More Disjointed Notes from the Trail:

Funny day today – and a great day. Again, gorgeous weather that I am sure is giving me some good/bad tanlines.

I walked about 32km today including a 3km detour on the wrong path in LaMance park. I was panning on continuing to put a few more miles in, but fell in the Roaring Cove River while trying to cross it. Fortunately there’s a campsite (where I’m scribbling away at now), just up from the river. The fall might be a blessing in disguise as I’ve learned how hard it can be to pitch a tent on this path of mine.

The flies and gnats here are quite annoying – Im wearing a full-face net I bought at MEC years ago that I’ve never felt so inclined nor so silly to actually use.

Today may have been the highlight of the patch so far, hiking through Mobile Tors Cover, and the 3 St. Michael’s towns (Burnt Cove, St. Michael’s & Bauline East – my favourite stretch I think). Tors Cove “The Cribbies” felt like a set from Little House on the Prairie… except for the ocean. I could see spending time in that place – truly amazing country. The path from Tors Cove to the others is strange, you’re really just walking on old roads he whole time, often through the bush, but it’s deceiving because you don’t really know where you are as all the communities blend into each other.

Anyways as I was cresting the hill to Burnt Cove I kept thinking of how amazing it would be to find an all-day diner serving  breakfast. Its een so hard to find a place to charge my iPod, or get a cooked meal  (I’m so hungry all the time!). Everything is closed till the tourist season starts in a month. Well, the Universe provided! I got a sniff and a view of the sign  “Ocean View Bakery!” I almost thought I was delirious. Inside was a lovely Newfoundland woman named Carmel (for real, she’s a baker and  that’s her name). I spent $17 on baked goods and coffee – I bought everything she had on her shelves and took it to her back porch where I proceeded to eat 4 peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies, 2 date squares and 2 chocolate squares. Heaven! Sitting there in the perfect sunlight out of the wind, with a beautiful ocean view in front of me. Slightly better than the cubicle view overlooking Brussels highway overpasses I had at this time last year.

2 coffees later and all that sugar I went back inside to say goodbye to Carmell and she hd a Newfoundland Tutan waiting for me – deep fried bread dough served with molasses. Despite whatever judgement I might get from my nutrition community, I have to say that my calorie-deficient body was grateful for it all, and every cell sucked up every last sugar granule to be had in Carmel’s kitchen. Carmel had pictures of her grandkids living in Alberta posted on the wall. We discussed how hard it is to live way from family while I licked my fingers.

My spill into Roaring Cove River made me realize that the water was quite warm! I’ve had my first little bath in days. It feels so good to be clean, and some of my clothes even got a rinse. I feel brand new now! Thankfully there’s no one else on the trail it seems, if there were each one of them would hae seem me in my birthday suit standing in the middle of trail in shin-high river water. Not a good sight these days.
Lots of moose sign and coyote too. Carmell thought I was brave/crazy to be out here alone, saying she would never choose to come out here alone. That’s okay for me since it means she’ll have Tutan waiting for me when I come back.