A Good Time Is Contagious—Even If You Are Invisible

Quebec
July 3, ‘82

I put up my tent in the rain. Its been storming for the last two
days, but I've dodged most of them. I just talked to a guy who was
wondering what I was doing behind this refrigerator truck. He
couldn't speak English, but when he saw my bike and tent he seemed to
think everything was OK. At least I hope he did, anyway he went away.
The sooner it gets dark the better.

Yesterday, while it was sunny, I did laundry. Back on the highway I
was greeted by 30 mile per hour headwinds and around 5 PM I encountered
a storm front. Fortunately there was a field close by where I set up my tent
just before the storm hit. (The refrigerator truck just
kicked on. It's going to be a real peaceful evening.) The rain lasted
through the night, finally stopping around 9 AM. It
was an on off day of rain after that. So that's what I've been doing
for the last two days. I'm tired of these any port in the storm
campsites, not to mention the anxiety I have to go through not knowing
whether an evening cloudburst is going to blow my tent away. Needless
to say I have not been setting any long distance bicycle records.
However, with just a little luck, I think I am still on schedule to
meet Mike on the 9th of July. Before leaving Michigan, Mike and I made plans (he being my oldest and closest friend) to meet in New Brunswick. After two weeks of biking together, Mike would take the train back to Michigan, collect his things, and then head off to Kansas where he would start teaching 6th graders. (What's that I hear?)

Wonderful! It seems I've camped close enough to a drive-in theater to hear music.
As I look out across the field, I can see the screen. A movie might not be so
bad, except for the fact that I have to pee. I guess I'm stuck here in
my tent at least until it gets darker. The weather looks good too; it
seems to be clearing a little. There are still some storms to my
left, but they're moving off. I hope the movie is good. It will have
to be because right now sleep sounds more entertaining.

July 5

Yesterday was a good day. I want to say fantastic, but there was too
much wind for that. Last night I decided to stay in a youth hostel. I
went the whole works, $5.50 for a bed and $3.50 for dinner. The dinner
was fantastic--all the fresh smelt I could eat, two types of salad,
brown rice, bread, coffee, and homemade raspberry shortcake. All this
was served to 16 people setting at a table lit by candlelight coming
from three candelabras. Everybody was speaking French. I just sat
back and picked up on all the good vibrations. In fact, you might say
I was having as good a time as anybody there. I've talked about my
being able to tune into good vibrations in other journal entries, so I
won't go into that here. But, let's just say that if people are having
a good time, I am having as good a time too, even if I happen to be
invisible to the people I am with (unfortunately, the opposite is also
true).