Sky's Cross Canada Blog

Last Tuesday was the official cheque presentation in Calgary.  I am happy to announce that the Cross Canada Ride successfully raised $41,000 for the Children’s Wish Foundation.  It was an honour to present the cheque as you can see in the above picture.   Thanks again to all of those who supported the ride and helped me to realize this goal and the dreams of at least four children.

This past summer has been unreal, epic I should say.  No words can describe it.  The planning and preparation, the fundraising, the countless hours on the bike saddle, the rain, the heat, the children we met, the wishes to be granted, the list could go on and on.  But the whole thing is definitely unforgettable.  I can speak for Tory and myself when I say that we had the time of our lives. 

Going into this, I had no idea what to expect.  In fact, I don’t think I had any expectations.  Having expectations sets one up for potential disappointment.  I had no idea how much money we would raise, how the rides would be, what type of people we would meet or how anything would work out.  I am blown away at how seamlessly everything worked out.  Of course, we had a few hiccups, but nothing catastrophic.   The little obstacles made for great stories and simply made us tougher. 

This summer brought us back to the basics of living.  Finding food and shelter became our priority and at times, proved to be challenging.  We had a great daily routine with the cycling, meeting points, eating and organizing a place to sleep.   I am already finding it hard to leave this lifestyle behind.  I went for a bike ride yesterday and it wasn’t the same without a check-in with Tory. 

However, all good things must come to an end.  On Sunday I am leaving Toronto to make the drive back to Calgary where I will return to work and what most call “reality.”  Over the past few weeks, numerous people have asked me how I feel about going back to “reality.”  I like to think that this summer was reality as reality is really what you make it. 

This experienced has changed me as an individual and has enabled me to positively affect the lives of others; namely, children waiting for a wish to be granted.  Over the summer, I was lucky to be able to meet many children and their families who have had wishes granted or are about to embark on a wish journey.  This was by far the most touching aspect of the cross Canada journey. 

Now that it is coming to a close, I am happy to say that this 8,000km bicycle journey raised over $30,000 for the Children’s Wish Foundation.  Since every wish costs approximately $10,000, these funds will help to affect the lives of at least three children and their families.  What a rewarding feeling.  But by no means can I take credit for the whole thing.  This journey would not have been possible without the help and support of so many individuals.  I thought of listing you all here but I am confident that you know who you are.  Thank you.

We spent our first day in Newfoundland on Sunday in Robinson’s where we stayed at a little Inn above a local pub.  Bryan was checking the place out when he spotted the wizard in the above pictures and decided that it would be our mascot.  We would have liked to somehow glue the wizard on the hood of the van but that didn’t work out.  Unfortunately, we do not have the wizard but he remains with us in spirit.

Today was an epic 225km day.  We started off super early because they were predicting torrential downpours for the afternoon.  Not only did we start at 8:00am but we made record timing.   We covered the first half of the ride in three and a half hours.  Though we were tired, we continued at a quick pace until we met up with Tory and had a tasty coffee! Bryan and I are both craving the Starbucks and cannot wait to get a massive Starbucks in St. John’s of Friday!

Today’s quick pace took a toll on us about 25km from Grand Falls when we dropped our bikes on the side of the road and threw ourselves into the ditch for a break.  This was probably one of the toughest days to date but of course, it was epic!

About 5km from Grand Falls, Bryan was riding about 10-15 metres ahead of me when something outrageous occurred.  The passenger of an oncoming pick-up truck leaned out of his window and chucked a bag of rotten sandwich or puke or something disgusting right at me.  What aim he had! It hit my handlebars before bouncing off of my leg and splattering all over the shoulder of the road.  I couldn’t believe it! I stopped to check out the vehicle but they were going so fast that I couldn’t get the license plate otherwise I would have tracked them down! I was so irritated!

Also, one of the sliding doors of the van broke today and no longer closes.  We are definitely going to get this looked at tomorrrow! A local hotel donated a night’s stay for us so we are very happy to be under a roof instead of in a tent during this rainstorm.  They are calling for thundershowers tomorrow but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the predictions are wrong!

We got up bright and early yesterday morning to get on the ferry and head over to Newfoundland!  The ferry was not overly thrilling but our arrival to the final province was! Despite a bit of rain we enjoyed an epic 107km ride to a place called Robinson’s.  The landscape here is extraordinary.  I am so glad to have the opportunity to visit this beautiful place. 

Today was the first day in 3 weeks without rain.  It was so nice to arrive to our accomodation without being soaking wet.  My cycling shoes have taken quite a beating from all of the rain!  I had no idea that Newfoundland had such huge mountians! Parts of today’s ride felt like being in the rockies.  It’s unreal!

We are now staying at a cute little cottage in a place called Deer Lake.  Unfortunately, they are calling for more rain tomorrow so we are going to try to get a move on early in the morning to avoid the afternoon showers!

On Thursday, I rode from Summerside to Charlottetown on the scenic route.  It was gorgeous until I got about 10km from our B&B and it started to pour!  Not that it was too much of a surprise with all of the bad weather we have been having but it was irritating nonetheless!

We then picked up my friend Bryan from the airport as he is joining us for the last leg of the ride until St. John’s.   Together, we enjoyed a delicious seafood dinner before heading back to the B&B that was hosting us. 

We then left Charlottetown on Friday morning and headed to the ferry to take us to Nova Scotia.  The ride on the Island was unreal.  Beautiful country roads with little traffic.   We then got on the Ferry and landed in Nova Scotia.  Province number 9 of the journey! Unreal!

We got a move on and headed towards Antigonish.  We were nearing the end of the ride and saw a sign saying that Antigonish was 43km away.  This was perfect as we’d get there right in time for dinner.  We continued on and somewhere along the way we must have made a wrong turn and saw a sign that said that Antigonish was 43km away.  This made no sense since we were the same distance away an hour and a half ago!  We checked our map and realized which way we had gone and it was definitely the wrong way!

We then decided to call Tory to come to meet us as it was getting dark and we wouldn’t make it back in time on this road.  Though this little detour added time and kilometres, it was well worth it since the scenery was unbelievable! 

We met up with Tory, and Bryan introduced us to motor-pacing! We opened the back hatch of the van and Bryan and I rode right behind the van, in its draft.  This way we could go much faster. It was such a hoot!  I had never done this before so I really enjoyed it.   It definitely got us to Antigonish a lot faster!

This morning, we left Antigonish and survived the long 230km ride to Sydney.  It was epic! The hills and weather that we encoutered were great!  We are now staying at a lovely place in Sydney and we are geared up for Newfoundland tomorrow!

We crossed the bridge to PEI yesterday morning!  It’s illegal to ride the bike on the bridge so I had to hop in the van.  I was rather happy about that because I was soaked from the torrential downpour that I experience from Port Elgin, NB to the bridge. 

I am currently sitting inside waiting to get on my bike and avoiding yet another downpour.  We have not seen a sunny day in about two weeks.  Hopefully that will improve; however, the westher people aren’t calling for much sun or heat. 

On a brighter note, PEI has been lovely despite the fall-like weather.  Yesterday we arrived to a wonderful B&B in Summerside.  We arrived in the early afternoon so we spent the rest of the day on a scenic driving tour and went to see the Anne of Green Gables House.  We also rode the roller coaster! I had forgotten how much fun those things are!

We had delicious seafood pizza in Charlottetown for dinner.  I am on a mad seafood kick as the seafood is absolutely delicious out here and it’s everywhere! I love it!  We are staying in Charlottetown tonight and I was going to take a scenic route there right now on the bike but now that it’s raining I might re-evaluate the route.  We’ll see! Hopefully other parts of the country are enjoying better weather!

After Montreal, we continued on to Trois-Rivieres and had Sushi for dinner and it was delicious! We spent the evening enjoying the hot tub at our bed & breakfast and watching Sex and the City.  Yes, Tory has me hooked and I have to get through all six seasons!

Since Chris, Tory’s friend, had decided not to continue on with us,he tried to give us some cash that he had planned to spend on accommodation for the trip.  Of course, we refused his money despite his insistence.  However, when neither of us was looking, he stuffed $200 in Tory’s wallet.  There was nothing we could do about it now so we figured we’d use it for a hotel for the night. 

We were going to book something online but I thought we should try to go in person to some hotels to see if they’d donate something for us.  We went straight to the Fairmont Chateau Frontenac since the Fairmont had been rather generous to us so far on this trip. 

We first asked a lady at the reception desk if there was anything that they could do.   She had no idea so she went to the back to consult her supervisor.  Apparently the supervisor said that they could help by giving us the lowest rate: $200.  That was still really high for us.  We expressed this to the lady and she said she would get the supervisor. 

After about half an hour the supervisor came out and I explained the whole thing to her again.  She simply said that $200 was the best they could do since they only had seven vacant rooms.  I said that we could pay the $200 if they included parking, taxes and breakfast for both of us at the buffet.  She then had to consult with someone and when she returned she said that they could do that.  I was pretty thrilled to be able to stay at a fancy hotel! Our first one of the trip! So there we had it, a night at a fancy place thanks to Chris!

That night, we went out for dinner and began chatting with two couples at a table across from us.  They were keen to hear about our ride so we picked up our dinner table and plunked it down next to theirs and we all enjoyed dinner together. They were all from Ottawa and it was great to chat with them.  They even treated us to dinner as a contribution to our ride.  It was lovely!

The night after our five star experience, we were stuck in the pouring rain in the van.  What a difference! A bunch of B&Bs had refused to help us out so we decided to go camping.  Since it was raining, we decided to camp out in the van.  This was the worst campsite so far since they didn’t even have flushing toilets and we had to pay $1 for ever four minutes of shower! 

We woke up the following morning to even more torrential downpour! I wish it would stop raining!  We made our way to Grand Falls, NB and got there early because it was raining so hard that it was dangerous to ride the bike.  We enjoyed the rainy afternoon watching a movie and having dinner with our hosts. 

We then went out to get some groceries and took a wrong turn and ended up at the US customs.  As we were trying to turn around, an American officer began marching towards the van.  It must have looked as if we were trying to make a getaway.  Tory frantically turned the van around as I yelled: “Turn! Faster! Faster!”  We were holding up the traffic in line at the border and the guard was getting closer and closer to us.  We then passed by the Canadian border station and as we drove by sirens blasted!  I exclaimed: “Keep driving! Faster!” Haha, I have no idea what we were thinking but luckily no one came after us. 

Of course, the following morning it was still raining.  Unreal!  I spent the day soaked on the bike riding through the downpour.  It was freezing!  A hot shower has never felt so good.  I did the 100km in the rain and it was a good experience.  I thought about how most people would complain about doing something like that but you know what, I was just happy to be able to be out there.  There are many people who can no longer ride a bike for whatever reason and would do anything to be out on a bike, rain or shine, freezing or not.  So I did the 100km in the freezing, torrential downpour because I can and I enjoyed every minute of it. 

Today’s ride from Miramichi to Port Elgin was good.  It only rained for about ten minutes! A record!  I think it was about 170km.  We have been enjoying heaps of delicious seafood and tomorrow we are heading to PEI!

For those of you who may not know, I have a secret love affair with sushi.  In fact, I am obsessed.  So after a 200km ride from Ottawa to Montreal yesterday, I couldn’t think of anything more appetizing than a plethora of sushi. 

We arrived at a friend’s apartment and after a shower and a bit of a rest, I picked up the phone book to order up some delicious sushi.  I called a few places and no one was answering the phone.  We were staying out in a place called LaSalle.  When I finally reached a few sushi places they said that we were too far for delivery.

A few minutes later my phone rang and it was one of the restaurants calling back.  The man on the phone asked me if I had called to order sushi a few minutes ago.  Finally! Food! I told him that I had and I was still keen on ordering.  He let me know that they weren’t a sushi restaurant after all but he had returned my call because he thought it was his sister calling from Alberta. (I had called him using my Calgary cell phone.)  AHH! Still no sushi!

Dave, the guy who’s apartment we were at, then opened the local ads that come in the mail.  We found a few flyers for sushi places in LaSalle.  Bingo!  I called up the first one and to my disappointment, they were closed! What kind of sushi places closes at 9:00pm in Montreal?  Outrageous!

I then phoned another place and the person who answered the phone said: “Police Station!”  I double checked the number I had entered into the phone and it was the sushi number.  I said to him: “I am not sure what is going on but you must have published the police station number on a sushi menu.”  The young guy then explained to me that since I was calling from a long distance number, he thought I was a telemarketer.  Essentially, he was saying he was the police to scare me away. 

I laughed at his joke and told him I needed some sushi.  Apparently everything around LaSalle closes at 9:00pm and at 9:20 I couldn’t get any sushi.  And I believe I forgot to mention that this whole ordeal occurred in French.  Good thing I remember some of the language.  We ended up eating chicken instead. 

This morning we left Ottawa pretty early to be on time for the 200km journey we had ahead of us.   Tory’s friend Chris met us in the morning as he is joining us until Quebec City.  It’s nice to have someone to chat with on the road!

We took some great back roads and stopped for lunch in Hawkesbury.  We met some great guys at a kayak shop who bought us gelato for dessert before we carried on into Quebec!  The roads got even better on the other side of the river and then we found a bike path that took us in the direction that we were going.  It was nice to get off the roads for a while. 

We then got about 20km from our meeting spot with Tory when Chris stopped and exclaimed: “I physically cannot bike anymore!”  His longest ride to date was about 100km so this was really epic for him.  I was impressed that he made it this far.  He ended up stopping and I continued on to meet Tory and together we went back to pick him up and head in to Montreal!