On whether to bunker down

At this point, I think the question is not whether I will get to Halifax, but how I will get back to Montreal from Moncton. Another question is whether I will brave the elements tomorrow, which include 50 km/h winds out of the North West (one of the directions I will travel) gusting up to 100 km/h in exposed areas. It would not be a problem to stay an extra night at my motel in Alma. Ironically, I am not staying at the first place I contacted in Alma as they had minimum two night stay!

Alma, New Brunswick, is the gateway town to Fundy National Park. As seems to be my wont with National Parks in New Brunswick (all two of them), I entered from the “back side” after a fairly long and chilly day of biking along the lesser highways of New Brunswick.

The day got off to a delayed start as I hadn’t twigged to the fact that the Evandale Resort doesn’t offer breakfast except on weekends. After tracking someone in charge, I was pitied enough to be provided with a hard boiled egg, a banana and a cereal bar. I’ve a mind to write them an email suggesting they put in place a cyclist protocol.

There is an odd quality to the lesser highways of New Brunswick. It may relate to my limited breakfast, but between Evandale and Sussex (roughly 50 kilometres if memory serves) I remember only one store that sold food, and that was a convenience store at a gas station. There were some roadside stands selling produce, but no grocery stores. In Quebec, I would have expected near a half dozen dépanneurs. There were various businesses such as mechanical servicing for car and trucks and hair salons. Plenty of Protestant churches including several United Baptist churches. I am going to reveal my (agnostic) Catholic induced ignorance, but I have no idea what or who exactly the United Baptist Church is or are. My theory on the modus operandi of the area is that people drive into Sussex to shop at Walmart, the Atlantic Superstore or the like. In writing this, I also have to confess a certain bias brought on by the presence of LeBaron’s store in North Hatley that has resulted in me having the mindset that a grocery store is something that should be handy enough that you don’t need to plan ahead. Anything else borders on the uncivilized. ;-)  

In my defence, I believe that certain biases are acceptable provided one is open about them or at least self-aware of them. A case in point was when I was asked to order children’s nonfiction books. One of first things I said was that I would be biased in favour of moose and bicycles!

Another thing about New Brunswick lesser roads is that there doesn’t appear to have been much effort to avoid hills. There was too much needless up and down in my humble opinion. It doesn’t help that Southern New Brunswick appears to be a bunch of ridges running North-East to South-West, likely created by the same set of forces that created Nova Scotia and the Bay of Fundy. When travelling across them, hills are annoyingly frequent.

There were a number of white-tailed deer to admire. The first pair was doe and fawn. The next bunch was a half dozen running to the woods across of a field. The signs in Fundy National Park “promised” both moose and deer but no such luck.

While I entered Fundy National Park from the “back side”, that is the side to enter it by bike. The last 4 kilometres leading to Alma are a joy of going steeply downhill with relatively exciting turns, at least when you have disc brakes.

And so, and so, I return to Alma. Will I remain here tomorrow, or will I brave the elements. I will leave the answer for tomorrow morning and see what the weather is doing then.

If you don’t hear from me by Sunday, check for outages in the Alma or Moncton areas before notifying the RCMP.