Today was the last riding day of our Blueberry tour. It started out dreary, but ended up being a nice day.

We had breakfast from the stash of food we accumulated over the trip – a couple bagels, some with cream cheese, some leftover soda, granola bars, and the like. Ruth was unenthused with the food on offer. This is more than just about mood, with the tandems everybody needs to fuel up.

We wanted to leave early so we could get to the hotel before the office closed, since we needed to get our cases back to start packing up the bikes. We didn’t quite achieve our goal, but still managed to get rolling at 7:30, which is pretty good.

The morning started out overcast, which turned to a bit more than a drizzle. I was secretly a little happy. We went to considerable trouble to pack and remount fenders. I’m glad we got some use out of them.

We had already planned to top off breakfast at a convenience store at about mile ten. Everybody was in better spirits after some more food. Marna and Tom rolled by while we were there. They hung out for a bit before moving on.

We continued on, with a mix of highway frontage trail, riding on the highway itself, and trail running away from the roads. We got lunch from a small grocery store, which had a sign about holding the Guinness world record for the largest tourtiere (meat pie). We ate under a picnic shelter nearby.

My cleats had started acting worn out, where it was getting difficult to clip in. We carry a spare in our tool kit, so while Max and Anne picked out lunch, Ruth helped me replace them. Later my voice randomly cracked. We’ve been joking about what an old man I am when I’m worn out and moving slowly in the evenings. Now, with the voice crack, I declared I looped around and was a teenager. Ruth decided that my age must be related to my cleat condition. Sure, why not?

At one point, when the trail exited out onto a neighborhood street, a dog started chasing us. I think he was happy to just be pacing us and chasing us off his territory, but he kept going for at least a block.

I could hear Anne and Max continuing to develop as a team. They decided somehow that when extra effort was needed for a hill, they would “make hot dogs” – chanting “hot, dog, hot, dog” with every stroke. This of course evolved into involving ketchup and relish, though I was unable to understand what that meant. Ruth and I are way more boring. I mostly just call “power” or “ease” to direct the effort.

Near the end of the ride we came to a dam which was followed by an segment closed for construction. Tom, who went through before us, warned us about the closure. They were running a van shuttle service with a bike trailer. They weren’t exactly set up for tandems. I was freaking out about it and couldn’t look as they set up bungies and clamped down the front wheel over the fenders. But it all went fine.

We ended up missing the hotel office after all. Despite checking with the staff when we were here a few days ago, they closed at 4 instead of the promised 5. Marna got in before us and was able to claim our cases for us. When we pulled in Marna and Tom were there to cheer us in.

Tom took me to pick up the car, then Anne and I went to get frozen pizza and Cheerios for dinner. We also got “2 litres de pur plaisir” (“2 liters of pure pleasure”), aka a tub of ice cream.

That just left packing everything up, getting as much done before bedtime as possible. We got both bikes disassembled, and one with all the bike pieces tetrised into its cases. That leaves tetrising the other bike, filling it to the brim with miscellaneous gear, and packing up the rest of the bags for tomorrow. No problem.

The tour was pretty great overall. Flying with the bikes is a lot of work, and the time and space dealing with them at the endpoints is definitely a negative. On the other hand, there’s no way we would have been able to come this far from home without it. And it’s a wild experience doing the tandems with the kids.

But I am very tired. I was barely able to climb the stairs to the loft bedroom in our hotel. I guess I’m still an old man, despite my new cleats.

Today was our shortest biking day. It was almost mostly flat, with a pretty good slight downhill back to the lake. It made for a nice day.

It took us a while to get moving. Anne discovered that the innkeeper’s mother weaves, including some of the blankets, and decided on a dish towel to purchase. The kids explored the grounds and checked out the chickens. I mostly just hung around.

The morning had us riding along farmlands, which left us exposed for some wind. We also rode past a large, impressive, greenhouse complex right next to a sawmill.

We stopped for lunch in St-Félicien, where we ran into Marna and Tom just finishing their lunch. They headed off while we ate.

For much of the rest of the ride were on a trail that ran along a railroad. Every once in a while there would be a gate you’d need to zigzag through. Anne has been doing them while staying on the bike, just kind of skipping along. I’ve been doing then by fully dismounting, as I’m less confident on the tandem. But I’ve been working up the courage to go for it.

Courage no more. Anne misjudged the distance and went down. Max mostly ejected himself and was unharmed. Anne suffered some road rash and a pretty good scrape and bruise where her leg got caught by the bar end shifter. She can still ride, but she’ll have a mark for a while.

Shortly after that, while we were stopped for a snack at one of the many bike rest pavilions, it started to drizzle. It really wasn’t too bad, but we decided to put the rain covers on the bag. Because the best way to get it to stop raining is to gear up for it.

It worked, mostly. We hit a few drizzle patches, but never enough to wish I had any rain gear on myself.

We stopped for another snack in Mashteuiatsh. We ran into Marna and Tom again, who had just finished at a museum. We rode the rest of the way to the hotel together.

After getting bikes stowed and showered, we all went out to dinner. Tom (with Marna’s help) interpreted for us, and we had a nice meal, followed by first and second desert.

Max has made this lying face down for a picture a while thing. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it, but he seems to like it.

Ruth and I continue to gel as a team. We’ve worked out signals for various amounts of power to deliver. She’s learning to read my body language for when I forget to signal (pedals stopping even means bump coming, pedals stopping up and down means a rest, etc). Both kids continue to be cooperative, even though we’re all tired at times.

Tomorrow will be our last biking day. It’ll be longer today, but we have a deadline for finishing. We need to get back to the starting hotel before the office closes so we can retrieve the cases and disassemble the bikes. We’re aiming for an early start.

Day 2 will be the longest day of the tour. There were no sustained climbs, but the miles still added up. We didn’t see Marna and Tom, since their start and end points didn’t match ours. Maybe tomorrow.

We started with a hearty breakfast at the B&B, and managed to hit the road by 10. We spent a lot of the day either on a frontage bike path to 169 or on the road itself. There was a nice interlude where the path cut through a forest. There was also a fun stretch along waterfalls on Mistassini River, including a ped/bike suspension bridge. Clearly a lot of money has gone into building up the bike infrastructure. I suspect it’s to bring in tourism dollars. It’s working.

We stopped for lunch at a gas station in Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc. Anne got us a nice collection of sandwiches, which we enjoyed at a pavilion on the side.

At a rest area, Max stretched out on the ground. Anne asked him for a picture. He usually hides from cameras, but agreed as long as he could hide his face and turned around. The result was an unintentional reinterpretation of a common local roadside sign. Don’t worry – he’s fine.

The last few miles were the longest, as usual. We decided to stop to pick up dinner at a grocery store. Ruth and hung out at a park while Anne and Max went down the block. They came back with enough we had to be creative on how to fit it for the final 2.5 mile stretch. The elastic cargo net we’re using to attach the shoe bag to my rack came in handy.

We arrived at the hotel, met the cat, ate, and settled in for the evening.