My day started at 3:00 am. I had bought a watch to use as a wakeup alarm, and testing it revealed a gentle series of beeps. But in the middle of the night, a blatting broke my sleep. Roused from the dead, I smashed my hand down on the watch button … and the awful noise stopped. “Geesh – alarm number two is a bone rattler!” Hours later, my new friend Keith asked me how I felt about the fire alarm. So I made up a whole story, completely wrong. Makes me laugh.

Continuing in the foible tradition, the previous day I’d left my blissfully empty urinal in the residence washroom for hours, sort of an ornament for all to reflect on. Makes me wonder what other silly stuff I’ll be up to for the next ten weeks.

Last night we had dinner with some of the Tour Arctic folks. They left us this morning and will be rolling north for 35 days, ending their journey on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Hundreds of their kilometres will be on gravel roads. They’re normal, friendly folks and I’m in awe. Perhaps I should spare a bit of awe for this Bruce guy and his cross-country companions.

Here’s another human: Terry looked at my injured thumb and suggested I get new handlebar grips, ones that have a wider section that can support the base of my thumb. A rider who had just arrived was reassembling his bike and had exactly that type of grip. Terry wanted me to come over and try them out. They felt good. And she wanted me to ask the Bike Kitchen folks if they had this type of grip, and if so install them for me before we leave tomorrow for Victoria.

All of that happened. Terry’s kindness and commitment to my well-being is precisely what we twenty-one souls need on this trip.

What can we create together on our way to St. John’s? Is there something new we can bring into the world as we flow over the land together? Can we be brothers and sisters?

The very real possibility is “Yes”