Neil Young - "Helpless"

There is a town in north Ontario...

- Neil Young - "Helpless"

* apparently 'Helpless' was written by Neil Young about Thunder Bay although this is open to debate -- does anyone have the inside scoop..?? *

Wednesday, 23 July

Today was the long awaited Rest Day. Hallelujah..!!! I had looked forward to my Thunder Bay visit for what had seemed like ages.

It is so refreshing to wake up in a REAL BED (!!) and not to the sound of clinking aluminum poles, swatting sounds of people wrestling mosquitoes, and the flipping of pancakes at 5:30am. It is a real treat to wake up and NOT have to take down your wet tent and put it in a 'dry' bag. It is also a treat to get dressed vertically rather than horizontally, not to wear tap-dancing shoes and not to wear anything that makes a lycra-clad butt look about 2 inches wider because of padding. It is a delight not to waddle like a duck for more than 24 hours.. A treat not to have to use my tire levers (new source of cutlery as I 'misplaced' my knife, fork and now spoon) to eat breakfast. Ah, how I have missed 'normal life'.

Instead of the usual daily routine I had a super relaxed and chilled out morning topped off with a gentle stroll (shortcut through a ditch - thanks Brendan) to Tim Hortons with Andrew and Brendan. It was an absolutely stunning, glorious morning in Thunder Bay and I had quite a few items to check off of my checklist including cleaning my bike, catch up on my blog, and eating meat... and lots of it.

I had the usual Tim Hortons egg and bacon breakfast whilst reading the local T-Bay paper and sipping my coffee. I wish I could have stayed there forever and just relaxed for another few hours but I had a lingering vision of my filthy, slowly deteriorating bike with the very loud creeking chain etched in my memory. I got the usual lecture (yawn) from Brendan and Andrew about 'bike maintenance' and how I should take care of my little Trek but my argument is that it's only about 1 month old and shouldn't need that much TLC. They then reminded me that it's already taken me about 3,400kms across the country so I'd better take care of it..! I then realised that cleaning my bike would present a perfect opportunity to fix up my terrible tan lines...

So, about 2 hours later I found myself strategically placed in the grassy parking lot outside of Confederation College cleaning my bike (well, watching my bike being cleaned) and enjoying the lovely view whilst tanning my feet.... Canada has such nice scenery ;-) Mmmmmmm... I could get used to bike cleaning every day.

The bike cleaning was only meant to take about an hour but ended up taking most of the afternoon which was ok by me..! In a way it would have been nice to get away from the residence and actually explore the city but I ran out of time. Thunder Bay has a great outdoorsy vibe to it and I definitely intend on returning. There is loads left to see and explore.

The promise of an 'all you can eat ribs' dinner was on the agenda for the evening to finish our day in Thunder Bay. Once again I am astounded by my appetite - Andrew and I had two orders of ribs EACH AND dessert (AND a good ol'Canadian ceasar for me!). Brendan managed to vaporise a monster of an icecream dessert in about 30 seconds. We all agreed that it had been a very productive day and looked forward to the next rest day in 5 days time. Tomorrow Nipigon (a short 112 km day) was on the agenda as well as the inspirational Terry Fox Memorial.