I didn't sleep terribly well during the night; perhaps it was the unconscious anxiety that I'd have to vacate my tent in the wee hours to move a few feet. Fears that proved unfounded. It also rained slightly but had stopped by morning. Best of all, I slept quite warm despite the temperature dropping to at least as low as 12 degrees. I was a little slow packing up, but I spent time attempting to upload my journal from the pay phone. I couldn't get the number to work... ironic since I thought the trouble would be more from the technical side of things.

I hit the road by about 8:30am and found myself cycling into a strong wind blowing from the Northeast. I was down to my lowest gears on level ground and was grinding out less than 10 km/h. Can you say, "Frustrating?" I thought you could. I'm not much of a morning person and the cloudy, cool weather (I actually wore my legwarmers... I'll look like a fool for the right reasons) coupled with my breathtakingly slow pace wasn't helping.

The ride from Oka to the bridge to Laval was essentially an unending series of towns. If I had wanted to stop for food, there would have been countless choices. After a while I began to settle into the cycling and found it not overly bad. At one point I came across La Route Vert which is a planned cycling route... I've heard about it, and it supposedly goes quite far, but I haven't come across a map of it yet, so I guess I'll have to stick to the highways and byways. (The nice thing about biking is that you can take your time to stop often and check your map. Which I need to do quite often.)

Laval wasn't a very nice city. It felt rundown and abandoned. I forged ahead through it into Montreal and followed Gouin down to Richard's home in Pierrefonds. Gouin was a very nice, treed road and the nicest of all. I couldn't remember Richard's address but when I saw his car I knew I had arrived. Montreal is a nice city.

Richard and I spent a great day together. We drove around the island, had lunch, coffee, saw a movie, played a board game (I lost) and had some nice chats. Richard looks like he has quite an interesting summer ahead of him, but I shan't elaborate. At the end of day I was setting up my tent—I was going to sleep in my tent in the backyard so as not to be intrusive—but they made me feel welcome to sleep inside. Since it was starting to rain as I put in the last pegs, I acquiesed. I decided to leave the tent up since it was still wet from the previous night to begin with.

I'm nervous about tomorrow. It's my first day that I have no prior sleeping arrangements. I don't know how far I'll go, or where I'll stay. I know in my heart that I'll find something, but I still have that irrational fear of the unknown. Still, it has to start somewhere—every day will be like this. I'm not looking forward to biking through and out of the city, though. I'm not fond of the traffic and myriad of roads and feel a bit too conspicuous with my weighted down contraption. Strangely, though, the further I get from home the less awkward I feel—I guess I feel the mileage behind me gives me some credibility, like I've actually accomplished something.

I had skipped wearing my braces today. My left knee hurt a bit, and my ankle slightly, but no more than usual. Richard told me a theory of his that, "most pleasure is just relief from pain." For example, a drink is most appreciated when you're thirsty, a bed when you're tired, etc. I think he may be right. For me, a sunny day is a pleasurable relief from clouds and rain. Which is what I'm hoping for.

I've been kind of feeling that I've been too destination-driven. I missed some nice opportunities in my haste: having breakfast or lunch by the road; stopping for iced tea that a group of eager kids were hoping to selll me as I rode by. Stuff like that. Stuff that makes these trips worthwhile.

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