After the Charlottetown show, I was lucky to have a couple days break for the knee and even though I pushed it vigorously by playing some intense mini-golf on the island. After a couple days, it was time to leave that wonderful place where you can still by pop the way it should be sold, in bottles. We made our way down to Truro where I was to do the last 100k day of the trek.
They helped me set up my bike and I realized how easy it is to do things with other's help as this daily task was usually a balancing act of my chin holding up the bike while I straddled the trailer and set it into place on the back of the bike.
I then made the final playlist for the bike into Halifax doing a sort of best of everything I've listen to and really enjoyed over the last 3 months: Broken Social Scene, The Dialberos, The Golden Dogs, Cuff The Duke, The Flaming Lips, the Fembots, Buck 65, Death Cab for Cutie, Laura Peek & The Winning Hearts, Daft Punk, The D'Ubervilles, Sufjan Stevens, Laura Barrett, The Hylozoists, Hopeful Monster, Franz Ferdinand, Heavy Blinkers, Jeff Buckley, The Unicorns, Their Majesties, K-Os, Junior Boys, Stars, The Beatles, Arcade Fire, Blackalicious, Animal Collective, OKGo, Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, Holy Fuck, Margot & The Nuclear So&Sos, Miracle Fortress and Jurassic 5 (why did they have to stop?).
On the last day of biking, I had a fortunate chance meeting with a Obi-Wan-ish cyclists who has biked in over 40 countries on 5 continents. He looked down at my knee and simply said, "the knees always hurt after your first tour". We sat in the mid-day sun and chatted about our biking adventures; all the while, he rolled a cigarette with one hand and smoked it while telling me about his trek down from Montreal and how it's just a short trip for him back up to Montreal after conducting his business via bicycle for the last few weeks through the States and over to Halifax. He left me with the thought that more biking might be in my future; to be in your 40s in perfect health and able to bike from lower Canada to the Maritimes all while smoking... wow! haha
So, I came into Halifax around dinner time and went down to the bottom of Sackville and dipped my tire into the Ocean:
Greeted by some family and friends, I stopped and let it sink in that I didn't have to bike another 100k the next day:
"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way!" - Dr. Seuss
:)