Nova Scotia Bound

So, its been a while since I was able to update this, but thats not to say that lots hasn't happened since then. In fact, I've been through an entire province, biked over 1800 km in total, saw several moose, and stayed in some sketchy hostels.
Leaving Riviere du Loup was my first serious mountain experience, and man was it a baptism by fire. As soon as I left the hostel (which was great except for the worlds loudest snoring man in the bed next to mine. I mean, seriously, this guy had the entire brass and woodwind sections of the TSO in his nostrils. How is it humanly possible to make that much noise with your face, and not wake yourself up?) I hit the mountains. In fact, the entire morning seemed to be nothing but uphills, with only short downhills as a reward for my work. However, after lunch this all seemed to switch around, and I was going downhill almost the whole time, making the afternoon fly by. Camped that night at a campground that, while open, had no one maning the gate; thus, free camping for Matt. In fact, I got to camp for free the next night too, at Grand Falls. And thats not just a name, these falls were HUGE! I got some pictures, which I will try to post tommorow. That day I had the wind at my back, so I was flying. Also, I crossed into New Brunswick after the first hour of riding, which was exciting, at least for a little while. Despite people telling me the "scenic route" is nicer, I quickly discovered that the Transcanada passes through essentially the same areas, and does not have the same potholes and narrow shoulder the scenic route does. In fact, the shoulder on the Trans-can is the size of an entire lane, giving me plenty of room to stretch my tires.
Day 20 was the toughest day of this trip. Though I had planned to make it to the hostel in Woodstock over 2 days, I ended up pushing through and making it there in one. The main reason for this was that I got caught in the scariest storm of my life: gale force wind, thunder and lightning, even hail. Seriously. And me, alone on my bike, 10 miles from anywhere. After passing the tail end of the storm in a Tim Hortons, already soaked to the bone, I decided I needed to stay indoors, and headed for woodstock. Dragging my butt into town after 115 km, I got to the hostel and crashed, hard. Since then Ive been to Fredricton, which was a rather sketchy hostel, and now Saint John. Tommorow I take a 3 hour ferry to Digby, Nova Scotia, and I am hoping to reach Halifax on Saturday. I will spend a few days there (2 or 3, depending) and then head back home for some needed recuperation, before heading on some shorter, more reasonable excursions to Hamilton, Guelph, and the cottage. Though I have had some really good days, seen some cool places, and overcome some intense challenges, I really do miss home; as many a hackneyed blues song have sang, the road is hard.