On day 24 we woke up in our Kenora camp-out fairly early. And it wasn't the first awakening of the night. We had chosen a spot fairly close to a creaky railway bridge. About four trains went by in the night, each one sounding its horn loudly as it passed, and also, each slowed down to cross the bridge thusly producing an eerie and drawn-out squeal, which seemed to last for minutes. Besides that, we slept well.

It was about a 50km ride to the Manitoba border, 12km of which were under heavy construction. First we had the pleasure of doing about 4km of extremely bumpy ash vault, which I suppose to be a chewed-up version of the former highway. The rest of the construction meant that we had no shoulder at all, which is never fun. This all being said, I can't complain about the state of Ontario's Trans-Canada highway: in all of the days we spent riding on it, only a small fraction of it was unpleasant. I would ride it again, and I would not hesitate to recommend it as a scenic bicycle tour to anyone.

I suppose I was expecting a sign saying "Welcome to Manitoba" of extravagance to match the effort I had taken to reach it. So when we rode past the sign in the photo, I was assuming there would be a larger one in a few hundred metres. We found out that this was not the case as we pulled into Manitoba's tour information centre. We decided to eat lunch, and then return to the sign for the photo we had been waiting for for weeks.

We had a choice to make soon after lunch. We could take the Trans-Canada into Winnipeg, or highway 44. The former was known to be more direct with a paved shoulder, although with potentially high volumes of traffic. The latter was known to have no shoulder, but little traffic, great scenery, and a couple dozen kilometres longer. We couldn't decide over lunch, so we made our decisions while on our bikes at the intersection. Geoff: "Should we take the 44?", Ian: "What?", Geoff: "Should we turn here?", Ian: "Oh...sure".

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In retrospect, and during most of the ride, I really appreciated our decisions, so I will claim that it was a good one. But towards the end of a long day of cycling, sometimes it is easy to wish that you were on the more direct route. The road was indeed very scenic, through Whiteshell Provincial Park. There was a lot of twisting and turning around forests and small lakes and rivers. We saw a few deer. We watched, as well as felt in our legs, as the mighty Canadian Shield faded into flatness. It was sunny the whole day, but a bit chilly.

We had a bit of trouble finding a place to stay for the night. We had planned on setting up somewhere in a provincial forest, but we underestimated how far we had travelled. So we were suddenly riding through private property. We had to backtrack a couple of kilometres until we found a suitable Canadian Shield rock to hide behind.

Day 25: We woke up the next morning to a light drizzle, but made some hot oatmeal whilst packing up none-the-less. There was a very good reason to be in a good mood: a tail-wind from the East! It lasted most of the day and we were very grateful. I think the convention for describing the winds is dumb. Instead of saying the direction in which the wind is traveling, one is, rather, supposed to say where it is coming from. If the wind is going West, I would prefer to say that it is a West wind. So I try to pointedly make it clear whenever I say it, even though it seems that everyone is used to the silly convention.

We finished our stint on the 44, turned South down the 11, and then westwards again across the 15. This was all very flat, and the road conditions were just fine . . . that is, until we hit the town of Aloma. Perhaps it was the time of day, or simply because we were getting close to Winnipeg, but the traffic started to get pretty awful with no shoulder. So we went out of our way, turning South, again, onto the 12, to the 501 which merged with the Trans-Canada. Besides being about 15km out of the way, it was a good route. I'm sure that the Trans-Canada would have been safe the whole way, but just avoiding the constant noise of cars and trucks is very nice.

The week before I left, I met the grandparents of my girlfriend, Miriam, who came over to my parent's house in Toronto for dinner. They invited me to stop by their house in Winnipeg while on my trip. This is what we did. We arrived at the house of Peter and Anna Kroeker (pronounced "Kraker") at about 3:30. Peter was home with his youngest grand-daughter Olivia, and we had a warm welcome. Soon after, Olivia's father, Matthew, arrived with his two other children, Carson and Hannah. Soon after Anna arrived, as well as Matthew's wife. The kids were in a pretty excited state. They had just gotten back from seeing Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. We ate a delicious barbecue meal, with some potato salad, olives, and chips. After dinner Hannah and Carson put on a piano concert for us with some improvised pieces in the chromatic scale. After Matthew and co. had left, Peter and Anna took us for a nice driving tour in and around the city, complete with a stop at Dairy Queen on the way home.

Day 26: Waking up in a warm room is really nice. I had the pleasure of stretching out on a double bed, all to myself, for the night. We went down stairs to a delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, fruit, and three kinds of home-made jam. They are great lovers of jam. Matthew came in for breakfast, which he does often. A great start for our third full rest day.

We headed into town with our very light unpacked bikes. It was very weird at first. Since your arms are used to more weight to steer, when the bike is unpacked, your arms overcompensate with balancing, making the ride very wobbly. But we made it the 17km to the centre of Winnipeg. Our first stop was at MEC, where we picked up a few camping things we were missing, including the very essential pot-holding tool. We lost our first one, and had been using the can opener as a sketchy replacement for a few days. Then we headed to the post office to send our second batch of unused weight home, including a book we both had finished reading (Into the Wild, Krakauer). And of course, we visited The Forks. This is the first thing that anyone will tell you to see in Winnipeg. It is the down-town park region located at the confluence of the Red River and Assiniboine River. Very pretty. We cycled around it for a while, and then had lunch at a restaurant on a bridge which crossed the Red River. The weather was gorgous. After this we headed over to the Museum of Manitoba. At the counter we were asked if would like to see a show at the Planetarium as well as get a general admission pass. At first we were not very interested, but, as soon as she mentioned that it was narrated by Patrick Stewart we changed our minds. The show was pretty good, and we had to control our giddy laughter at some of the good lines. The museum was unexpetedly large, and we didn't have time to see as much as we would have liked. The weather had changed a bit while we were indoors, and we had fun riding home in a thunder storm. We stopped on the way back for some groceries for the following day.

On arriving back at the house, we were treated to another delicious meal, which was ready as we came through the door. Anna is a wonderful cook. There was ham, scalloped potatoes, salad, home-made bread, and a variety of other things. She had made several dozen oatmeal cookies, which we had for dessert. We also took a dozen for the road. She had also made some ginger snaps. They might have been the tastiest cookies I have ever had. Peter is quite the talker, and we had some discussions after dinner. We took an early night for our day to come.