august 17, 2006 :: day one

we tried to get up as early as possible, but that never seems to work out for us regardless of what we are doing. thankfully we packed everything up the night before. we had breakfast (egg sandwiches) tied the pack to the bike, suited up and off we went for gas. we did the usual pre ride check and maxed the pressure in tires.

we had our first "oops" on our way out of town. i was paying so much attention to the road that i blew past our first exit...hehe. luckily it wasn't the last exit and we managed to take the second one which got us merrily on our way.

the weather was the best that we could ask for. it was warm and slightly breezy which made for a great riding experience. seeing that our riding was all highway, i couldn't be more thankful.

the next "oops" that was made was a minor miscalculation in the amount of gas that the bike would be burning with a load. see, i usually get around 200km or so until i hit the reserve line. after that, i'm looking at around 40 more kilometers until i'm completely out of gas. we were cruising along and about to pass a gas station. i looked at my trip meter and deduced that we have another 40km to go before i had to switch to reserve. that should be enough to make it to the next town, even if i had to touch reserve. 10km later, we hit the reserve line. with the full load on the bike, we lost 30km worth of gas.

now i'm thinking, oh shit. i haven't seen a sign for another town for quite some time. we are already on reserve which means i might have another 25km before we run out of gas completely. what a start to the trip that would be. forget getting lost, running out of gas is about ten times worse and it puts a ridiculous delay on getting anywhere.

i was literally watching the kilometers click by, just waiting for the bike to start sputtering. i could see what looked like a small town in the distance, but it was hard to tell exactly how far away it was.

we rounded a couple more hills and my anxiety disappeared. i could see a bridge leading to the town of Nackawic and just past the bridge was a gas station with a restaurant. we stopped for gas and a bite to eat, two birds with one stone. i vowed that would never happen again, even if i had to stop at every single gas station from there to Niagara Falls.

the rest of that day was pretty much uneventful. we made our way to Drummondville, Quebec where we thought it would be easy to find a hotel. it was already dark so navigating a strange town was a little more difficult. after puttering around for a good half hour, we finally found a Best Western to stay at. very comfy spot, but all i could think of was how i was going to find our way out of the town again. day and night can make a world of difference in the look of place.

they were doing renovations, but the room was very nice. two beds, nice bathroom, very cozy. i set two alarms to wake us up and we watched TV for a while before slowly drifting off to sleep.

to be continued...