Day 36 – Nestor Falls, Ontario to International Falls, Minnesota (T.D.: 96.0km; S.T.: 5h44min)

Oh Caliper Lake Provincial Park! You seemed so idyllic, with your beautiful lakefront sites, gorgeous sunsets, and lush green foliage! Little did we know you would send an army of mosquitoes to feast upon our unsuspecting flesh in the early light of dawn!

Yes, we made a hasty retreat from the park, skipping our own breakfast in order to deny the bugs theirs. Mosquitoes generally haven’t been much of a problem for us on this trip, much to our surprise, but this would be the second campsite where we nearly devoured by the little beasties (Emerson Bridge, in Alberta, was the first).

We stopped down the road a ways, deep in logging territory, for a breakfast snack at a lumber checkpoint.As we rode south to the border, the trees around us would sometimes start to quiver and shake, and eventually thrash about wildly like victims of a giant wood shark that was pulling them under the forest canopy and gorging itself upon the remains.

Logging is the only sign of human activity in these parts, though the occasional billboard indicates that a handful of hunting and fishing lodges lie not too far off the beaten path.

After a few hours of riding, we arrived in the hilariously-named town of Emo, where we stopped for a snack and to write in our diaries about the past break-ups, loneliness, and dysfunctional families that made our lives so miserable (http://www.amazon.ca/Everybody-Hurts-Essential-Guide-Culture/dp/0061195391).

From there we continued on to Fort Frances, where we would cross the border into the U.S. of A., for the American leg of our trip. The border crossing was interesting. We were questioned for about 20 minutes by a stern man who was completely bewildered by our adventure. It was unclear whether he was asking us so many questions because he was suspicious of our intentions, or because he was genuinely interested in the details of how such a trip might work. I think he was genuinely interested, but masking that fact with a façade of suspiciousness. In the end he seemed quite impressed as to how organized we were. I guess they don’t get many cyclists passing through here.

Stats:

Av. Spd.: 17.3km/h

Mx. Spd.: 40.4km/h

Best new use of a modern buzzword: From now on, if we say that something is “so emo,” we will be referring exclusively to the habits and customs employed and favoured by the residents of Emo, Ontario (nary a long-bangsed moper among them, mind you).