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At this point, I would have given almost anything to ride the rest of the way in a vehicle. I wanted to think I could make it, but I was not convinced. I was fairly convinced I wasn't going to be able to go the whole 70 miles uphill to Dryden. And also? Bears. They live there. And other wild things. But Galen had brought his satellite phone along to send with us in case we have any trouble, since there isn't any cell phone service in that stretch of road, so that definitely made me feel better. Nevin seemed to still have plenty of energy left, especially since he didn't have the full 70 pounds following him anymore! :-)
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We also had more family to look forward to on this day! Lorne & Sharon's family was headed our way, and we were eagerly watching for their arrival. Maybe they would let me crawl into a corner of their van and ride along? They caught up with us close to lunch time, so we stopped for a little over an hour to eat, talk, and rest. It was so wonderful and encouraging to see more family again! I still wasn't sure that I could make it to Dryden at that point, but Sharon gives a pretty good pep talk. :-) And we went on our way again. At this point, we knew there was no one else coming along that could potentially give us a ride to the next stop. I think this helped my determination a lot- there was no way out now. The only option was to ride on until we got there!
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Let me tell you something about the drivers on the 502: THEY'RE CRAZY. And dangerous. And they don't know about sharing the road. There isn't a shoulder to speak of, and usually there would be quite a few vehicles passing us at once. And they didn't know about slowing down or giving the bikers room when they pass them. And if there's oncoming traffic, do we slow down and wait to pass the bikers? Of course not! We just cut in closer so that we're three wide on the road. I was cringing and just waiting for impact most of the time. I think we both had a permanent, um, I'll call it a "twitch", that wanted to give all those drivers some... "friendly advice" for driving with bikers on the road. Or just show them how we feel about the situation.
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About 8 miles from Dryden, who should we see but Galen, Rachel, and my Dad coming to check on us! That was a pretty cool surprise, as we hadn't expected to see any of them until the next day. Galen offered at that point to ride my bike the rest of the way, but by that time I had made it this far, and I felt like I could go the rest of the way. If I was too worn out and at the end of my strength, he would have ridden it all the way to Sioux Lookout for me. But I had been giving myself pep talks the entire afternoon, and I could see the end in sight. We had another nice little break chatting with them a bit, and then. THEN. They said they would follow us the rest of the way to our hotel! Why was this so awesome? Well, besides knowing they were behind us, supporting us in the last miles of the day, this would force all the crazy drivers to give us plenty of space when they passed us! And we wouldn't need to chew out so many drivers anymore!
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We hit some rain in the last couple of miles, but it wasn't too bad. We reached Best Western in good time, and Galen went in to check us in. And he paid our supper at the hotel restaurant before he left! (Thanks, Galen!) We did our laundry, had a delicious supper, and were ready for sleep. On the most comfortable beds in the world.
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One more day.
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