The evening that everything changed
The day I crossed over onto Prince Edward Island I experienced one of the craziest wind storms of my life. It was December 15, 2019. Fortunately, that day had reasonable temperatures. The wind was so miserable that I ended up pushing 83 km’s all the way into Charlottetown. It was 2am by the time I found a place to set up my tent in the city mostly out of the wind.
The next day the winds never subsided and the temperatures dropped to below -15C possibly colder for all I know. The temperatures were miserable and the winds where so strong that it was far too dangerous to attempt biking out of the city on the highways without being blown into fast moving vehicles.
The best place I could find to camp for that evening was near the downtown in Victoria Park. But the afternoon was still young so I spent the evening working on my blogs and photo editing at a local coffee shop. At 10:30 pm I closed my laptop to start packing up for the night. I checked my Facebook messages and comments one last time.
And there the message was — There is a warm bed waiting for you, from someone I never knew or met. I responded that it was 10:30 pm. Not seriously expecting a response. The bed is waiting for you right now came the response. Where do you live? Irene MacIsaac’s address was only a kilometer away.
At 10:30 pm in one of the most wickedest coldest winds storms I had ever biked in a complete stranger gave me a warm bed to sleep in. And that was the day my ride changed. I would end up adding an additional 1,300 km’s to my Atlantic Canada bike route and I would I take up every strangers offer of generosity or hosting. And that attitude would result in one of the most amazing bike rides across Canada.
