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Day 51

We woke up just after 8am today. We wanted to hit the road just after 9am to avoid the commuters. It was a draining ride. The winds weren't in our favour, and we just wanted to rest in Winnipeg already! And the signs didn't tell us the distance to the city center, as all the other signs did until now. Instead, it measured the distance to the perimeter highway. So when we reached the preimeter highway and realized we had another like 30km until we got to Nicole's house, we were disheartened. And it turns out, the roads were wonderful! We probably could have cycled it last night (but wouldn't have, for safety reasons!). But everyone's advice didn't seem to match with what we saw. There were really good shoulders coming into Winnipeg. In the city was another story though. The shoulders were all gone, and the roads were NOT well maintained! Instead of going straight to Nicole's, we went straight downtown so Michael could go to the bank. We went to the Forks area of town. The outskirts of Winnipeg weren't very nice, but the downtown was. It was so brutally hot too! After the bank, we went to pick up some supplies at MEC, then we booted it to Nicole's. She had only a small window when she would be home (she works two jobs and only had between like 3:30 and 4:30 that she would be home before having to go back to work). We got a bit lost, then got redirected. As we were pulling up, she was pulling out, taking her little sister to practice(?). She quickly told us where things were, and then took off. She wouldn't be back until 9pm. In that time, Michael and I set up our tent to air out, and lay out our sleeping mats and sleeping bags, showered, and did laundry, along with a few other errands. We were definitely not idle until Nicole came home! When she came back, we decided to go out for dinner. We went to Earl's because Michael and I keep seeing it everywhere out west, but we've never seen it in Toronto or Montreal (or out east in general). The food was good, but you definitely don't get your money's worth in portion sizes! We were going to go out and get a drink (as we haven't properly celebrated being done Alberta or Saskatchewan), but we were so tired! We went straight back to her house, and stayed up and talked to her and her dad (her parents just got home from a week in Jamaica. We didn't meet her mom because she had already gone to bed before we came back). Her dad was very friendly (and obviously so is Nicole). Then we went to bed!