This train keeps on rollin’ (Day 4)

Day 4:

Continuing on my merry way up the P’tit Train, my first stop on day 4 was Mont-Tremblant Village, which was a quaint, super-cute town full of super-fit, attractive triathletes running and biking around the Iron Man route. I popped over to the La Sandwicherie Cafe for the BEST espresso, which really jazzed me up for the day.

There was about 10k of beautiful, smooth, perfect pavement.

There was a little spell of more crushed gravel, but thankfully there were more beautiful views along the way.

I rolled through this rather important place, where it seems that important things happen. Like La Conception.

And Labelle – a really cool station, a great stop for lunch, and the marking of the start of paved (tar and chip) surface for the rest of the journey, which spelled smooth sailing all the way to the end.

As the afternoon went on, the temperature stayed hawt, hawt, hawt. As I crossed a bridge, I spotted this primo swimming spot, so I ducked into the woods, shimmied into my swimsuit, and jumped in for an awesome swim.

I stopped for dinner at a picturesque spot, but was joined by a throng of black flies, which caused me to fashion this very trendy head gear to keep them out of my hair (literally).

As I left my dinner spot, I was literally chased by a horde of angry black flies. I looked like a cartoon character – I was biking as fast as I could move my legs, flapping my arms, so as not to leave any exposed flesh for snacking.

Even thought I had plans of pushing on toward Mont-Laurier after dinner, for some reason, I had bears on my brain, so I decided to play it safe and camp within spitting distance of a little town (For my peace of mind, a house was within dashing distance). It was maybe one of the best decisions that I made, because I had just enough time to hang up my hammock and stow away my things in the woods before a thunderstorm hit. I anxiously swayed in my hammock waiting for the weather to break, knowing that nickle-sized hail was in the forecast, and hoping the grumbles of thunder would leave me alone. It turns out that my tarp hanging skills might not be quite up to par, because after a couple of hours in the pouring rain, I started to get a little stream of water flowing through the hammock. I lay there in my raincoat and waited the storm out before wiping out my hammock nest and snuggling down in my warm dry sleeping bag, that I fortuitously decided not to unpack my sleeping sack until the rain stopped for a sound night’s sleep.