I Want To Ride My Bicycle

Last week we had a guest stay at the motel for 2 days who was bicycling from Trois Rivieties Quebec to Vancouver. That is around 3200 miles depending on the route you take. He is following the best roads for bicycling which brought him through Crookston. Usually he finds somewhere to set up a little tent but last week it was just too cold and he decided to stay with us. We were very pleased. Not only to have him as a guest but also to hear a little of his story. He speaks French but his English was very good. However, I did not get some of what he was telling me written down because I was so interested in what he was saying. So, I will paraphrase.

He had taken a short canoe trip when he was 18 years old and did a little camping when his kids were little. Then life got busy and it wasn't until he was about 45 (I forgot to ask how old he is now) that he started these "adventures". A couple years ago he and his girlfriend took a 3 week canoe trip (he told me where but it was in French and I didn't want to interrupt his story to have him spell it for me) where they did not see another person for the whole 3 weeks. They had all their food which was dried foods and those "just add hot water" packets you get at camping stores. They also took 2 weeks to climb a mountain (12 days to climb, 2 days to come down) but again it was hard to understand the name and I didn't want to interrupt.

This is the camping set up he has for boiling water and cooking

For this trip he left Montreal on April 19. He will be meeting up with his sons at some point and bicycling with them until about June 30 when he will meet up with his girlfriend and ride a tandem bike to Vancouver.

He has no website or blog so I have no way of seeing how far he has gotten or how he is doing. I wish him luck and pray that he has good weather and safe roads for the rest of his trip.

Everything he needs is packed into this bike trailer. He stops for fresh fruit when possible and has packets of dried food.