It was 5:30 am as I stood outside my room at the Wawa Motor Inn watching the rain bounce off the ground under the street light. The anxiety in my belly rose in direct proportion to the steam rising from my lousy cup of hotel-Keurig brown water.

Sip.

Sigh.

“Fuck” was all I could muster from my stressed out brain. Thinking once again back to the torrential time in Terrebonne wasn’t easing my anxiety. I went back inside and had a slice of last night’s pizza. I ordered it so I’d have breakfast this morning and likely lunch. With my insides doing acrobatics in unison with my break-dancing amygdala, I tossed the rest in the trash. Standing in the rain eating cold pizza for lunch was not high on my agenda for the day anyway.

I checked the weather for about the fifteenth time since I woke up at 4:00 am. Wawa was socked in and it still showed rain for the entire route. 42 mm of rain. Heavy rainfall warning. Gross. Last night my bar stool biker brother, Glenn, said he was launching at 7:00 am. I’d rather follow his tail light in the pouring rain before sun up, than go it alone later. This serious aversion to rain was getting annoying. It’s not the getting wet and being cold I mind as much as the “holy shit I hope I don’t die” factor that gets to me. I’ve always been this way when riding in heavy rain. I don’t know why. So far I’m not dead and I’ve never even come CLOSE to sliding.

Sip.

Sigh.

Setting out when I didn’t feel ready was not bravado on my part. It was based on science. Well, kind of. Through our conversation earlier, I knew I was following someone who has spent a lot of hours on these roads. That gave me some confidence. As well, I reminded myself that I’d gone through some heavy shit on this trip and others too. Hell, I’d ridden through a snow storm in the Andes Mountains for crying out loud! I can handle rain. In the dark. On a mostly straight highway. Did I mention it was dark? Yah. I can’t see a lot in the dark these days.

Sip.

Sigh.

When Glenn emerged from his room, about 7:00, I felt that same old “I gotta hurry ’cause getting left behind anywhere kills my soul” energy start to rise. I was already making my final adjustments to my gear, so it’s not like I was running late or anything. Add to that my internal voice telling me that I was prolly about to make this a cruddy ride for my new friend ’cause I’m a scaredy cat in the rain, and I was a bit of a bundle of nerves. When I confessed (some of that) to Glenn, he suggested I lead so I can set a pace with which I’d be comfortable. Uh. No. I’m too damned blind! I said I’d follow, but don’t worry about me if I’m slower.

So off we went. Within minutes my stress dissipated and I was singing away to the oldies while wiping the rain from my visor. It was dark pretty much until 8:00 am, but the rain lasted long past the Wawa region. When we got in to Terrace Bay Glenn wheeled into the Drifters Restaurant and I happily followed. That pizza slice was long burned off and I was famished. What a cool place! The restaurant had good eats and with the gas station right there as well as a motel, I would have been quite comfortable at this place if the highway closure hadn’t forced a stop in Wawa the night before!

Drifters was a warm and welcome break and I enjoyed chatting with Glenn as well as the fella at the next table. He spoke about his heater and how he was barely getting wet on his Goldwing. As much as I love Jules, I did think for a half a minute about how nice a heater would have been. We’d only gone about 250 km, but it was a little on the chilly side that rainy morning. With another 500 km or so to go before Ignace, and breakfast in our bellies, we set out again. It was nice to ride with someone for a while. It was like being a passenger; you know when you’re not in the driver seat you can turn off your own brain and just enjoy the ride? This was kind of what it was like for me.

When the rain finally ended, I lost sight of those tail lights in short order! The fog was so thick I had to slow to 50-60/km at times. I was grateful for my bright orange rain jacket; at least I was high-vis in that pea soup style fog! I thought back to my fellow riders in Peru. Oh how they laughed at my bright rain gear! Then I thought about the crazy weather I’d experienced on this cross Canada adventure! I pretty much had it all. Near hurricane force winds from Erin near the Cabot Trail. Horrendous rainfall three times now. Fog so thick I had about a car length’s visibility before me, extreme heat, and who knew what may have been waiting for me on the prairies!

Two hundred kilometers later we were gassing up in Thunder Bay. The ride from there into Ignace was about two and half hours of sunshine and scenery. We didn’t go through Kakabeka Falls, but I did see a sign for it along with one for Atikokan. That was a pretty weird moment for me. I’d landed in Atikokan such a long time ago. So much had changed for me since getting back into Canada from my North Dakota jaunt! I was a whole lot less worried about so many things. I was back to my fun-loving, confident self. I no longer felt like I was missing out on things, not making the right choices in terms of route, lodging, activities. I’d come a long way.

Seeing that sign brought an unwelcome reality check too. I’d be home soon and that meant getting back into the real world. Yuck. I’d have to start looking for work again, tackle yard work, tape and mud my basement, fix the drywall in the ceiling by my gym. I stuffed all that real life junk down alongside all the other unpleasant things I don’t like thinking about. Like wet socks.