Today we were off to the long anticipated Halifax. Halifax was actually not apart of our original route, but the support pouring out of that city could not be ignored and it was a last minute adjustment. It was a relatively short ride from Truro, about 100 km, and the boys from Truro had our backs in their big red truck shouting words of encouragement as we road in the escort. The weather was mostly with us, not too hot, winds at our backs for the most part (slight cross wind to our right). The people in the east coast are ones to be rivaled with their generosity, we had a man stop along the way just to give us some cold waters and ask about us. We arrived in Bedford not too long after that and we were given our first surprise of the day when Gary and Anne Harris were there to meet us. Gary and Anne are huge supporters of ours and were one of the principle reasons Halifax was such a success. Gary is a recently retired firefighter with the Halifax Dept. who had been diagnosed with cancer, beat it, and is once again tirelessly fighting it again (his story is actually on our website). He and his wife Anne had contacted us and played an integral role in setting the framework for our event in Halifax. We continued on to be on time for our escort at 2pm. We were overwhelmed when saw 6 Halifax police and RCMP motorcycles, a group of cyclists, and 2 fire trucks for our escort into town.

When we arrived at city hall it was an emotional speech, in which we got Gary to come up and join us. It was our pleasure to make him an honourary rider and to award the Halifax Fire Dept. as Yellow Jersey Honourees. Gary is the definition of a typical Canadian, a true inspiration and a hero to all of us. This was a well deserved Yellow Jersey as the firefighters put on an amazing fundraiser boot drive raising over $4400. The firefighters also showered us with gifts; hats, t-shirts, and books on their history. They then treated us to a great dinner with Chief Bryson Wilson, Gary, Anne, City Councellour Sheila Fougere (the next mayor of Halifax) and her husband Joe. Another pleasant surprise on the day was a surprise visit from Kyle’s mom, it was her and Al’s wedding anniversary. We would also like to thank Sgt. Mike Spearns of the police dept. for their efforts as well.

The night was then capped off with a little hockey. A close friend of mine growing up and another one of the reasons Halifax was included on our route, Nathan Beasoleil, had organized a fundraising hockey tourney. We had Turkey manning the clocks while Nathan made some controversial calls as the referee. The first three games were tonight, while the rest of the tournament will take place all day tomorrow. There were a lot of quality teams with a lot of CIS players with a few professionals as well.