I finally made it to the beach and the ocean decided that my dried out road-weary boots needed a salt water scrub (that's proper technique right bootblacks?(Cal))
After leaving my perfect hammock friendly campsite (Sadie it's #26, in case you make the trip) I got on the road again to make my way counterclockwise around the Cabot Trail. After passing a beautiful twistie mountain range I came to a plateau. I had about 5 minutes of riding on top of the world before I saw what you would never expect to see in Canada of all places.............. a moose!!!!!! I saw a friggin moose! A giant, huge, lovable, furry, huggable, scary, gorgeous, brown, ginormous moose. In Canada!!! She was trying to cross the road when we saw each other. I had no idea what to do and luckily she felt the same. So after staring into each other's souls for a decade in a second, I revved my engine and she said "not today Satan" and turn around back into her forest.
I screamed "I saw a moose" in a thousand different tonalities into my helmet with my clutch pulled in conserving gas as I coasted down deep sloping twisties. And I haven't stopped dreaming about that moment since.
Moose moose moose moose MOOSE moose.
You can see a picture of her if you look into the far far distance where I'm pointing.
I made it out of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park and back to sea level after that, quite changed I think.