Day 80- On and off, on and off, on and off

Day 80 Tuesday, July 27, 2010 Distance 104.81 km. Time 6 hr. 1 min. Total so far 5542.74 km. Talk about early birds, we were on the pavement at 6:30 this morning. Dave wondered if we should leave our sheltered spot between the trailers because the sky was overcast but the rule for us is that if it is not raining, we have to move. Yesterday was the same and it cleared nicely. We made it back to the main Hwy. 104. The wind was in our face again. We passed Kingsville and Queensville. It took us almost three hours to make it to the Canso Causeway to leave Cape Breton Island. We went to the Tourist Information building, stocked up on water and ate lunch there. The sky kept getting darker. We went next door to the gift shop and Dave finally found a black Southwester hat and I picked up some more for my grandchildren. As we crossed the Causeway, it started pouring and Dave had to put on his rain wear which he didn't do at lunch. I could hardly control my bicycle for the rain and wind as we went across. We stopped at the Irving gas station and it all stopped and got warm again so we took it all off. We met a young hitch hiker from Newfoundland who had a puppy and a kitten for companions. We wondered if he would ever get a ride. We headed up the same hill that was such fun to come down when we came a couple weeks ago. The wind shifted later from our faces to our sides. We were moving along really fast for awhile but had to stop several times to don our rain gear, suffer through a short shower and then take it off. We met Bill who was headed the other way to do the Cabot Trail in a ten day trip. He is from Summerset, Nova Scotia. He was also wet but near the end of his day. I didn't take many pictures as we have bicycled this stretch of highway before and we wanted to reach Antigonish. I did get run off the road on one uphill by a truck that wasn't going to move or slow down. When it rained again, we stopped at a motel but it was 8 km from the city and we needed groceries so after taking off our gear again, we headed on. We finally made it into Antigonish and to Sobey's just as a long line of customers were allowed back into the store after an hour long power outage. Outside the store, I talked to Angela, who bicycled across Canada 4 years ago from Nova Scotia. Her brother met her in Calgary and joined her to finish in Vancouver. She goes to Carleton University in Ottawa and is starting her Masters of Engineering. She works at Sobey's during the summer. We packed our food, bought fuel and headed down Main Street. Dave went on to the campground while I stopped at the post office to mail the parcels to Wisconsin and Sault Ste. Marie. To our great surprise, our neighbours at the Whidden Park Campground were none other than Wilfrid and Denise who we had first met on June 25th at Lake Breeze Campground, the first day that we were in Nova Scotia. After supper over ginger tea made by Denise, we visited and talked about where we have been the last month. They have also done the Cabot Trail the way we did. Wilfrid had some bicycle problems that needed repair and they have also used the bus to get from Halifax to New Glasgow. They have 16 days left on their tour of Nova Scotia. From Amherst they will take the train back to Sherbrooke and start planning their trip to France next summer.