CCCT Part II - Cabano, QC to Edmundston, NB

Thursday, June 20/13
Got up at 7:00. We ate breakfast in our room while watching the weather channel. Breakfast was a banana and a large carrot muffin and chocolate milk. We saw a couple more cyclists, who had also been staying at the motel, heading down the hill to the Pub du Lac for their breakfast or maybe they were going to the garage to get their bikes? We finished packing and set off for Edmundston at 8:23. This time the trail was only a few minutes away. No hills to conquer before starting off for the day. The trail was quite flat, hard packed and much easier to cycle on. we were able to cruise along at 17-18 kph. We were making excellent progress until we ran into a DETOUR at Degelis. We had to leave the trail and make our way along the main road through town for about 1 km. We met a cyclist who had just cycled the trail from Edmundston and she warned us that the trail was terrible because of "large gravel" for 6 kms. A short distance later we were able to get back on the trail. We came upon several orange mesh fences blocking the trail but we were able to either go around them or under them. The trail pretty much ran parallel to the highway but bicycles were not allowed and there wasn't any alternative except to turn around and go back home!!! We stopped just before St. Jacques at 12:00 for lunch. It was a lovely scenic spot but we quickly had to leave as the mosquitoes and black flies were all over us like flies on cow shit. The trail passing through St. Jacques was paved but there was quite a bit of heaving due to tree roots which made it pretty rough in some spots. We stopped at the NB border for a photo op with Serbio our mascot. The trail took us right into Edmundston where we stopped at an information center. We were told to go to the ? across the street as she wasn't allowed to have any maps?  We were given information on how to get to a campsite on hwy 144 and a nearby mall plus maps and a NB guide. We cycled another 5 kms to the Riverside RV Park. We set up our tent and walked to the Mall. It was a very hot day so we went into the Tim's and had a strawberry Smoothie for me and a tangerine one for Bev. I managed to get "brain freeze" but have learned that if I curl my tongue up to the roof of my mouth and blow it helps to get rid of it. We did some grocery shopping at the Dollar Store - the was nothing else around. We got 2 tins of beef stew, buns, fig newtons, etc. and walked back to our campsite. We met 2 bikers arriving on their HOGs. They were camping for the night. We helped one of them get his tent fly on as he was having a difficult time of it due to the wind.l We warmed up our beef stew on our camp stove and had that for dinner with a bun and fig newtons for dessert. I helped clean up while Bev made Peanut Butter buns for tomorrow's lunch. She also did a load of laundry @ $3.50 and pad $27 for camping. I updated my journal. The campsite had free Wi-Fi but by this time I was to tired to work on my blog. Did some reading until it was to dark to see and so it was off to bed at 9:30.
Riverside RV Park, Edmundston, NB