was on the wrong side of the road. Unfortunately, that was when a pick-up truck happened to come from the opposite direction. I thought there was going to be a head-on collision for sure, but the pick-up swerved into the ditch and narrowly avoided getting plowed over by the transport. This all unfolded in the blink of an eye as David continued to the top of the hill. Once there, we saw the pick-up driver had backed out of the ditch and was justifiably pissed. Unjustifiably, he started yelling at David to get off the road, then proceeded to turn around so he could yell at us a second time. He screamed from the truck window while giving us the finger as he drove. Ignoring him, we avoided furthering any confrontation but thought he should have yelled at the transport truck driver who had actually been the one forcing him to move over. I still don’t understand why the transport truck driver had crossed over so far. There was a good shoulder on the road in that section, and he just had to barely move over a foot for us.

The other terrifying-driver road section was the section leading into Ottawa, as it was only single-lane. There were obviously plans to widen the road, as there were signs everywhere that read ‘This Land is Our Land – Back Off Government.’ Every time we saw one, we would break into song, Woody Guthrie style adding in new lyrics (Ontario was making us lose our minds). The drivers heading toward Ottawa all seemed impatient and the increased traffic itself did not help. We thought back to how we survived Manitoba, and figured we would probably survive Ontario too if we played our cards right.

The closest I came to getting run down was while cycling down a hill over a bridge, and encountering a giant pothole. I almost veered left onto the road to go around it so I wouldn’t have to go on the soft shoulder, but at the last second turned right once I realized the heavy traffic issue. My decision was suddenly validated by a truck zooming passed me at that exact moment. If I had veered into the road, he surely would not have had time to stop and would have flattened me. It is a good thing the swerving-into-the-road-is-bad part of my brain was still working.

My bowel troubles continued through Ontario and a few days after Hearst I decided I was tired of not eating or pooping. I needed a solution. Tired from my lack of calories, I was cycling daily in an exhausted daze, eating only gummy candies. They were all I could keep down, in addition to a bit of rice at night. I came to think that maybe the Losec served a purpose after all. Mom could have sent more to our host family in Brockville, but that was still more than a week away. The encouragement I got from David and my intense desire not to quit was my motivation to keep going. We spent a night with a very nice couple in Smooth Rock Falls, although the house was smoky, causing me to cough a lot. This meant we couldn’t and didn’t enjoy a rest day there as we had originally considered. I was beyond ready for a rest day; it had been 11 days straight of cycling. The morning of our next planned rest day I made it an hour before crashing. I was both physically and emotionally exhausted. I was tired of feeling tired, looking at trees and lakes, and dealing with stupid mosquitoes.

We were fortunately in the town of Cochrane at the time of my mental crash. The pharmacists at the local shop listened as I explained my problems. He immediately was able to fix everything. He phoned my pharmacy in New Brunswick to get my prescription faxed to him and gave me some precious Losec. He lectured me on drinking a lot of water (which I had been doing) and getting some sleep (or that is what I heard him say at least). He thought I might have to pay for the pills, but it turned out it was one day after the permissible re-fill date, meaning I only had to pay the dispensing fee. It was at that moment that I became eternally grateful for our Medicare system. I mean, I’ve always been appreciative since I benefit from it more than most, but that day I just wanted my meds and this man provided them with no charge. Somehow I managed to convince David that we should get a hotel and relax for the rest of the day. I finally slept, followed by a great meal. I took my medication and soon enough everything was right with the world again.

Ontario was the province that pushed me to my physical and mental limits. Due to circumstances and poor timing, we didn’t have a proper rest day for 21 days. Sure, we cut some days short, but a genuine rest day with no cycling where I could just lay in bed all morning did not happen. I’m not sure that a rest day would have made the province easier, but it might have helped. We eventually had such a rest day in Brockville at my best friend’s amazing parents’. They let us veg out and eat all their raspberries. People from the Maritimes tend to pick on Ontarians for being snobby, but besides one crabby shop owner who would not let us sit at her shaded picnic tables, every Ontarian we met was extraordinarily helpful and generous.

My Intestines Tried to Kill Me

THE STOMACH PAIN I experienced in Northern Ontario was very much like the digestive pain I experienced a few years later. In 2011, I learned that the pharmaceutical company that produced the digestive enzymes I took whenever I ate was discontinuing the product. I already knew that switching medication could be a nightmare, as my good multivitamins had been discontinued on and off for a few years. It was a headache to find another multivitamin that I could handle. Initially, I tried taking Centrum, but after four days of throwing up my breakfast I realized it probably wasn’t working. After I emptied my stomach, I would immediately feel better, so I figured it wasn’t anything more serious. After that, I tried taking the pill without food in my stomach, thinking I wouldn’t have anything to throw up, but I ended up just feeling nauseous all day and wouldn’t want to eat anything. Obviously, that was not a long-term solution, so I told my dietitian to find me something better. In the end, I discovered Flintstones Chewables taken with a separate Vitamin E supplement is the best option for me. They taste horrible, and the medical professionals have a chuckle every time they read what I am taking, but at least I can keep food down.

I was assured that for my digestive enzymes, most people transferring to the new product have very few issues and any side effects would involve only minor stomach pain. So I ordered the new pills ‘Creon 25,’ instead of the ‘ESC 20’ that I had been taking my entire life. The ‘25’ versus ‘20’ is a measure of the strength of the digestive ingredients, so if I used to take five ECS 20 pills with a snack, I should instead take four Creon 25 pills. I did the math for my meals and after using every last ECS 20 cotazyme that I could get my hands on, I made the switch.

The first night I thought I was in the clear and belonged to the elusive group that didn’t experience side effects (and here I thought that group was just a myth). Reality struck when I went to work the next morning. That summer I was working at a day camp as an inclusion worker for a boy with severe epilepsy. Around the children’s afternoon ‘quiet time,’ I started to get stabbing pains in my intestine. I was hoping it was just menstrual cramps (I was so naïve). In the past I’ve found that walking around helps relieve some pain, so I convinced the boy to go for a long walk around the park. When that didn’t work, I toughed it out until the end of the day, went home, and tried my other classic method of ‘curling up into a ball on the couch,’ and awaiting death. My boyfriend, Isaiah, was working in the Yukon at the time, so I couldn’t rely on him to take care of me. I forced myself to prepare supper and tried to get down some plain pasta, until I realized that pasta was a carbohydrate and would do the opposite of help. To compensate, I drank a ton of water, then lay on the couch, and waited for the sharp stabbing pains in my bowels to go away.

Thinking maybe Amy would have some helpful insight, since she had yet to make the dreaded switch, I called her. She just laughed at my pain, telling me that I must have underestimated how many pills I needed when eating. I protested that I had taken the correct amount but she did not believe me. My entire night then consisted of forcing myself to eat oily food and distracting myself by writing angry e-mails to Isaiah, cursing the fact that he wasn’t home to make me better. After I writhed in pain all night attempting to sleep, I made the mistake of not calling in sick the next day. Instead, I thought maybe work would take my mind off the pain, but obviously I had a memory lapse regarding how easily children can suck the energy out of your soul. I went to work, forced a smile, and tried very hard to focus on anything other than the feeling of thousands of relentless, stabbing knives.

I didn’t feel like eating that day since my stomach kept cramping, which meant that I progressively lost energy and patience every passing hour. That night was also restless with intense, stabbing pains that seemed to come in waves, which was a change from the constant pain of the previous night. I called Amy again to complain, and she responded by telling me to drink more water and take more pills when eating. Cursing her, I insisted that wasn’t the problem and please for the love of god could she make the pain stop. I could hear her shrug and she told me to eat some fish. She may be a fine nurse for the babies she works with, but she has little sympathy when it comes to patients who can talk back.

The next two days were pretty much the same; I tried to eat but my cramping stomach disagreed, then I became super tired and only had energy to make toast and drink a Boost. For some reason I could still handle drinking Boost at night. By that point, I was taking way more Creon than was recommended, thinking maybe it would do the trick. However, it still felt as though I hadn’t taken any medication for days. I cursed the pharmaceutical company for causing this pain and wished horrible karma on whoever had discontinued my ECS 20s.

After three dreadful, sleepless days, the Creon slightly kicked in and I was able to go to the bathroom, which helped for a bit. The pain soon returned with a vengeance. It changed from a continual wave to a random sharp stabbing pain, causing me to bow over in a paralyzing way. This happened at random times, like at camp while swimming or when trying to help a child change out of their bathing suit. I would go home at night and lay on the couch wondering if this would be the night when it finally ended.

It was a horrible experience that lasted for a solid week. I sent long, ranting emails to Isaiah every night, demanding he return to Nova Scotia to make me soup and give me a hug. He couldn’t reply as he was working in the middle of the woods at a camp with no amenities.

The next week when I was feeling better but still psychologically recovering, Amy called to say that she had made the switch to Creon and was having digestive pains. I laughed and laughed, telling her to drink some water and take more pills next time she ate. A few months later when my bowels had finally normalized with Creon, my dietitian called to tell me the good news: ESC 20 cotazymes were back on the market and I could switch back! I growled, hung up the phone, and cursed the executive at big pharma who made me suffer.

“Was that a bear?” - David, Day 54, June 30th 2008

Canada Day

WE WERE IN ONTARIO for Canada Day, which seemed appropriate, and not surprising since Ontario took up a third of our trip. On June 30th we were aiming to reach Englehart. Not for any particular reason, it just seemed like a reasonable goal. On the way into town we saw what appeared to be a giant black dog run across the road. We were wondering where it came from as we were in a wooded area and there seemed to be no houses around. It took longer than I would like to admit for us to realize it was a bear and not a very large dog. We decided then that we should probably not camp in that area and hopefully there would be something in the town itself. It felt very Canadian to see a bear the day before Canada Day. We biked into town, and not knowing where we were going to stay, we stopped at the grocery store before making a decision.

I have had a tradition of trying to eat watermelon on Canada Day ever since my summer in Ireland. I know watermelon is not particularly Canadian, but when I was in Ireland it reminded me of home. Keeping up this tradition is my own way to relive the feeling of being far away from home and appreciating all the good things about Canada. So being Canada Eve, we picked up half a watermelon. Yes, that’s right, we were cycling while carrying half a watermelon.

We stopped at a church that was right off the highway to see if they would let us camp in their huge yard. Surprisingly enough, they said yes. They were one of the only two churches on our trip who agreed to this. I’ll leave you to ponder the irony of how these places that preach compassion and love are the same places that turn people away when asked for help, due to ‘policy.’ We eventually stopped asking because it wasn’t worth the effort.

Thankfully, this wonderful church in Englehart was different. They even let us use their bathroom. We set up camp and proceeded to hack apart the poor watermelon with our Swiss army knife. It was absolutely delicious. We ate about half of it and saved the rest for Canada Day. The rest of the evening was spent reading and relaxing, and I even remembered to cut my toenails. I tended to go to bed around 8:00 p.m. so there was never much of an evening for me to fill.

You would think that David and I had a lot of deep, meaningful conversations because we spent so much time together, but you’d be wrong. We did have many long conversations, but we didn’t spend evenings debating the meaning of life. Rather, we would debate whether countries would come to our aid if the States decided to invade Canada (D: yay, A: nay), or the best way to rid a government of corruption (D: a non-corruptible dictator, A: random selection of people for a coalition government in a socialist society). These conversations would span hours during which we would often break into song. It is obvious that we are able to easily entertain ourselves. We spent an afternoon in Newfoundland trying to get ants to fight each other after dropping them onto a container. Another evening in the Prairies was spent chasing swarms of butterflies, attempting to create the perfect photo of a person running while butterflies fly around them. Not surprisingly, this was not successful; it was almost a butterfly massacre since they refused to fly away.

When rising in the morning, we were pleased to discover that the church was open. This was great since it meant we could use the bathroom before taking off and we didn’t have to pee in the open field. A person, who I assume was a hitchhiker, had slept in the church and gave me a start when I ran into the building. He wanted to chat but I was still half asleep, groggy, and not in the mood to chat. For all I knew, he could have been a thief, which would explain why churches dislike allowing people to use their land.

It was a sunny day and not overly hot, meaning great cycling – except for the massive headwind that developed in the afternoon. We passed a cheese factory and stopped for some warm cheese curds that were absolutely, squeakily, delicious. If we’d had some fries and gravy it would have been the perfect meal.

The night of Canada Day was spent in the woods outside a town on a logging road. We had stopped to camp at the entrance of the road, but then I saw a pile of bones and surmised it was not a place to spend the night. Although we assumed they were animal bones, we did not go in for a closer look. I also did not want to be hanging out there when the bone collector returned to add more to his pile (I’m not sure why I thought the bone collector would be male. Maybe I’m being a bit sexist. I’m sure there are a lot of women out there with their very own pile of bones). David thought I was being ridiculous, but agreed to go further down the trail where we’d be out of sight of the bones. So that is how we spent Canada Day. We camped in the woods on a logging trail with our quarter watermelon and a pile of bones.

The Quest for the Sunset

THE YEAR BEFORE the cycling trip, during the vacation we spent in Egypt, Amy and I also travelled around Italy. We hit all the hotspots: Rome, Pisa, Venice, Florence, and Torino (Torino is not on most peoples’ trips but we went to visit two of the friends I had made in Ireland). We arrived in Florence without having booked a place to stay; we were young and ‘backpacking around,’ and obviously now realize we should have known better. The reason we didn’t book any of our Italian section of the trip was because we were trying to be carefree and ‘not have a plan.’ Sounds great in theory, but when it comes time to find a place to stay on what turns out to be an Italian holiday, it becomes a lot less glamorous. We spent our first three hours in Florence walking around that stupid town being rejected at place after place.

While traipsing through the city, we also tried to find a camera store. Our camera had died the day before so we had to find a replacement. We walked all around looking for an affordable place to stay while also keeping an eye out for a camera shop. Eventually, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to bump up our nightly budget, otherwise we would be spending another night sleeping in a train station like we had in Rome. We had decided that was our best option as we had an early morning train, but we were woken by a homeless man standing over us and trying to steal our stuff. Amy was (and still is) scarred after that event. When discussing that option she shuddered at the thought and agreed to try the next pricing level of hostels.

Eventually, we found a camera shop and a place to stay: a room with three other people. At least we had our own bed this time, unlike the hostel in Rome which had us share a single bed. Rome was not a highlight of our trip. We dumped our stuff on our beds, packed up a smaller bag of snacks, water, our new camera, and coazymes and took off for the day. Amy really wanted to make a day trip into the Tuscan countryside and since I have a thing for sunsets, I agreed, provided that we could find a place to watch the sunset over the vineyards. With those images in mind, we went to the train station and jumped on one going in the direction of the town our guidebook said had the best picturesque Tuscan landscapes and sunsets.

After about twenty minutes and three stops on what was supposed to be a 15-minute train ride, we realized we did not recognize any of the towns that were being announced. We had a sinking sensation that we were on the wrong train. Since we didn’t know where the train was headed, we jumped off at the next stop, believing this town would be just as beautiful as our original destination. We were disappointed but didn’t panic. It was a cute town with delicious fresh cherries, and rabbits hopping around their park. Even though we had no idea what it was at the time, we ended up watching the Giro Italia (Italy’s Tour du France) cycle through the village. It looked like maybe it was a triathlon so we cheered them on alongside the rest of the town. After an hour we had exhausted every activity there, so in my attempt to find a beautiful sunset, I convinced Amy we should get on the next train, go to the next town, and hope they have beautiful sunsets.

This turned out to be one of the worst decisions of our entire trip (the worst was setting down the backpack containing our passports while we purchased train tickets in Rome. A man grabbed the bag from between our feet and ran. I chased after him screaming “Thief!” At least, that is what I tried to say, realistically it was probably closer to “YahhArgggghhh!” Thankfully he dropped it as he sprinted down the escalator and out of sight. Again – we really did not have a blast in Rome). The train arrived before we had thought too hard about our decision, and ten minutes later it passed through a tunnel in a mountain, and we finally realized how late it was getting. We decided it was time to abandon our plan and head back to Florence. We got off at the next stop, consulted the little schedule posted on the side of the tiny train station, and were relieved to read that there was one more train heading back to Florence in an hour. So we waited, ate more cherries, and hoped the train would be early.

The hour came and went, and that was when we started to panic. We double and triple checked the schedule, but since we couldn’t read Italian, we could only look at the times and wonder why the train hadn’t arrived. There was an asterisk beside the train time but we couldn’t decipher if that meant it only ran on Sundays or never ran on Sundays. Or maybe it ran every other weekend? All this speculation did not help. It was dark by this point so we left the station (which was basically a small wooden shelter), only to realize it was outside of the actual town. There were no houses around and the only thing we could see was a graveyard across the street. We figured it was best to stay in there and figure something out. Regretfully, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to spend a long, cold night in the train station. At this point I was profusely apologizing to Amy who looked like she might murder at the mention of “sunset”. My quips about our cherries warding off starvation were also not appreciated.

As we were figuring out which of the two wooden benches looked the most comfortable, a man speaking rapid Italian with energetic hand gestures arrived. We gestured that we had been waiting for the train and didn’t know what to do. He sighed and said in broken English that the train we were waiting for only ran on weekends, or maybe he said it never ran on weekends. We never did figure that out. Either way, there was no train coming to take us back to Florence. He motioned for us to follow him and I quickly checked the next day’s schedule before leaving. The first train would be at 6h40 in the morning and I was determined to be on it.

The man took us to what seemed to be the town hall where people were playing cards, smoking, and drinking. Everyone proceeded to have a very loud, lengthy discussion with a lot of hand waving and gesturing in our direction while we stood in the corner wondering what was happening. Eventually, a cell phone was thrust into Amy’s hand and they motioned for her to talk. They must have reached the one person in town who spoke English, because the British man on the other end of the phone said he lived nearby and that the man who had handed her the phone was going to take us to a house where we could spend the night. Amy asked him if we could pay for someone to drive us back to Florence instead. He replied “no, it would cost too much and no one wants to drive at this hour.” It seemed we had no choice so we followed the woman chosen to be the one to take in the crazy Canadians.

Her home was a few streets down from the town hall and we were introduced to her family, who was also playing cards and drinking. We assumed they were her parents and children. Thankfully, we had a puffer with us which we both used before tucking into the large comfortable bed. It was much nicer than the single beds waiting back at the hostel. We agreed to try to catch the 6h40 train, got up early, wrote a thank you note (well, not so much a note as “Grazia!” on the paper bag with the remaining cherries), and quietly snuck out of the house.

Then we waited for the train. When it didn’t arrive, we cursed, double and triple checked the train schedule, and finally noticed that it also had an asterisk beside the ‘6h40.’ This could have meant anything, but either way once again the train wasn’t arriving. We tried napping on benches and really appreciated that we hadn’t had to sleep there the previous night. Fortunately, the next train was only an hour and half wait and we had never been so happy to see a locomotive in our lives.

When we finally returned to Florence, the man who ran the hostel gave us a lecture about how he waited up for us. We apologized and then crept to our room to do an aerosol mask and get ready for our day of sightseeing. While there, we met the other three people, two guys and a girl, who were supposed to have been in that room for the night. They had all gone out partying during the night and none of them made it back to the hostel before the ‘curfew.’ The two guys had slept on the stairs outside the hostel entrance while the girl crashed at another friend’s hotel. This meant that no one who had paid for a night had actually spent it in the room. We all had a good laugh and then went our separate ways to explore the busy city and enjoy its free holiday admission to the museums. The ironic part about the entire experience was later that night when we sat at the top of a Florentine hill eating some more fresh cherries, we watched the most beautiful sunset over the Tuscan hillside.

“I know the road isn’t a raceway!!” - David, freaking out at the road signs

“Calm down David, it’s just a sign.” - Me, Day 69, July 15th 2008

La Route Verte

WE ENTERED QUEBEC on the secondary highway, because Quebec is super strict about keeping cyclists off the 401 (or the 20 as it is called in Quebec). Our traditional photo with the provincial border sign had been snapped and we were starting down the road when we heard loud, consistent honking. It sounded like a giant truck was honking madly while driving. I wasn’t sure what was happening and thought it would be best if I momentarily pulled over in the ditch, figuring I was being paranoid. I had learned on the trip that paranoia is often the most appropriate response. The honking seemed to get louder and closer so we both waited to see what was happening.

Suddenly, from around the bend, we saw a transport truck barreling towards us on the wrong side of the road. I swore and quickly moved deeper into the ditch – this is what you do when a transport is headed towards you at high speeds. I realized then that the honking was actually coming from another transport truck that was being passed by the speeding one. This second truck was towing a massive boat and was also zooming down the road, but thankfully it stayed in the correct lane. The two of them flew past us, side by side, and rounded the corner with the boat-towing truck honking madly. We didn’t have time to do any more than stare in disbelief. Welcome to Quebec! The realization that we were out of our league with the Quebec drivers was suddenly pretty obvious.

Fortunately, Quebec provides very nice cycling paths for keeping cyclists and motorists separate. It helps, though, if you know how to find them and know where they go. After seeing the transport trucks, we tried to take the bike paths on our route to Montreal, but gave up after realizing that 1) we had no map of where the trails went, and 2) the trails tended to wind back and forth on and off the main road, doubling the cycling distance. Eventually we gave up and stuck to the main road. We got a few yells from angry drivers telling us to get on the bike path. Or maybe they were shouting encouragement. We felt more confident in our navigation abilities, though, so we stuck with it. Silly us.

As a family, whenever we drove to Ontario, we would pass through Montreal and would get lost 100% of the time. It always happened the same way: Mom would be reading the map while Dad tried to stay in the lane providing the easiest access for a last minute lane change. Mom would say which lane to take, and Dad would doubt her decision and ask her to confirm it again, to which everyone in the back seat would yell “just move over!” He would then try to switch lanes but it would be too late and we would either pass the exit or take a random one, heading to an unknown location. In Dad’s defense, he was usually only given a five second warning before being told to move to the lane on the other side of the road.

This cycle continued until we would end up in some subdivision where I’m sure the locals had never seen a tourist. We would stop at a gas station and one of us kids would be sent in to ask for directions with our French Immersion French. Some vague translations would be mumbled to Dad since we never really understood what the person was saying to us in their very fast French – very foreign to our New Brunswick French ears. Following our interpreted directions probably got us more lost in the end. What I didn’t appreciate at the time was how those trips were a valuable lesson regarding travel in countries with languages I don’t know. Throughout the years, I have put my hand gesturing and one word repetition skills to great use when travelling.

As per family tradition, David and I managed to get lost while trying to cross Île Perrot (the small island before the Montreal Island). There were a lot of signs before the second bridge that indicated that cyclists were not allowed on the bridge. As the drivers were going quite fast and there was no shoulder, we did not want to risk death. Instead, we had to try and find the cycling route. We rode around the subdivision for an hour, going in different directions on the marked cycling paths trying to find the right one to get us over the bridge. One moment we would think we had the right path, but end up in a trailer park wondering how we got there. Eventually, with a lot of hand gestures and some rusty French, we got the correct directions from the third person we asked. Turns out it was super obvious, if you knew where you were going.

We eventually made it to our host’s apartment in downtown Montreal but had one minor spill on the way. This time it was David’s turn. We had to cycle up the steep hill to St. Catherine’s Street and he lost his momentum partway up. He didn’t have time to unclip both feet from the pedals to catch his balance, so he fell in slow motion into the street. Thankfully, there were no cars coming, and once I stopped laughing I helped him get up out of the middle of the road. He had his revenge the next morning when we were cycling out of the city on St. Catherine’s Street again and I stopped behind a truck at a stoplight. Only, it turned out that the truck wasn’t stopping at the light. It was a sewage truck stopping to pump sewage. As I have previously mentioned, I’m not in any way a morning person, and so when it started to back up, my reflexes were still asleep and I was totally oblivious to what was happening. David yelled at me to get out of the way, as did some guy who seemed to work for the sewage company. I snapped out of my daze and tried to move back but because I had only unclipped one foot from my pedals, I couldn’t move very easily. What followed was some panicked awkward hopping with ineffective back-pedaling. I barely made it out of the way in time. Fortunately, the guy shouting on the street made his point to the driver that he should stop reversing unless he wanted to fill out a lot of paperwork for crushing a cyclist. What a shitty death that would have been.

Alas, I did not die and instead we spent the next three days cycling the 250 kilometers to Quebec City. We managed to get in some swimming in a campground pool, where the young swimmers openly mocked our tan lines and a bird pooped on David’s head. A wonderful night was also spent with a distant relative, eating amazing food and getting our butts kicked at Crokinole. We found some magic poutine too. The magic poutine was at a little roadside poutinery outside of Quebec City. It had been a long day, full of heavy downpours that caused some delay as we had to wait them out under random shelters. We also managed to somehow get turned around at a detour and spent thirty minutes climbing two large hills accompanied by a headwind. We did eventually realize we were cycling back toward Montreal and then spent five minutes angrily coasting back down to the start of the detour. The only comfort in that experience was that it made me realize how much of a tail wind we actually had that day.

Toward the end of the day, the road got hillier and I was feeling bummed out because I sensed my exhaustion was probably related to the weight I had been losing. It felt like I was letting David down by biking so slowly but I didn’t know how to make it better. In the late afternoon we were still 40 kilometers outside of the city. Normally, we would have stopped at that point, but we had a place to stay so had to push on. We did however, stop for supper at the previously mentioned poutinery. That was the most delicious, greasiest poutine I have eaten in my life. Usually I am not one to drool over poutine since I don’t like soggy fries but this place had a solution: pile an extreme amount of cheese curds on the fries. It was perfect, with an inch and a half of thick-cut homemade fries and a solid inch of creamy, squeaky, salty cheese curds that were in turn smothered with a thick, brown, delicious, flavourful gravy. We also got a side of chicken fingers. This poutine was everything I needed to carry me through the last stretch before the city.

After digesting, I got an immense burst of energy and took off down the road. I felt like I had enough energy to make it to New Brunswick. I was on a roll and no one could stop me. When I noticed that David had stopped conversing, I looked back and saw he had fallen behind. He was unprepared for my burst and for one of the few times on our entire trip, I had more energy than him. I powered through the last 40 kilometers and felt fabulous. When we reached the street lights outside of town, I was forced to slow down. However, by that time, we had learned from other Quebec cyclists, and now also considered red lights only as suggestions to stop, not an actual command. Still pumped and energetic, I called our host family for the night, and the host mother had offered to pick us up from the main road since she lived on a giant hill a bit out of town. The energy drained from my body the second she arrived in her minivan. I tried to carry on a conversation in French but it is amazing how exhausting speaking in a second language can be.

Quebec City, provided us a rest day, and the city was celebrating its 400th birthday so we spent the day eating crêpes and watching buskers. We had a very lengthy debate back at the house on whether or not to bike up the left or right-hand side of the river heading towards Rivière-du-Loup. The left side was a shorter distance but meant we would have to catch the ferry from St. Simeon to Rivière-du-Loup. The right side was longer and since it was a primary road, usually meant better shoulders. In our wisdom, we decided to take the left side as it would be shorter and the ferry would provide us with a break. When we told our host mother that we were going on the north side of the river her face blanched and she said that it might be shorter but was crazy hilly. We laughed and told her that it couldn’t be worse than what we just handled. We made it through the Rockies, after all! We were invincible! She replied that the hills are “très très steep” and the south side of the river would be much better. “Don’t worry about us,” we said, “we’ll be fine!”

In the morning, on the huge descent from her house, we were feeling fabulous and very confident. This feeling lasted down the divided highway with its wide shoulder and wicked tailwind. When we reached the area around Mount St. Anne we realized our confidence was slightly premature. We pushed up a huge hill and at the top stopped at a canteen to have lunch. Only then did we realize that we were not at the top of the hill but in fact only halfway up. There were some flattish areas but it just kept going up, and we realized that maybe the lady from Quebec City knew what she was talking about. At the actual top of the hill, David got his first flat tire. Ten minutes later, he had his second (he hadn’t actually gotten the piece of glass out the first time). All of our tubes were either too small or too big, so he had to use one that was slightly too wide. Every time we bought tubes for the tires they turned out to be a different size than what was advertised on the box. I don’t know if all bike stores are scamming people in an attempt to sell more tubing, but it was very frustrating being in the hills of Quebec with no way to properly fix the tire.

After the tire was fixed to the best of our abilities, we did get a sweet descent where David’s odometer informed us that he was breaking his speed record at 60km/hr. I’m not sure how fast I went as my odometer had not worked since Jasper but all I know it that I was going fast enough to scare myself. I didn’t have as much weight on my bike as David, so wind gusts made me feel I might get blown off my bike and into the middle of the road. We camped in the woods that night, on the top of another hill, and I picked some wild strawberries while David attempted to patch his tire properly. Later, I suddenly became paranoid that the strawberries were going to attract bears and that we would be attacked in the middle of the night. I tend to think of worst-case scenarios at the strangest times.

The next morning was absolutely stunning. We knew there were ferries at 15h30 and 19h00 from St. Simeon and really wanted to make the 15h30 one. It was doable, and the idea of waiting around for three hours for the next ferry was not appealing. As the sun was rising over the horizon we began coasting the ten kilometers into the valley. The fog was still burning off and the sun reflected on everything beautifully. I stopped to take some pictures while David flew into the town at the bottom of the hill. He actually broke the speed limit by going 52km/hr in a 50km/hr zone. Good thing everyone was still sleeping! He was nervous when it took me so long to catch up, thinking he might have to climb back up that killer hill to find me, and was very relieved when I arrived at the bottom.

We made it through the valley we had descended into that morning, giving us a bit of a break from the hills, but the entire time we could see that we were approaching another giant climb. It was pretty obvious that sadly there would be no tunnel to take us through the cliff. There was a very steep section that in my mind was a 25% grade, but realistically was probably only 10-11%. Physically and mentally we were both feeling really good – good thing, because otherwise I would still be trying to make it up those 10% grade roads. At one point on a hill, David was actually going faster than a transport truck. I, however, was contemplating if it was possible to grab the back of the truck for a tow. Since I didn’t want my arm to get ripped off, I decided against it and somehow made it on my own.

It rained sporadically as we climbed one mountain after another, being rewarded with amazing descents into small picturesque fishing villages. By 15h10 we were ten kilometers outside of St. Simon and I figured we were going to miss the ferry. David was convinced that we could make it and pushed me to go a little faster, assuring me that I could rest once on the ferry. Grumbling that if there was another hill, there was no way I was going to make it, I continued. The next small hill we coasted down led us to not another hill, but rather an amazing descent around the corner. We flew into the town and made it on the ferry at 15h28. The ferry left two minutes later and we rejoiced in our success. We were pleased to have, what we felt was a well-deserved rest, after the never ending ‘très très steep’ hills.

French Cats

THE YEAR AFTER the bike trip, I spent two weeks working on a farm in France as part of the WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) foundation. This an organization that allows people to work on organic farms in return for food and lodging. They get help on the farm and you get to learn about farming and experience a unique perspective of that country. I highly recommend it. I was upfront with the couple, Frasier and Jane, about the fact that I have CF. My experience in Ireland taught me a lesson; for some reason, I thought I could get away with not telling the family about my CF, but I always ended up vaguely answering questions about why I coughed a lot. After a month, I felt silly for not mentioning it but thought if I brought it up then they would wonder why I didn’t just tell them. My ambiguous answers about having a dry throat were not a good long-term solution.

When meeting new people, I never know if I should say “Hi, I’m Allison, I have CF and that is why I will cough a lot,” or if I should wait and not say anything (they should really teach these things in school). My solution is usually for those people who I will see a lot, like co-workers, I wait until they ask about the coughing or about my medication before I mention anything. For those who I don’t expect to meet again, there is no point in explaining my life story so I just say I have a cold. I try not to make a big deal of it and I guess I want to show people that I am capable of doing my role or task, I just also happen to have CF. I hate it when people immediately assume that I can’t do something due to CF, so I try to delay telling them, hoping they will realize my abilities on their own.

In France, however, I was worried Frasier and Jane were going to ask me to put up a fence or something else requiring endurance, so I figured I should be upfront. They said it was fine and didn't make it a big deal. My days were spent weeding carrots, planting tomatoes, picking produce, transplanting plants, and/or weed whipping. It was not too strenuous, except for the day we spent planting 200 tomatoes. Frasier was a stereotypical English man, swearing at everything and revealing his temper when machinery broke down. We got along quite well as he was interested in Canada and wanted to know my thoughts on politics, religion, and/or about the current book he leant me (I spent most of my free time reading). Jane spent more time doing paperwork, but although I did not work much with her we still got along great.

During my stay they acquired a donkey, a stubborn ass that wasn't trained to do anything. They claimed they wanted to teach him to pull the tiller but I think the fact that the nearby farm was threatening to put him down was the real reason for the donkey adoption. Since I had experience with horses, I tried training him with a halter and lead line but he had absolutely no desire to do anything I asked. I spent three days with that mule, eventually just giving up and wished them good luck.

Soon after they got the donkey, Frasier found the source of a screeching noise coming from the hay loft. It was an abandoned kitten and while he swore adamantly that he didn't want to look after it, he refused to leave her there alone. They already had a dog and a lot of barn cats but were not prepared for an indoor cat. However, his tough exterior was slowly broken by the kitten’s pathetic meowing. Jane didn’t hesitate to get her some milk and we all spent the afternoon holding the kitten and trying to get her to stop hissing every time she was petted. Back when they had lived in London, they’d had a cat named Luna and since this would be their second house cat, Tuna seemed appropriate. After Tuna had been fed, she became wild. She would run madly around the kitchen and then launch herself onto someone’s leg in attempt to climb up that person. She drove the dog absolutely mad, but he was trained well enough and didn’t do anything when she jumped on his head.

That night, the combination of eating too much bread and wine led to some crazy indigestion. I spent the night pacing, trying to get my bowels to anything other than stab me. In the morning, I told the farmers that I wasn’t feeling great and hadn’t slept well and they were both very sympathetic. At that point, I was happy I had told them about my CF. However, I hate not being able to keep my commitments so I tried to work through the morning. Jane gave me two natural digestive pills that she said were fool-proof. The morning was spent cutting leaves that would eventually be turned into sludge and then used as fertilizer. After I filled a barrel, I finally felt a wave of exhaustion and admitted that I could use a nap. After napping and using the bathroom, I felt much better but continued relaxing and playing outside with Tuna.

After two days, Tuna had wormed her way into all of our hearts, even though Frasier wouldn’t admit it. Much of my free time was spent outside with her, getting some fresh air, playing with the grass, or chasing the chickens (Frasier yelled at me for that part). She would still claw and nip at us whenever possible, but if she was wrapped up in a towel, she was easy to pet. I tried to get her to play fetch but she mostly just pounced and clawed everything to pieces. In the kitchen, she would claw her way up my leg, trying to get my attention, but when I tried to pet her she raced to the other end of the kitchen.

The third day after finding Tuna, Jane had gone into town to have supper with a friend, leaving Frasier and I on our own at the kitchen table after we’d spent the afternoon in Toulouse. It had been the day for their vegetable box pick-ups so I had done a lot of picking, counting, and readying portions of peas and beans. In the afternoon, we went to the pub, set up the containers, and waited for everyone to pick up their veggies. Frasier had a drink at the bar while I helped people weigh out their portions. A lot of the people just came, grabbed their veggies and took off, but a few of them stayed to chat about the weather and selection of produce they had received that week. A surprisingly large number of people were also British and I was able to have proper conversations with them. I still managed to practice my French with a few of the customers, though. Since one of the reasons why I was in France was to try and improve my mediocre high school French, it was good for me to get out of my comfort zone and actually speak with French people.

We returned to the farm hungry and cooked up the leftovers from unclaimed veggie boxes. Frasier and Jane always said that the only time farmers actually eat their own food is when other people don’t pick up, or won’t buy, their veggies. They end up selling as much of their produce as possible, leaving little for them to consume themselves. Frasier fed the dog and Tuna that night while I set the table. Just as we were about to sit and eat our well-deserved meal, we heard a yip and a snap and a squeal.

It seemed Tuna had gotten too close to the dog, who attempted to defend his food by snapping at her and got her neck. She wasn't dead but was definitely paralyzed. All food forgotten, Frasier picked her up and looked to see if he could do anything. I got her some milk and water to see if she would drink anything but she wasn't responsive. Her sad little squeaking noises just broke my heart. She kept blinking her eyes as though trying to understand what had just happened but didn’t appear to be focusing on anything. We both knew that she was never going to recover to be the energetic kitten she had been. There was much discussion about what had to be done, but we kept delaying the actual process.

That was the moment when I appreciated being the employee and not actually responsible for the farm. When the animals are yours, it is your responsibility when something goes completely wrong. The longer Frasier held onto the tiny black and white ball of fur, the more I could see his tough exterior fading. He kept saying “it was my fault, I fed the dog without keeping her away.” This man, who had spent the last four days complaining about what a nuisance she was, had grown attached at the worst possible time. He sighed and held onto her, I said a very sad good-bye, and he took her to the back of the house and did the most merciful thing he could have done for little Tuna. When Jane came home he told her what had happened and she sighed, saying “well that’s farming life for you”. We were somber for the rest of the evening, and Jane eventually visited the little grave that Frasier had made for the kitten. By the next day, though, we’d all come to terms with the situation. There will always be another abandoned kitten when you own a farm, but there will only ever be one Tuna.

“That grave stone is the archway to death.” - David, Day 76, July 22nd 2008

Be…in this place. Être…ici on le peut.

OH NEW BRUNSWICK: my home province, the one that everyone drives right through. We were so excited to get back to our starting province that we sprinted through the last section of Quebec. Our excitement was slightly premature and our energy didn’t hold, causing us to end up three kilometers from the NB line and exhausted. Once we finally hit the province, our excitement resurfaced and we paused to take a photo with the welcome sign. That year, the New Brunswick slogan was “Be…in this place” and we spent the rest of the day mocking it and debating whether the person who approved the slogan still had their job.

It felt good to be back home, in the land of Irving, trees, and excellent highways. Such amazing highways. They were all well paved and had brilliant shoulders through the entire province. The roads were really direct but we felt we were missing something by no longer cycling through any small towns. I had really enjoyed cycling through all the small Prairie communities and seeing what each town had to offer. Usually we would stop for a popsicle or chips at a corner store, or maybe get groceries. Sometimes, though, we just cycled through to look at the ‘world’s largest loonie’ or ‘world’s largest hockey stick’ – every town seemed to have a very large something-or-other. It gave us something to talk about and broke the monotony. New Brunswick, on the other hand, doesn’t offer the same experience. Sure the trees and hills are beautiful, but that is not entertaining when cycling for seven hours a day. Going through a town with the ‘world’s largest mosquito’ or ‘world’s largest swing,’ is entertaining. Cycling past yet another Irving or Tims located immediately off the highway is not as enjoyable.

I know it would be a pain for truckers and commuters, but imagine the benefits if the towns had kept all the gas stations in the downtown areas and people still had to drive through a town like St. Stephen or Florenceville. Since all we talk about these days are ways to ‘boost or stimulate the economy,’ it is amazing that New Brunswick has managed to divert all tourists (and their money) away from the towns and cities. Sure, not everyone is going to stop for the night, but they might visit a shop other than Tims when they stop for gas or coffee and have to drive through the center of town. Or maybe they will see something they like and realize that New Brunswick is quite pretty after all. It might even be a good vacation spot for next year. I know this is just a fantasy since everything has already been built, but it just seems like whoever decided to build everything away from every single community must have bought into the idea that there is nothing at all to see in New Brunswick. This is a shame as while we were biking I re-discovered the beautiful places that the province does have to offer, the places everyone misses when on the highway.

When we met people along our trip and told them where we were from, many of them would then exclaim how beautiful New Brunswick is. We would respond with a shrug and a “sure, but it isn’t (enter any other province).” Turns out, they were right: it really is a gorgeous province. Sure, it’s not the Rocky Mountains, windblown Prairies, or rugged Newfoundland but it is amazing in its own right. When you grow up in an area, I think you can easily lose appreciation for its beauty. It always just seems like the lousy place where you grew up. Only by leaving, visiting other places, and then returning do you acquire a fresh perspective and realize how special your community actually is. We New Brunswickers, should be proud of our small towns, trees, rivers, and covered bridges, because no one else has anything quite like ours. And that concludes my section sponsored by Tourism New Brunswick. Be…in this place.

Back in April of that year, when I was planning the route, I had figured that we would be in killer shape once we hit New Brunswick and would be doing about 130km/day. I was wrong about that. Also, I didn’t think of the fact that because we had so many connections a lot of people would want us to stop and visit with them. We declined quite a few since every stop meant more time out of our cycling schedule. Our New Brunswick days were longer than usual because we had places to stay, so therefore we pushed ourselves through the province. This meant we were exhausted after our six days in New Brunswick. We were grateful for everyone’s interest in what we were doing but it was all very overwhelming after spending 70 days practically alone. Now everyone was telling us where to stop for lunch, who to visit, and where to stay for the night.

Our aunt, uncle, and grandparents in northern New Brunswick met us at a campground on our second day in the province. The couple who ran the camp really wanted to meet us so we stopped there for lunch. They had a daughter who died from CF quite a few years ago and I think they wanted to see a ‘success story,’ someone who was trying not to let their disease hold them back. Our family took most of the gear from us at the campground after our lunch, seizing the opportunity to ease our burden. We thought we would be able to go faster without it and while I probably did go a bit faster up the hills, I was slower and less stable down the hills since I was without the extra weight that would have pulled me downwards. Our relatives drove behind us for an hour or so, which was an interesting experience. It seemed like every time I stopped to have a drink or slowed down for a hill they were trying to figure out what I was doing. My grandparents were obviously excited to watch us biking, but I felt a bit like a zoo animal. Eventually, though, they pulled off to grab lunch and we were left on our own to bike into Centerville.

The next day, during a rest day, the town had a fundraising lunch for us and gave us a significant cheque to help us with the rest of our trip. Everyone seemed fascinated by my blistered, sunburnt back and felt obliged to poke at it while asking if it hurt. I wanted to respond by saying it hadn’t hurt until everyone started to poke at it. Unfortunately I am not that cheeky so I just sighed and said “yes.”

We left our panniers with our relatives for our leg into Fredericton as they planned on driving it down later that day. It was only when David got a flat tire did we realized that all our repair equipment was in our panniers. We had not really thought that decision through. Since we couldn’t get ahold of anyone we decided to try and hitch a ride into the city. The moment we loaded our bikes into a willing RV, we heard our aunt screaming at us to “get out of the RV!” She had our bags and we were able to fix the tire. I was so close to getting a break for one section.

We stayed with family in Fredericton that night and then began what would turn out to be a grueling ride to our hometown. Our mother and my boyfriend, Isaiah, met us in the morning. Isaiah had been pretty jealous of our bike trip and had wanted to come the entire way with us. After pondering it, I thought his presence would make David feel like a third wheel, so he had agreed to just do Atlantic Canada with us. Being unfamiliar with our routine, the day into Petitcodiac was a bit of a shock for Isaiah as we expected him to fall in place and magically know how we did things.

We knew there was going to be a get-together in our honour that evening, so we were on a time schedule, causing us to push ourselves and make it on time. Isaiah was cursing his decision to join us on that particular day as he wasn’t used to the long days but he did keep up with us for the rest of the trip. During the last few kilometers before Petitcodiac, I somehow managed to get a huge metal bar stuck in my tire. I kept hearing a clang with every tire rotation and first thought it was just a branch. David looked back to check on it for me and noticed that it was a long piece of metal. By some kind of freakish luck, it went through my tire but did not actually puncture the tubing, so we didn’t have to stop which would have delayed our arrival even more. We made it to the Petitcodiac exit where our family, along with the village fire trucks, was waiting to escort us into town. I had thought cycling with my grandparents watching was intimidating, but that was nothing compared to being sandwiched between two fire trucks.

The first person we saw in town was our high school math teacher standing in front of the school and cheering as we went by. That was when I knew that there were going to be more than just my family and a few friends at this BBQ. It seemed like the entire community had turned up to wish us well. It was both exhausting and overwhelming. I was wishing I had prepared a speech because they suddenly thrust a giant cheque into our hands and wanted us to speak. In my overwhelmed state, I think I managed a “thank you,” but I know it wasn’t very eloquent.

Here is what I should have said:

“Thank you everyone. We are incredibly overwhelmed by the support and love we have been shown during this trip. We started out thinking it would a fun adventure for the two of us but it somehow became much more than that. Complete strangers have shown us incredible generosity and have renewed in us the beauty and humanity of humankind. We can not thank everyone enough for all that they have done. Thank you especially to our parents who have been updating the website and responding to all the emails; we love you and want to apologize for all the worried nights we have put you through. Thank you again for all your generous donations to our cause. Now enjoy the hotdogs!” (Or something to that extent).

After talking to a few people, mom seemed to notice that my eyes were glazing over and I was making incoherent responses – or maybe she just wanted to kidnap us and whisk us home so her and dad could have us all to themselves. We unpacked and repacked and did laundry (well, mom did laundry), and slept. Everyone thought it was surprising that we did not take a rest day since we were home. We debated this idea but in the end we decided that we would probably end up staying one day, then another, and then we would never want to leave. So we made ourselves continue on our journey the next day – with some cycling company – in an attempt to reach Prince Edward Island by nightfall. On the way, we stopped in Moncton to meet with people from the Moncton CF chapter for lunch.

I was really proud that I had biked from Petty to Moncton. I know that sounds crazy seeing as I had just biked from Vancouver, but for some reason that stretch of highway gave me enough validation that I was actually able to finish the trip. There is one curve in the road into Moncton that I had been building up in my head and dreading. In reality though, cycling it was not even close to what I had anticipated and I felt invincible. Discussing this with David later, we figured the reason I was so excited about completing that stretch was because we knew the area so well and knew what to expect. It always seemed like it would be crazy to cycle that distance, and so being able to bike a route we had previously always driven, up the hills that had always seemed so long, was a great accomplishment. We continued until we were about 35 kilometers away from the Confederation Bridge before calling it a day. Our parents had continued to follow us in their van after our cycling company (mom and a friend of the family) decided around Shediac that they had enough for one day. We set up camp beside a church and graveyard with terrifying tombstones and then went out for some deliciously deep-fried seafood.

An Unconventional Staycation

OVER THE PAST few years since the bike trip, I have been hospitalized quite a few times for lung infections. The normal progression of CF is such that you become increasingly sick as your lungs struggle with an escalating amount of infections. The words ‘lung transplant’ had been thrown around during a few of my hospital stays, completely freaking me out. However, I learned quite a few things during those hospital stays. One thing being that my friends are absolutely the best. Each time I was hospitalized they would all come to visit me, bring food, and stay and play games to help pass the time. At no point did anyone ever complain (at least not to me) about how it was a hassle to visit. They were, and still are, amazing at not harping on what was wrong with me, instead they entertained me with stories of horrible weddings they had recently attended or all about the stresses of school.

I've also learned that confidentiality is an abstract concept written by policy makers who never visit the floors. I think it is human nature to want to talk about the people we are interacting with, and nurses are only human. There would be a few nurses who would tell me about their struggles with a patient in the next room, or about how patient John was having kidney failure and it must be tough for the family. I'm not sure if it was because I was a young patient, as compared to the other 80-something-year olds on the floor, or if I just have a personality that makes people want to talk, but it never took long before I know all about my fellow floormates.

Sometimes, if a nurse was in my room hanging my IV, another nurse would enter, declare they were going on break and proceed to go down the list of patients that they were responsible for. I wanted to say how inappropriate it was to talk about the man in room 607 who’d just had his snack and would need to go to the bathroom in ten minutes or the women in 609 whose diarrhea was clearing up but still needs monitoring. I really had nothing better to do, though, and since it was entertaining, I kept mum.

Side note: Nurses are very intense about poop. Every day someone would ask me if I had pooped that day and what the consistency was. They needed to make sure everyone was having a happy poop day. Answering “fine” was never enough either and if there was any change, they would pump you to divulge more poop-related information. Any change caused a panic, “Well, how runny is it? Do you need medication? What colour is it? Is it oily? How oily? Maybe we should test it for C-diff.” Everything revolved around how much and how often you had pooped in a day. It’s weird.

Once the nurses read that I had CF and was starting the lung transplant tests, they would proceed to tell me about every other patient with CF they had treated. This was especially true when I was on a wing that did not often have patients with CF and was somewhat of a ‘novelty’ patient. They would mention that a few weeks ago they had someone else on the floor with CF who’d had a double lung transplant and isn't doing very well now. Once they registered my horrified expression, they would add “I'm sure he’ll pull through eventually.” Honestly nurse, I really don't care. And you shouldn't be telling me anyway. There are not that many people with CF in the Maritimes so I can probably figure out who you are talking about. I always assumed that after I left I was talked about by the nurses in the same manner to the next patient.

The first time I was admitted to an adult hospital, I made the mistake of complaining to a nurse about how little sleep I was getting. She immediately recommended that I be prescribed a sleeping pill. I understand that was her way of solving the problem but I preferred to try other options before medication. This may be ridiculous seeing as I take crazy amounts of medication and was in a hospital to get pumped full of antibiotics that kill every living bacteria and virus in my body. One more pill probably isn't going to stop me from getting cancer when I'm 50, provided I live that long. Anyway, I told her that maybe instead of taking a pill, the night nurse could stop coming in my room every hour and shining a light on my face. She scoffed at my suggestion, stating it was policy to check patients every hour. Politely, I replied that if I happened to die in the middle of the night, I didn’t care if she found me 30 minutes or six hours later. I would rather have had a good night’s sleep before death instead of being woken up every hour. She seemed to think I was joking and replied that I should consider the sleeping pill.

The other reason I kept waking was because of my crazy antibiotic schedule. I would have one at midnight for an hour and then one again at 6:00 a.m. Best case scenario: I would sleep after 1:00 a.m. when the nurse unhooked my IV until 6:00 a.m. when she came to plug it back in (I'm using ‘she’ for nurse because 99% of my nurses were women). Sometimes the 6:00 a.m. nurse would forget that I was sleeping and would barge in, turn on all the lights, and loudly declare it was time for my IV! I would curse under my breath and tell her to do her thing quickly and leave me alone. Under normal circumstances, I would have still reacted that way; I am not a pleasant morning person. This coupled with suddenly being awoken by a bright light being shone into my eyes by a happy nurse who hums while she works, was enough to make me envy the freedom of the patients with dementia who simply scream and hit someone every time this happened to them. If I was lucky enough to fall asleep after the nurse’s 6:30 a.m. visit, the new shift nurse would barge in at 7:30 a.m. telling me it was “time for breakfast and your medication!!” She meant my multivitamins, which are the least time-sensitive medication known to mankind. Muttering that “I’ll eat later, please go away,” I would be able to get back to sleep until 10:00 a.m., if I was lucky. Sleeping medications probably wouldn’t help me with those determined, policy-following nurses.

Another thing I learned while hospitalized was how often medication errors can and do occur. Now, I know that nurses are overworked and exhausted which can lead to errors, and I'm not trying to say that they are incompetent, they just make mistakes like everyone else. Unfortunately, their mistakes can lead to more serious consequences than those I made when working at Sobeys (I always made the most random suggestions when people asked for a cheese to match their wine). One afternoon as I was in my room writing a term paper (because I was still attending university at the time and didn't want to fall behind with my classes), a man, who I assumed was a nurse, entered my room and said it was time for my IV. I said no, I wasn't scheduled for an IV for another two hours; was he absolutely sure that it was for me? He said, “yup, it is for Watson, IV at 14h00.” I replied that was strange because my understanding was that my IV was at 16h00 and the doctor usually tells me of any medication changes. He replied “well, it’s your IV,” and went to hang the bag. That was when he finally read the name on the bag and said “you probably aren't Ralph, eh?” Only then did he check my wrist band, realized his mistake, and admitted that maybe the medication wasn't meant for me after all. Obviously, there was someone else on my floor with my last name. It was unbelievably frustrating because despite me telling him the alternative, he refused to believe that it wasn't time for medication, insisting that I was the one making a mistake. At least he was sensible enough to finally check my wrist band but I'm not sure he would have done so if I had not protested. That was the closest I've come to having a serious medication error.

The other medication errors have been minor, like nurses not giving me multivitamins in the day, despite my repeated requests. Or being given my weekly pill twice in one week because no one had written on my chart that they had given it to me initially. In that case, the nurse didn't believe me when I said I had already taken it that week and said if the pharmacy had sent it, it must be for me. I replied that maybe the pharmacy had made a mistake since I had already taken that pill. Of course, she refused to listen and gave me my pill anyway. It just ended up in the sharps container. Sometimes it is just not worth fighting when people refuse to listen. There was one nurse who did actually listen to me when I asked for my multivitamin. As usual, I hadn’t been given it that day, she questioned this and I stated that I am never actually given it unless I ask. Looking absolutely horrified, she said that shouldn't be happening and wondered aloud how if they were missing that, imagine what important medication they could be missing with other less-harassing patients. Her concerns were not diminished when I agreed this was worrying but it happens all the time.

The worst part about a hospital, I learned, is the lack of private space where you get to control who can and cannot enter. I’m lucky to always get a private room but I still hate that anyone can walk in at any moment. One time, I was sitting in my room watching the second season of Dexter, compliments of a friend. Marathon watching shows really helps to pass a lot of time. However, Dexter may not have been the best idea as I have a tendency to dream about whatever I am currently reading or watching. So after two nights of dreaming that I was Dexter, or that Dexter was trying to kill me, I was determined to finish the season that night. I was in my room, which was mostly dark and as I watched Dexter cut someone up, a man burst into my room while mumbling under his breath. I jumped out of my seat with ridiculous speeds and grabbed the closest object I could reach for protection, which was a pen.

This was not the first time a confused patient had wandered into my room. A previous visitor during my previous stay was a sweet, confused older gentleman who was easily led from the room as I shut the door firmly behind him. It was not a traumatic experience; it was daylight and at the time, I was marathon watching a comedy that did not give me dreams about being chased by murderers.

This mumbling man was not as sweet but just as confused. I said hello as I backed up towards the window. Following the man were two security guards who tried to talk him into leaving. He really wanted to stay so they eventually resorted to muscling him out. While he did leave, he stood in front of my doorway for a bit and mumbled at the guards who blocked his entrance back into my room. After a few minutes, I heard a tired nurse tell him it was time for his medication. He calmed down after taking it but still kept doing laps around the hall, looking into my room each time he passed. Eventually, I firmly closed the door, wishing it had a lock. I contemplated pushing the two chairs and mini-fridge in front of it, but I figured if I did, the nurses would be calling security on me and start sneaking Prozac into my food.

“Canoe Cove!” - David, Day 77, July 23rd 2008

The Gentle Island

WE ONLY SPENT three real days on Prince Edward Island, one of which was a rest day at David’s girlfriend’s house. Although, we really wanted to cycle across the Confederation Bridge, after passing three ‘no cycling’ signs, we decided against it and took the provided shuttle. The shuttle is quite convenient when on the same side as you, but it can be a long wait if the bus is on the other side. We waited for 45 minutes or so, feeling quite annoyed and wanting to keep cycling. After finally making it to the Island, we were dropped off in the touristy shopping area, and we were just leaving when a swarm of ladies in bright clothing came running towards us, yelling loudly. It was quite terrifying, but was actually just the Red Hat Society ladies from the Petitcodiac and Havelock area. Most of them either knew us or had heard about the trip somehow. It was pretty overwhelming to have that many brightly dressed ladies surrounding me and I was pleased when we were able to carry on and get some Timbits.

David was in a huge hurry to get to Canoe Cove (and his girlfriend, Cindy) and complained every time I said I needed to eat. He agreed to stop long enough to scarf down a sandwich, but wasted no time hurrying me on again. In fact, he didn’t even want to stop when a fox ran in front of us into the street. A car then had to swerve which made the fox panic and sprint towards a jogger on the other side of the road who then stopped short to avoid stepping on its tail. It was an unfortunate series of events but we all made it out alive. The next hour cycling into Canoe Cove was spent trying to figure out why the fox crossed the road. Finally making it to the house was pretty exciting and David romantically picked some flowers from the ditch for Cindy. However, I think she was somewhat underwhelmed by the ditch flowers. I spent our rest day napping and lounging at the beach while David was somehow still energetic enough to go sea kayaking. That evening, the community had a dinner for us that included a question and answer time. It was at the community schoolhouse, which eventually served as the reception hall for David and Cindy’s wedding three years later (I guess David does have better moves than ditch flowers).

After our rest day, day 79 of the trip, we set off to finish cycling across the province, planning on catching the 4:30 p.m. ferry from Wood Islands over to Pictou, Nova Scotia. However, we had to stop in Charlottetown to do a radio interview and meet some people from the Island’s CF chapter for lunch. They fed us an incredible amount of greasy food. Growing up, David was always a big eater, but cycling turned him into an even bigger eater. Every family we stayed with was shocked at how much food he ate. Generally, most of the host-mothers seemed to enjoy feeding him and would smile as they dished more and more food onto his plate. They were less impressed with the amount of food I ate. I should have been following his example and eating more but my stomach couldn’t manage it. By the end of the trip I was still throwing up some of my meals, although thankfully not quite as bad as I had been in Ontario and Quebec.

On that day, we ate a big lunch, did a radio interview, thanked our hosts, and took off to catch the ferry. There were two route options to get to the ferry: the main highway or the back road. The back way was shorter but the road wouldn’t be as well paved (if at all), while the main highway would be well paved but a longer distance. We obviously hadn’t learned our lesson from Quebec and took off on the shorter route. It was shorter because it went directly over the hills instead of going around them.

I know you are thinking, “What hills? There are no hills on Prince Edward Island. It is a flat sandbar.” I once thought the same as you. The next time you go to the red island, pay close attention to the road on which you are driving. You will probably notice that it is not as flat as you previously thought, but rather goes up and down short steep valleys. It is especially obvious if you take a back road as a ‘short cut.’

We pushed hard to make it for the 4:30 p.m. ferry but the hills and headwind slowed us down. Although we hoped that it might run a little late, unfortunately we watched the ferry pull out of the terminal as we coasted down the last hill. We yelled at it to come back and were mystified as to why it didn’t. Thankfully, there was another ferry in an hour and a half. Once we recovered from our failure, we started cooking supper at a picnic table beside the terminal. I dug out the stove and tried to light it despite the wind’s interference.

The stove we had for the trip was one our uncle had lent us. It was purchased (or possible made) in what we assumed was the 70’s. There is no modern camping stove to use for comparison. To start, at the bottom of the stove was a round compartment where ethanol would be poured and then lit on fire. There was a moveable cover that could slide over the fire to allow for some minor heat control. On top of the round compartment, the wind shield, which was essentially a circular piece of metal with holes drilled into the sides, would be balanced. Then the small one-liter pot and cover would be placed inside the wind shield. It worked really well on flat surfaces where there was no wind. In the presence of wind it would blow out and spill ethanol if not balanced correctly. However, it was compact and prevented us from having to carry butane canisters. There was also a small frying pan which worked remarkably well when cooking French toast or eggs. However, we once tried to cook bacon, and the uncontrollable heat meant it was a long evening that ended in a charred, inedible mess. I gave up but David persisted, trying to get just one slice of edible bacon. That night will forever be known as the Great Bacon Disaster and we never tried to cook bacon on that stove again.

That evening, I attempted to make pasta. It didn’t occur to us that we should just buy supper at the restaurant instead of cooking on the picnic table in the wind. I had had enough greasy food for one day but in hindsight, we should have purchased food at the canteen. Especially true after I managed to light the stove at the same moment a gust of wind blew the entire thing over. It spilled burning ethanol all over the picnic table, and in my panic I grabbed the first thing I saw to help me straighten it all up: a Tims bag. This immediately caught on fire, of course, along with the burning picnic table. I panicked and dropped the bag onto the table. As I reached for my nearby water and attempted to put out the fire, a second gust of wind blew the burning bag off the table. Thankfully, no one else was in the immediate fire-zone and I managed to put out all the flames with no more complications. There was no significant damage if you ignore the charred picnic table and my mental scarring. The pasta ended up being extremely soupy but we choked it down while we waited for the ferry to return.

There is a Hole in My Stomach

DURING THE BIKE TRIP, I lost a lot of weight. Apparently cycling for eight hours every single day for three months will do that to a person. David also lost about 15 pounds, but it was not as concerning for him as he gained it back after another semester of university. I, however, have a really hard time gaining weight to begin with so losing a lot of weight at one time was somewhat less than awesome. My doctors were obviously worried as they doubted my ability to gain all the weight back. After six months with no real change, they began to get even more serious. They started talking about putting in a feeding tube since it worked so well when I was a child, but I convinced them to give me another six months. This time went by and I was still unable to gain back as much weight as I wanted. This wouldn’t have been that concerning on its own, but my lung function had also dropped and since, with CF, weight and lung function can be related, they thought weight gain would also improve my lung function.

I eventually agreed to try a feeding tube. They promised that it would be painless and that I would “barely know it was there.” Ha! That will be the last time I believe a doctor when they say surgery will be easy.

After another six months of waiting to get an appointment, I went in for the surgery which should have only taken an hour, and I was told I would be out that afternoon. The plan was to put a scope into my stomach and just ‘poke’ the tube through. I totally panicked, feeling I was suffocating as the scope went down my throat. As suffocating is my worst fear, having a tube down my throat which restricted air circulation caused me to fight the scope, making things even worse. Eventually, I was hit with enough sedative to knock me out, so I don’t remember what happened next. I woke up to find out that after all that, my abs were too muscular from all my coughing and they could not simply ‘poke’ the tube through my stomach. After that, I should have called it a day.

Instead of doing that, I was transferred to the other stomach doctor (I’m sure that was his official title). After another three months of waiting for an appointment, he informed me that he would have to put me under for the surgery, but that it would be easy and I would be out of the hospital the next day. He lied. It was incredibly painful (as is to be expected when your abdominal muscles are cut) and I was not out of the hospital the next day. Four days later I was able to go home with instructions to “not do anything and it will hurt whenever you move for about the next month.” The nurse seemed surprised that I thought otherwise.

I had a giant tube coming from my stomach that I couldn’t even use for the first few weeks since my stomach had to heal. When I could finally use it for night feeds, it kept getting clogged. I flushed it twice a day with a lot of water as instructed, but the crap I was feeding through it would always solidify. If that wasn’t bad enough, whenever I ate solid foods the little bits would backwash into the tube as they digested in my stomach. It was disgusting and an exceptionally horrible experience. I was grossed out just looking at the tube protruding from my stomach, something that didn’t help when I had to flush it. Whenever it got clogged I would have near panic attacks and I had to go to the walk-in clinic to get a prescription for dissolvent medication. After a few occasions spent waiting at the walk-in clinic, a pharmacist finally told me to just start using Coca-Cola as a dissolvent. Apparently it works better than the prescription stuff anyway. So I would inject Cola into my tube at least twice a week. It is terrifying that Cola can be used as a dissolvent, but that is a topic for another time.

During my childhood, I’d been traumatized by experiences with family members who would inadvertently rip out my feeding tube when picking me up, and therefore I was paranoid about this tube being pulled out too. For some reason, no one in my family picks me up anymore, but I was still extremely paranoid that I was going to get the tube caught on something and have it torn from my stomach. I used it faithfully every night for a month only to have cycles of alternating diarrhea and constipation. I would have to get up in the middle of the night to take coenzymes to help digest the extra calories, making me incredibly cranky. Not a surprise, since you’ve already been told how much I enjoy sleep. It also made me full until noon since I had been fed all through the night. Breakfast would be skipped as well as my usual snack at night as I was already connected to the machine when it came time to have my nightly munchies. As a result, I was not really getting any extra calories. Even though this seemed like a disastrous failure, I carried on. My dietitian and doctor kept replying to my angry e-mails by saying my body just needed to get used to the extra calories.

The stomach doctor was nice enough to agree to replace the long tube with a smaller, more ‘discrete’ tube the day before I was heading to Quebec for six weeks to do the Explore French language program. The timing was not great but he refused to do it earlier, wanting some time for the initial hole to heal before he changed the tubes. I really wanted to exchange the giant tube for something that promised to be ‘unnoticeable.’ I wasn’t foolish enough to actually believe this claim, but it did seem a better option than the giant plastic tube coming out of my stomach.

I did not like this doctor. He had already lied to me about how easy the tube would be and had zero bedside manner or communication skills. He was very blunt and never thoroughly explained what was going on. At my appointment where I was to have the tubes changed, I lay on the table in his office and told him I was pretty nervous, that I hated everything to do with the tube, and asked if I could have a sedative or at least some freezing cream applied to the area. I had brought Isaiah with me for support and he was sitting on a chair on the other side of the office. The doctor just laughed, saying it was impossible to freeze the area because he was working with my stomach and internal organs which have no nerve endings. It won’t hurt, he said, so it would be ridiculous to give me a sedative. What a crazy idea!

I started slightly hyperventilating, trying not to freak out externally. I tried deep breathing and attempted to calm down by counting the number of water stains on the ceiling. It didn’t really work, and I got in quite a state of panic while he looked at the tube, turned it in a circle and ripped it out of my stomach. I don’t mean he pulled it out smoothly; he took hold of the tube and yanked it out. Except it got caught on the skin portion of my internal organs, prompting another good tug. It felt as though my stomach had exploded and/or was being pulled upward out of me. It was as if my internal organs were now outside of my body. The tube flew out of my stomach, bringing with it a giant spray of blood.

Blood went everywhere: on the doctor, my stomach, my face, my pants, the floor, and on the ceiling. It turned out not to be water stains that I had been counting after all. The doctor said “huh, that happens sometimes,” and left the room without saying another word. While I lay there with blood on my face and a hole in my stomach, completely freaking out, he just left. Isaiah came over and tried to wipe the blood off my face with paper towel. He tried not to laugh while I tried hard not to cry. Then a nurse came in to wipe me off a bit and eventually the doctor did come back. Without explaining what he was doing, he took a tube and pushed it into the hole in my stomach. That time it felt like my stomach was being forced into my back. I don’t mean my stomach as in the top, or surface, of my body; I mean my actual stomach organ. It was the weirdest, most inexplicable feeling I’ve had and I never want to repeat it. He got the tube through my abdominal wall but could not get it through the hole in my stomach organ. After continual pushing he finally gave up and yanked it out. At this point, I had given up the thought of ever calming down and was just trying to hope that my tears would mix with the blood on my face so the doctor would not know I was in full-out panic mode, about to flee at any moment.

The problem was that he was not telling me what to expect. He did not inform me what was happening so I was continuously nervous that at any moment he was going to do something painful. It made things so much worse than if he had walked me through the process as it caused me to visualize all the painful things he might do. He put in a spacer thing (a small plastic tube with prongs protruding from it), which was apparently used to keep the hole open while he found a smaller tube. At least he told me that much. Isaiah came over again to see if I needed anything and I begged him to let me run away, trying to convince him to get the spacer out of my stomach and then I would never have to see this doctor again. For some reason, Isaiah did not seem to agree so we waited until the doctor returned.

Eventually, he came back and removed the spacer and silently shoved a smaller tube in my stomach. Thankfully, that one actually fit, so I thought the ordeal was over. However, he decided that he should then do a stomach scope to confirm it was actually in place. Through blood-stained tears, I begged him to please give me a sedative because I would completely break down if I had to be awake for the scope. Surprisingly enough, he actually agreed with me. Why he couldn’t have just given me the sedative in the first place is beyond my comprehension. Sigh.

As the nurse hooked up the IV for the sedative, I was still really nervous and tried talking to help myself calm down. I mentioned to her that I was planning on catching the bus to New Brunswick later that day and my parents were going to drive me to Quebec. The nurse freaked out, lecturing me about the dangers of being unsupervised for the 24 hours following the sedative. There is no way I was allowed to take a four hour bus ride all by myself, she insisted. Think of the trouble I could get into! Quite confident I would be fine, I informed her that I was not planning on driving the bus, but would just sit quietly and stare out the window. In fact, I would probably just sleep the whole way. That was still not acceptable, so I got Isaiah to tell her that he would ride the bus with me to Moncton, making sure I arrived safely. I’m not sure if the nurse actually believed him but she did eventually drop the subject.

They did the scope and when I woke up in a giant room, I assumed everything had gone well. There was one nurse at a table who told me I was good to go. I had been expecting someone to tell me how to actually use and care for the new tubing but apparently that was too much to ask. The nurse who had been freaking out about my bus trip was probably supposed to have given me details about the tube, but obviously was way too distracted. I asked this new nurse what I was supposed to do, but all she said was to take the bandage off the next day and make sure it did not look infected. Thank you, nurse, for that excellent advice. I was in no mood to wait around for the doctor who, in fact, I never wanted to see again. Thankfully, Amy, who picked me up when I arrived safely in Moncton (yes I managed to resist the sedative-induced urge to drive the bus or get off at the wrong stop), had coworkers who knew all about that kind of feeding tube and one of them gave me a tutorial that evening on how to use the new tube.

The smaller tube was much better and less intrusive, and not as noticeable as the other one. However, since I was headed to Quebec the next day, I was not able to test it to see if my body would indeed ‘get used to it.’ Fortunately, the couple I stayed with in Quebec was amazing and fed me a lot of fried foods and ice cream, with cream poured on top of everything. I also had lunch every day at the university cafeteria with its greasy food. It also helped that I have a very different eating style when I am visiting someone versus when at home. At home, if Isaiah puts a plate of food in front of me, I feel no obligation to finish it. If he ever poured cream over my apple crisp, I would yell and then get myself another cream-free bowl. However, when I am visiting other people, I’ll eat the plate of food even if I’m full, and I eat the dessert with cream because it would be rude otherwise. Therefore, I was not using the feeding tube, but somehow managed to gain five pounds during the six weeks I lived with the French couple. That was better than I had done the entire year beforehand. It was a very successful experience and I also managed to améliorer mon français.

After the Explore program, I used the tube for two months. When the diarrhea/constipation dance continued, though, I gave up. I still kept the tube as per my doctor’s advice, who thought I could use it in the future if I got desperate. After a year and a half of not using the tube, I told my doctor I wanted it out. I was tired of flushing it out every day and continually feeling paranoid that it was infected. This meant I had to go back to the same asshole doctor to get it removed, and I started panicking before I even got to his office. I did the deep breathing exercises I had looked up online and went to my mental happy place. He once again did not tell me anything about what he was doing. He pulled on the tube a few times, testing resistance. Then he got a fancy hook-like-object and yanked the tube out. It was pretty painful but not as bad as the last time. I was finally free of my feeding tube and was told if the hole did not close over in a week to return and he would sew it up internally. I spent the week praying to the stomach god that I would not have to go back to the doctor. Hallelujah, it did close, although I am not convinced I would have returned to that doctor anyway. I’m sure one of my medical friends owes me a ‘sew up the hole in my stomach’-type favour.

That is the story of my feeding tube. It is bloody and unfortunate and the experience has taught me to question doctors’ advice. The whole thing could have been avoided if I had gone a year earlier to live with the Quebec couple with their fried chicken and cream.

“Why is everything blurry?” - David, Day 80, July 26th 2008

This is Canada’s Seacoast

OUR FIRST DAY in Nova Scotia was not great, and for once it wasn’t me slowing us down. That first night after disembarking from the ferry, we had camped in the woods near a logging trail not far from the terminal. It had been late when we debarked and we did not want to have to set up camp in the dark. Our first full day in Nova Scotia was cloudy with a few showers, but still warm and not too humid. A good day for biking. I was feeling good and was leading down the road, when I suddenly noticed that David didn’t look well. He was quite pale and I thought maybe he was going to faint, so I asked if he wanted to stop. Despite his declaration that he was fine, we stopped under an overpass for a snack and rest. I kept repeating that we could stop for the day if he was feeling bad, but he insisted that he was fine. I should have realized that the hollow look in his eyes meant he was not fine, but he had always been gracious enough to pretend he believed me when I was throwing up and declaring nothing was wrong. I wanted to repay the courtesy.

Our destination that day was Antigonish, since the Shinerama group from St. FX University had offered us a place to stay. After lunch on the side of the road, we had barely gone ten minutes when David stopped at the top of a hill and puked up everything. When he looked like he was going to faint I declared we were done for the day. I was thankful that Isaiah was with us as he muscled our bikes and panniers across the road and up into the woods. A very friendly Newfoundlander stopped in the middle of the highway to ask if we needed help. She almost got rear-ended while I was telling her we were fine. While Isaiah found us a camping spot in the woods across the road, I stayed with David, who by this point, had lain down on the side of the road and said he just needed a nap. I kept yelling for him to get out of the ditch, which eventually he did, and I helped him across the road.

There was, fortunately, a clearing and a four wheeler trail in the woods and we were able to comfortably set up the tents. David napped while I called the Shinerama students to cancel our plans. They were disappointed, but that was part of cycling unsupported: we never knew what circumstances were going to be thrown our way and could never guarantee we were going to make a destination. Isaiah and I were playing cards while David napped when a four-wheeler approached. The guy told us we were trespassing on his land. We didn’t really know what to say; we had camped in the woods all across the country and this was the first time we had encountered this situation. I told him what we were doing and that we had thought it was government land. I pointed out our very sick cyclist (David moaned from the tent for added effect) and asked if we could please stay for just one the night. While obviously not pleased, the man agreed, just as long as we took our garbage with us and didn’t start a fire. Seeing as we had never dared to have a fire at any of our previous non-campground tenting locations, we told him it wouldn’t be a problem.

I spent the day relaxing and reading while Isaiah went into town to get some juice and milk. David felt much better in the morning, and concluded that having stayed up extremely late with Cindy in Prince Edward Island and cycling the previous day through the sun and heat, he’d suffered from sunstroke and exhaustion. After fixing his tire which had mysteriously flattened overnight, we were finally on our way through Nova Scotia.

A field outside of New Glasgow was our next overnight stop; which turned out to be an ant haven. We didn’t notice the plethora of ants until we started to cook supper. It was like one of those BBC wildlife documentaries where they film the giant ant nests in Australia and then destroy one to watch all the ants run away. It totally freaked me out and I demanded that we move the tent. David and Isaiah were not disturbed by them and refused, so I spent the evening in the tent trying to block out the swarm that I knew would attack at any second.

The night of the ants was when we started the discussion about whether or not we should take the Argentia or Port-a-Basque ferry to Newfoundland. The Argentia ferry would take us close to St. John’s making our Newfoundland cycling pretty short. Taking the Port-a-Basque ferry would mean approximately another eight days of cycling through an incredibly empty province. When first planning the trip, we had looked to see what people had done previously and we were always confused about why everyone cut out most of Newfoundland. We had laughed at them and said we would do the ‘real cross Canada trip,’ planning to do the entire province. However, once we hit Nova Scotia, I started to dread the idea of another week. My body was starting to slow down, seemingly aware that the trip was almost over. It was also really humid throughout the Maritimes, making it hard to breathe, so I felt that if the weather continued, I might be the one crashing on the side of the road. We started the discussion that night in Nova Scotia and it continued until the last second before actually boarding the ferry. I felt guilty that I might be ruining David’s experience, but he kept saying he was tired too and really didn’t mind. I would retort that I would push myself if he really wanted to go the long way. I didn’t want to be the reason he didn’t do the whole province if he felt shortchanged. Realistically, I don’t think either one of us wanted to be the one to say we had had enough. We are both stubborn that way. Isaiah did not get a say in the decision, which was fine with him.

For Cape Breton, we decided to veer off the main road in order to take a shorter route. We made the decision when looking at the map and noticing that the main road appeared to do switchbacks. Switchbacks always mean hills, so we opted for the straighter road. Surprisingly, this time going off the main road, actually worked in our favour. We followed the old railway line instead of Cape Breton’s famed, crazy hills, finding this route had much more gradual slopes. The shorter route also meant we were able to use one of the old-school car ferries to go across the Bras d’Or. It’s too bad these tiny car ferries are quickly becoming a thing of the past, because they really are a lot of fun. That being said, I’ve only ever used them as a tourist and I imagine having one on a daily commute would be frustrating.

Our camping night in Cape Breton was spent at a graveyard, which probably should have creeped us out, but we were more concerned about moose than zombies ripping through our tent. Isaiah was really paranoid about a moose attack and got no sleep that night, waking at every single noise. To be fair, there was a river running in the bushes behind our tents, so it’s quite probable that a moose did walk by. My coughing probably also kept him awake during the night. David had learned to sleep through my noise after three long nights in British Columbia, but Isaiah never seemed to get used to it. Needless to say, he was quite cranky in the morning and very happy with our hotel room in Sydney Mines the next night.

We followed the old railway until the last section before the push into North Sydney. We regretfully left the flat road and proceeded to climb over the very hill we had tried to avoid. It seemed like it went straight up over the cliff and went on and on. Realistically, it probably wasn’t that bad, but the sun came out during our climb and I felt like I was melting into the road. David and Isaiah had zoomed ahead and I grudgingly pushed my way to the top. We were all rewarded with a great view and a terrific descent into North Sydney. The hotel was easy to find and we had a delicious, home-cooked meat and potatoes with deep-fried veggies, meal. The rest of the evening was spent soaking our muscles in the hotel pool. Since the next night, was spent contorted into chairs on the ferry ride to Newfoundland (except for David who ignored all the signs and slept on the floor), the soak was much needed and perfectly timed.

A Fly Went Up My Nose

SINCE THE BIKE TRIP, I have continued to bike but not on the same level as what I accomplished that summer. I haven’t even done any overnight trips. I recently began using an oxygen tank to exercise as my lung function had gotten to the point where I require oxygen when exerting myself. I still cycled with the oxygen, but tried to be content with not pushing myself too much.

I had gone for a few little hikes with the oxygen tank, even though I felt incredibly self-conscious wearing the tubing. Fortunately, I did not have to use the oxygen full time but still hated wearing it outside the house. If only they could create an oxygen pill or make invisible tubing. I need Harry Potter's invisible cloak for the tubing. I hate admitting that I’m ill, and wearing oxygen in public serves as a reminder that I am not well.

People have told me stories about how they know someone who takes their oxygen everywhere, and how it has not stopped them from doing things. Those people are fabulous, and while I do not want to let self-consciousness prevent me from living and doing everyday things, I would still rather not take the oxygen with me. My sister and mother are in my head telling me that I need to just “get over it,” that there is nothing I can do about it, and that I need to just carry on. I hate when they are right.

With that in mind, one gorgeous day in June, I couldn’t stay inside any longer. I thought I should get off the couch and go for a bike ride. The previous day I had driven to the library to pick up some books. This may not sound so bad, but the library was, in fact, only one block from my house. I hate walking up hills and there was a hill on the route, so I found it a struggle. Normally, I would simply stop at the library on my way back from going to some place therefore not seeming like I’m only driving one block. The previous day, however, I had nowhere else to go and I had driven anyway. As an environmentalist wanna-be, it was a low moment of my week.

Back to the day of cycling; it was gorgeous and sunny and without the full summer heat. I could not come up with any excuse to stay on the couch. I put my small oxygen tank in the bike pannier (my physiotherapist would have been so proud) and off I went down the giant hill that is Springhill. There is really no other way to start a walk or bike ride in this town than by going downhill.

I decided to cycle down the connection road, which starts off downhill, and the wind at my back helped my fly. At that moment, a transport truck passed me and I brilliantly decided to let myself ponder what might happen if I hit a rock and crashed. Then I started to panic, thinking that if I fell over the oxygen tank would explode and I would die a fiery death on the side of the road. It would be the stuff movies are made of and the fireball would blow me into the trees, or something equally stunt-awesome. When you watch enough James Bond, you know that a mere fender bender can make a car explode, so just imagine the explosion when an oxygen tank is added to into the mix. Physics be damned. I'm sure movies never lie.

With these thoughts going through my mind, a fly went up my nose. It didn't go all the way up because of the oxygen tubing in my nose. It went kind of halfway into my nostril and then proceeded to squirm. Meanwhile, I was still zooming down the hill as cars flew past me. I was going so fast I couldn't stop safely with my feet clipped into my pedals.

I was panicking as I kept thinking, “This will be how I die. I will never make it to the lung transplant. I will die because a fly went up my nose. I will crash to the ground and explode in a ball of oxygen-saturated flaming fire. They will have to write ‘death by a fly’ on my memorial site or memorial library or memorial children's hospital.” Because surely my awesomeness deserves one of those.

Somehow, I made it to the bottom of the hill and was able to stop safely. I finally dislodged the fly from my nose, wiped off the tubing, and continued on my way. I can confidently say that nothing as exciting happened for the rest of my ride. When Isaiah picked me up with the car at the bottom of the hill (it’s a big hill!) he said that if I had fallen over I would have simply fallen over – there would be no explosions. He is so logical.

That night, I slept with one eye open, for fear of the nose-fly coming back for revenge.

“It’s never a good sign when the sidewalk turns into stairs.” - Isaiah, Day 86, August 1st 2008

Welcome

(Newfoundland and Labrador had no catchy slogan that year)

MY STORY about Newfoundland takes place where most stories of Newfoundland happen: in the prairies. We were finishing our last day in Manitoba which, as it turned out, was mostly through trees. For the last few hours there were trees, lakes, and short rolling hills and we would go from one lake, up a hill, down to another lake, up another hill, and down to another lake. Of course there were still many, many trees. It was beautiful but like most of the country, the beauty tends to wear off after about an hour of staring at the same scenery.

We had gone into the last little town before the Manitoba-Ontario border to see if they had a campground and grocery store. It was cottage country so there were no camping sites for poor cyclists. Seeking comfort, we had ice cream (I had gelato) and decided we would just camp further outside of town. Continuing on for a half hour or so, we finally saw signs for the Manitoba tourist information site. Figuring it would probably be a great place to stop to cook supper, use the bathroom, and scout out a place to camp, we set it as our goal.

As the road mostly consisted of short, steep, rolling hills, we had a tendency to pedal as fast as possible down one side and attempt to coast up the steep section of the next. It worked on some hills, and the ones where it didn’t, we pushed ourselves extra hard for the last few meters as we would be in the hardest gear. It seemed a good strategy for the short hills, although perhaps not the best for energy conservation, it was definitely the most enjoyable. On the very last hill before the tourist information site, I pedaled down the hill, started my way up, and made it about halfway up before I started to slow down significantly.

While trying to motivate and force my way up the hill, I was simultaneously trying to unclip my shoes from the pedals. I turned my right foot as I had hundreds of times, but it only twisted in the pedal and did not unclip. I turned it again, harder, but with the same results. The shoe was turning in the pedal but did not unclip. My panic was rising even though nothing had really changed other than the simple knowledge that my foot was stuck. It was so easy to picture myself falling over into the ditch, where I would roll into the lake, sink to the bottom, and slowly die. All because my stupid shoe was stuck to the stupid pedal.

I kept panic pedaling, going incredibly slowly in a hard gear, having not anticipated this problem. I know you are wondering why I didn’t just put down my left foot and stop that way. Yes, clever person, what a fabulous idea. Except that it is extremely hard to stop smoothly on a hill with a narrow shoulder while using a high gear and having one foot stuck in a pedal. Not to mention the issue of not getting hit by a car or falling into the lake. In my panic, I may have started shouting at David, telling him to “help me for the love of all that is holy, get my foot out of the shoe!” He, of course, was perplexed about my hysterics and told me to calm down. Muttering choice words under my breath, I kept pedaling forward, and by this time the road had leveled off slightly so it wasn’t as hard pedaling. I was finally able to change into an easier gear.

I then had the clever idea to untie my shoe so I could at least get my foot out of that. So each time my right foot rotated, I bent over, trying to undo the laces. My shoes were unusually tight, having shrunk due to the rain, so it took quite a few cycles for this to happen. By this time, I had made it past the tourist bureau and was simply pedaling in an attempt not to fall over. I did eventually get my foot out of the shoe and came to a somewhat graceful stop, then turned around to meet David at the picnic tables across the road. After I apologized for freaking out we proceeded to dig out the handy ‘fix-it’ book and tools, which we carried for such occasions. Of course, it didn’t have any advice or instructions for this issue, so I just started indiscriminately taking everything apart.

While I worked on detaching my shoe, David started cooking. That was when the very friendly Newfoundlander came over to chat. By chat, I mean we listened to his monologue about his drive from Newfoundland to Fort McMurray in his RV, hoping but not positive, that there was a job waiting for him there. He offered us some fish from the back of his RV. Now, we are no longer picky eaters. I’m sure we ate a ton of food on the trip that was well beyond what any food inspector would deem to be safe. However, I was not prepared to eat fish that had been sitting in a hot RV since Newfoundland. We exchanged a look and then David and I both mumbled an excuse, something about how we really had to use our canned tuna before it went bad. It took about five refusals before the man stopped offering.

Thinking this was the end of it, we realized our folly as he brought out photo albums that showcased every trip he had taken with his RV. He sat down and proceeded to tell us, in vivid detail, about each and every picture. I lost interest after the first picture. David nodded along for a good 20 minutes before suddenly standing up and announcing that the dishes needed to be done immediately. I’m probably being hard on this guy. Maybe he hadn’t talked to anyone in a few days and was just being friendly. But I was tired, a little cranky, and didn’t care about his trip to the badlands in Alberta, or about how many people he knew in Fort McMurray. All I wanted was to set up the tent and to fix my shoe. When we eventually left the picnic table to find a campsite, shoe fixed (one of the screws had fallen out of the cleat), the man was still there talking about whatever had crossed his mind. That man is the reason why Newfoundlanders are known as being loud, friendly people. He was his province’s ambassador that summer, handing out weeks-old cod from the back of his RV.

Biking through Newfoundland really was quite beautiful. Although the ferry ride to Argentia was long and boring, it was nice to have a break and watch a movie. We did the section of Newfoundland in a day and a half. We probably could have done it in one super long day, but since no one had slept much on the ferry we just cycled for a few hours after disembarking, spending the rest of the day napping, playing cards, and studying ant behavior. Actually biking into St. John’s was both exhilarating and exhausting.

The last push into St. John’s was when Isaiah got his first flat. I was irrationally upset that this happened during out last section of cycling. He was keeping me from ending the trip and I was not pleased. Neither was I when I zoomed down a hill and was climbing up the next one only to be informed by a driver that my “biker friend is off his bike and back up the hill.” David and I stopped to wait for him to catch up. After five minutes we realized that maybe he wasn’t just resting. We turned around and begrudgingly (on my part anyway) cycled back up the hill. He was about halfway up the hill and had another flat tire and no tube that fit. Once again, the tubes actually in the box were not the advertised size.

After a quick patch, it only took until the bottom of the hill before it was flat again. I had no sympathy at this point and told him to hurry up and solve the problem. David found a McDonalds Happy Meal-like toy, a little green monster with moving arms in the ditch. Being helpful, sympathetic people, we both played with this while Isaiah worked. It is probably pretty obvious that by this point our exhaustion affected our level of maturity. Eventually, Isaiah found that one of David’s spare tubes kind-of worked with his tire, other than that it folded slightly back on itself. With every rotation he experienced a little bump from the extra tubing in the tire. I'm sure it was unbelievably annoying but he decided to deal with it rather than try to patch his original tire and have me start yelling again.

Our last stop before the end was at Tims in Mt. Pearl and it also turned out to be my last fall. I was leading and the Tims was on our right. Cars were going in and out of the entrance, so I tried to turn in quickly, realizing at the last second that there was a lip up to the parking lot. My tire skipped along the lip and I fell hard onto my right side. Somehow I managed to scrape my right leg and shoulder and also hit my knee pretty hard. Being Newfoundland, it wasn’t surprising that people stopped to make sure I was ok. Isaiah lifted my bike off of me, while David helped me up and walked me to the building. My knee was throbbing badly; it seems I’d hit the same spot that had been bothering me on and off for the entire trip. Once I had cleaned off the blood from my shoulders and legs, I was able to properly enjoy our last donuts of the trip. Their sugary goodness was worth all the pain. However, I am still cautious now when cycling and making sharp right turns. In any other scenario, I wouldn't be treated with a donut at the end.

It is unknown how many people undertake a cross-country cycling trip every year, but we were definitely not the first or last. In St. John’s, we went to a bike shop to get some more tubes and mentioned to the man working that we had just cycled across the country. I guess I was expecting him to be a little impressed, but he just said they usually get around 100 people each summer who’ve done the trip.

A couple years later, I hosted four of these people in my apartment as part of warmshowers.org – a website designed to help cyclists find hosts across the country. Those four guys were university students from Ontario who made it across the country in a month and half. When I mentioned it took me 86 days, they scoffed and made me feel about two feet tall. I was feeling that my accomplishment wasn’t so great, until I talked to Amy. She told me that there is always going to be someone who accomplishes things faster or better than you, but not to let this take away from the experience. Just because they were able to do it faster and easier doesn’t mean what I did wasn’t also exciting and something of which I should be proud. She always manages to make me feel better with her pep talks.

So many people do this trip without receiving media attention, so we were quite pleased with the few interviews we managed to set up. It was hard to coordinate these media events since we could never guarantee our location and had unreliable forms of communication. A man from Kin Canada in Vancouver was a key player for us, setting up interviews and sending out press releases. After hearing so much about the cyclists who had died in Manitoba, we realized this trip has to have disastrous outcomes in order to get a lot of attention. A bike has to be stolen, or someone has to die in order to get front page coverage. Once we discovered this was the way to peak interest in our story, we decided to be satisfied with the few interviews that mom and Kin Canada were able to arrange.

We passed three ‘St. John’s city limits’ signs, making us feel like we were circling around the city instead of going toward its center. When we actually reached the center, we had to walk instead of cycle a hill for the first time. It was downhill and so scary steep. I did not trust my brakes and thought I would go headfirst over the handlebars. As if this wasn’t enough, the street ended with a hill on the other side, inciting thoughts of brake failure and crashing over the median and onto someone’s house. While this would have been a very exciting end, it would not have resulted in my most enjoyable moment. Thankfully, I did not crash into a house or harbour and we reached the bottom successfully. It was quite anticlimactic.

I do not know what I was expecting, but I suppose I imagined feeling more than relief, exhaustion, and a bit of excitement. While not anticipating a banner with crowds of people and a marching band, I had hoped it would be more eventful than arriving at a harbour and declaring our trip finished. It felt like we should be doing something symbolic, like hurling our bikes into the sea or smashing a bottle of wine that we’d carried across the country…or something equally epic. Instead, we took a few pictures, hugged each other, and went out for a delicious, well-deserved meal. The next week was spent at the house of a family friend, one we’d never met before. We sat on their couch, played video games, and ate all their food. I can not thank them enough.

The End

SINCE THE CYCLING TRIP, I have been accepted for a lung transplant in Toronto. I am currently waiting for a lung transplant (this status may have changed since going to print). The decision to move was a remarkably hard one to make because I did not feel ready to risk everything for the possibility of new lungs. I know that a transplant will make me feel better, but it was hard to make the decision when I was not feeling sick. I mean, I knew I was sick; they don’t do lung transplants on healthy people. However, it was hard to make a decision when I was still feeling fine day to day.

Also, just because someone says that without surgery you will probably die within the next year, doesn't mean that you will. I wasn’t in complete denial. I knew I had horrible lungs with a suppressed immune system. I'm just saying that sometimes people live longer than medically expected. There is also no guarantee that surgery is going to make everything better. In fact, there is a good chance that surgery will not make everything better. People die during surgery, they die after surgery, or they may die a year later. These people might have lived if they hadn’t had surgery. Or they may have died anyway. There is no second chance to see ‘what if.’

Part of my hesitation to agreeing to the transplant was a fear that any time I may gain from the surgery is going to be filled with hospital stays, pain-filled days, and an inability to enjoy life. The life I had was not one I wanted to swap with that option. What if I hadn’t done the surgery and could have just lived for a few years in my current condition? All that said, there is a possibility that the transplant would be perfect and that I would be one of the lucky ones who gain another ten fabulous years. Who knows? I could live for years without a transplant or I could die tomorrow. There was no one who was going to tell me that option A would be better than option B. When I made a decision, I would never know if it was the right one. Unless, of course, I am that rare, random person still going strong 20 years post-transplant. It would be foolish to make a decision based on what happens to the ‘lucky ones,’ though. It is so hard to know if my decision to go ahead with the transplant was the right one, but there is no going back now.

The evening I got the call to confirm I was accepted on the transplant list, I was at a cottage in Prince Edward Island that my parents had rented. We were just finishing supper and were all pretty tired from a day of cycling and swimming. My sister and I had done a short 13 kilometer route while everyone else enjoyed a 40 kilometer ride (yes, I took my oxygen tank with me). While we were all drinking tea in the living room and discussing my acceptance into the transplant program, a brown mouse scurried behind the couch.

Immediately, Mom screamed and all focus was diverted from the transplant. She jumped off the couch and ran into the kitchen. Dad also moved pretty fast from the couch and armed himself with a broom. The mouse had been spotted the night before in the kitchen during an intense game of 45s, but it ran under the stove before we could do anything. We hoped it was a one time occurrence. Apparently not. Mom had emailed the owner to let them know about the mouse sighting, and he said that traps would be dropped off. They hadn't arrived that day, though.

As Dad quickly took action, I leisurely expected him to handle the problem. It reminded me of the summer in Ireland when I realized I had turned into ‘the person in charge.’ The rooms at the farm were dorm rooms with bunk beds in each one. I slept on a bunk bed in the bigger room and somehow ended up being the one in charge. One afternoon, one of the girls came to me in broken English and said “there a mouse.” I had sighed and followed her upstairs to the very room where I slept and there indeed was a mouse. It dawned on me that I had to be the mature one. I had to remain calm and not freak out, otherwise the other girls would panic too. I had to put aside my fear and be responsible.

I recruited two of the older girls, the ones who seemed the least squeamish, and together, with a box and a broom, we eventually caught the mouse. By this time, a gathering of onlookers were perched on the beds cheering us on and yelling whenever the mouse made an appearance. Considering I was responsible for planning activities during ‘down time,’ that was the most entertainment I think I had shown them. Perhaps I should have let a mouse into the dorm every week to spice things up. However, that was when I realized that mice could climb vertical objects. I’d never considered this before. I enjoyed my denial, believing that if I was on a bunk I would be safe from mice crawling over me in the middle of the night. Watching this little mouse crawl up the bunks, attempting to escape our broom, proved otherwise. When a new batch of kids arrived the following week, I switched my bed to the top bunk, surely the mouse would climb over the other girl before me; I was safe.

Thankfully, Mom and Dad were the ‘person in change’ in Prince Edward Island. Mom was convinced that the mouse had run into their room. Obviously, it had gone under the couch, but she was adamant. Isaiah’s bed was the couch and he was not pleased, suggesting that maybe the couch should be moved and inspected. Mom armed herself with a broom while Dad and Isaiah, each with a broom and garbage can, slowly pulled out the bed. Amy and I were content to watch the show from our chairs on the other side of the room. No one actually mentioned a plan but I think it was silently agreed that Dad and Isaiah would force it out and if it didn't somehow jump into the can itself, Mom would sweep it toward the screen door. From there, Amy or I would somehow leap up over the fleeing mouse to open the door and release it. It was fool-proof.

Unfortunately, we never got to see our plan in action as the mouse was nowhere to be found. It was unanimously decided to abandon the quest and instead move to the kitchen for some board games. After everyone had gone to bed, Amy and I were drifting off in our bunk beds when we heard a scream, followed by sounds of a door opening and someone fleeing. Apparently, while reading in bed, Mom had seen the mouse run under the bed and crawl into the register. We spent the next 20 minutes listening to the sound of tape ripping as Dad duct-taped the register closed. Every time we thought it was the end, another piece of tape was ripped. They were not taking any chances with that mouse.

Amy and I started to feel bad for the little mouse stuck in the register, starving, away from its rodent family and friends. However, Dad felt no such sympathy and the next morning he was quick to set up the traps the landlord finally sent over. He used cheese and peanut butter determined to catch the mouse. All in all, it was quite the distraction, not allowing me to focus on or over-think about all the information concerning the transplant. Of course, I still fixated on it the next night, and pretty much every night since, but that one night I was able to catch a break, thanks to a mouse.

I often wonder what my legacy will be and what it means to even have a legacy. Every time a celebrity dies, everyone talks about their legacy. Do only celebrities get to have legacies? What about us common folk? Will I be known as ‘that girl with CF who biked across Canada?’ I asked my friend this one night we were hanging out. We stayed up late, talking about life and death, dying and death culture, and the reasons why things happen. The best part of the conversation was when she told me how much I have meant to her and maybe that was my legacy. I realize this sounds egotistical, but for me, hearing this was incredibly moving.

My grandmother had died a few months before that conversation so I had been reflecting on her life while pondering what it means to have a legacy. My grammy worked for many years as a nurse, raised five children, and has many grandchildren. In my view, her legacy is her family and her fabulous career. I would not say that her life impacted society in some great, shifting way; she did not discover a cure for a disease or start a revolution, but she did have our favourite treats waiting whenever we visited. My grammy was a fantastic nurse (so I’ve heard) to many patients and was a loving mother and grandmother to her family. Few people outside of her family or area knew her well, but I believe she still lives through the memories of her family and those she worked with. This is her legacy.

I think that as a culture, we are focused on what our legacy will be when we die. We like to have something tangible that we can point to and say “this is my legacy.” Whether it is your children, career, years spent volunteering, or a YouTube video you had that went viral, for some reason, we seem to want a greater purpose. One other than being a good human and being kind to one another. It is almost as if anyone who has nothing tangible to leave behind is seen as a lesser human. I will probably not have any of those things (viral video pending). I simply do not have the time. Sometimes this makes me feel lost, as though I need more significant accomplishments. Part of our society tells us we are not worthy if we do not have children or a full time job that contributes to society. That people who stay at home not paying taxes are ‘less than.’ Logically, I know this is not true. I am able to break away from that pressure and think rationally, but every once in a while it gets to me.

I know how fortunate I am compared to millions of other people: I have a place to sleep, I have friends and family who love me, I have food on the table, my disability is hidden so I am not treated differently in public…I've traveled, I've been to university (twice!), and I had a (very short) fabulous career. Do people who are financially and medically less fortunate than me feel the same way? Do they wonder what their legacy will be? Do they wonder why politicians and other members of society view them as less worthy? Is this just some self-indulgent reflection, reminiscent of an individual from a wealthy developed country?

I asked my friend those questions to get her point of view. She said that while my bike trip was awesome, my legacy is all the moments I've had with other people. It is all the times I've influenced someone’s life or had a meaningful conversation with another person. It will be how those I’m close to will remember me. Then she told me how much I have meant to her and that seeing me just live my life has, in turn, influenced hers. While you may not be able to point to it, my life will have meaning through the way it has changed other people. This will be my legacy. This was when I burst into tears and told her how much I loved her. I think that sometimes we do not realize how our interactions can change others. Or how much we can mean to another person. There have been so many amazing people in my life, and I wonder if they are aware of how they have impacted me. I really need to start telling those people how appreciated they are, before I run out of chances.

If the bike trip taught me anything, it is that I am capable of doing much more than I sometimes give myself credit. What is a lung transplant compared to the physical and psychological pain those mosquitoes in Northern Ontario gave me? I have complete confidence that if my body lets me, I will work as hard as possible to recover and use my new set of lungs. However, sometimes the body can’t accept new lungs, and working hard isn’t everything. If this ends up being the case, there is nothing I can do but wish for the best and believe that everything will turn out okay – just like I did in Manitoba when I spent the week believing I would not get run over by a truck. It seemed to work then and I’m sure it will again.

Total: 7083 kilometers, 86 Days

About the Author

Allison Watson currently lives in Toronto, Ontario where she is awaiting a lung transplant. She spends her days spying on her neighbours through the window and watching pigeons poop on pedestrians. She hopes to return to the Maritimes once she has new lungs and will continue to blog about the adventures of living with a disability.

Table of Contents

Start

Contents

Author’s Note:

Let’s Go on an Adventure

The Best Place on Earth

Parsley Ruins Everything

Wild Rose Country

Ponies are Evil

Land of the Living Skies

Rainy Emerald Island

Our Taxi Hit a Camel

Spirited Energy

Turning Twenty

More to Discover

My Intestines Tried to Kill Me

Canada Day

The Quest for the Sunset

La Route Verte

French Cats

Be…in this place. Être…ici on le peut.

An Unconventional Staycation

The Gentle Island

There is a Hole in My Stomach

This is Canada’s Seacoast

A Fly Went Up My Nose

Welcome

The End