a few general observations about our foray into Canada

All told, we ran 6300 miles from start to finish, across 22 days. Our longest day was just over 800 miles, our shortest was probably 200 miles. There were a couple of days -- one in Newfoundland, and one on the long ferry from Goose Bay to Lewisporte -- where we did no riding at all.

It seemed to us that Labrador and Newfoundland see themselves as being very separate from the rest of Canada. For example, we saw Canadian flags flying everywhere in Nova Scotia, but in Newfoundland I think the only place we saw Canadian flags were in national parks.

Canada has coins in units of $1 ('loonies') and $2 ('toonies'); the smallest bill is worth $5. They, like everyone else in the world besides the US, have colorful, pretty money.

Throughout Labrador and Newfoundland, it was common for people we'd meet on ferries or at gas stations to invite us for meals, to stay at their homes, etc, and we exchanged contact information with several folks who were interested in the progress and outcome of our trip. We didn't experience this in the US (other than our excellent few days in Virginia with clutch problems), not at all in Quebec. The greatest thing we took away from eastern Canada was the incredible friendliness of everyone we encountered.

We expected to be asked more (or perhaps even challenged) about US politics and foreign relations, but were only asked about what we thought about the upcoming elections, once, very tactfully.

There were a lot of women out walking alongside the highway, often very far from the nearest town. Coming from an area where it's rare to walk outside of one's neighborhood and where safety might be a concern for a woman walking alone on a major highway in a rural area, we thought this was interesting.

Outside of the most metropolitan areas in Canada, you cannot 'pay at the pump' with a credit card. Fairly often in Newfoundland, they can't even tell how much gas you got from inside the station, and so you have to tell the attendant the amount you owe. It also looked like a lot of stations were full-serve, although we always filled out own bikes rather than asking the attendant to do it. We also saw no hint of a gas shortage anywhere in Canada or the northeast US, although Canadian gas prices were raised the last week we were there. Only when we got close to home did we see any evidence of a gas shortage.

Here's a sampling of gas prices we paid at various points of our trip, in CAN$ per liter, then converted to US$ per US gallon using the exchange rate at thee time of this posting. (1 liter = 0.264172052 US gallons)

Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec (ESSO), 9/5
$1.314 CAN$ per liter
$4.82 US$ per US gallon

Baie-Comeau, Quebec (Petro-Canada), 9/5
$1.384 CAN$ per liter
$5.08 US$ per US gallon

Churchill Falls, Labrador (Ultramar), 9/7
$1.481 CAN$ per liter
$5.44 US$ per US gallon

Reef's Harbour, Newfoundland (Irving), 9/11
$1.454 CAN$ per liter
$5.33 US$ per US gallon

Baddeck, Nova Scotia (Esso), 9/15
$1.507 CAN$ per liter
$5.53 US$ per US gallon

Regrets from our trip (only a couple):

We didn't have lobster in Maine or Nova Scotia, and we didn't spend any time to speak of in Halifax or Peggy's Cove.

When we took the long ferry out of Goose Bay, we missed some neat areas of Labrador.