Day 84: Amherst to Truro, NS (120.20 km)

One unfortunate fact of this trip is that you inevitably must spend a
lot of time on road conditions that are less than ideal. Although we
have had some pleasure of wide curbs and bike trails, more often than
not we have to weave through obstacles like crumbling or an all
together absence of curbs, high traffic, construction or a combination
of any or all of these things.

The photo above shows Vanessa on a curb which probably measures about
a foot in width. normally this is just enough for us to squeak by on
a busy road, but for a portion of today about eight to ten inches of
this safety zone was taken up by rumble strips, narrowing the usable
space to something slightly larger than a tire width. Fortunately for
us, after a few kilometers the curb widened back out, but these are
the kind of things that challenge us on a daily basis.

Crummy curbs aside, today was a pretty interesting ride. We were
diverted from the main highway 104 to avoid a toll road and took
number 4 through rolling hills and Folly Moutain for the majority of
the day.

It's been almost unbelievable to think that we're biking through Nova
Scotia. When we're out of sight of the ocean it's easy to
occasionally slip and imagine that we're on an Ontario back road. It
hasn't quite sunk in that we've now traveled more than 6,500 km and
are now a day's cycle out of Halifax.

Tomorrow our plan is to bike our way into the downtown where we're
looking forward to doing a bit of city-walking and visiting with a
cardiac rehab class in the afternoon of the 22nd. As Vanessa
mentioned yesterday, Halifax is often used as an end point for a
cross-Canada bike trip and being so close is really starting to make
Vanessa and I think about our own end date in St. John's. Its hard to
believe that in eleven days our three month journey will be coming to
a close.