July 31, 2004

The following is a transcript of notes made on July 23, the 9th day of my bike journey:

Climbing that vicious hill with only one gear was hard work. By the time I reached the top I was sweating like an animal and I could barely see straight. And that’s when the beast decided to strike.

I looked behind me to see a set of jaws attached to may saddle bag.

“Fuck! Dog!” was all I could say.

That’s when it let go of my saddle bag and lunged for my right leg barking like a mad thing. I lifted my leg high in the air anticipating the assault and pedalled with my other leg, trying to balance the weight on my back.

“Fuck! Dog!” I said again. “Screw or I’ll kick your face!”

He wasn’t easily intimidated. I swerved my bike to the other side of the road, pedalling faster with my left leg. The beast was still by my side, barking angrily, but it seemed to have slowed down somewhat, probably ashamed of its behaviour.

I took advantage of the temporary lull to put my right leg down and rush away. The barking eventually stopped.

I was still out of breath when I reached Port Rowan. Though I was too tired to care during the assault (I was surprisingly calm when the dog jumped me), I think the incident scared the shit out of me.

For the first time in four days I was finally able to sit down in a blue porter potty and take a good shit. Just then, a carful of young idiots with bad taste in music decided to pull up and throw rocks at the blue target. Porter potties resound horribly when hit. That ruined the whole mood.

“Not fucking fair,” I moaned.

Then they started knocking savagely on the door — I wanted to remind them that there were more of the blue shitholes planted elsewhere, but instead I pulled up my pants and got out to scream.

I took pity on them when I saw how young and misguided they were. Kids in small towns have few ways of entertaining themselves, I decided. There was no sense to yell at them about my constipation.

So I sat on a bench in downtown Port Rowan thinking about the incident and waiting for the sun to set so I could camp illegally in someone’s backyard. I was afraid the young jerks would interrupt my sleep too.

Benches at sunset are full of realizations. Sitting there I rediscovered my love for coffee and the strange growth on my foot that just won’t go away. I also realized that days on a bike are becoming their own sort of routine: coldness at night, chill in the morning, sweat and pain at noon, and uncertainty in the evening. The towns too are all starting to look alike, except that some are less full of viciousness than others.