The last three days were all days of steady rain. Yesterday morning was quite cool with the temp in the low 60s and a hard, steady rain pelting the ground. I was sitting in our little edit studio / video equipment storage room doing a bit of work when the phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but I answered anyway.

“Hi, my name is Brenna and I found your name on the Warmshowers list. I’m at the McDonalds in Quincy and looking for a place to stay for today.”

Now, the Warmshowers list (www.warmshowers.com) is an internet database of touring cyclists willing to offer a warm shower and a place to stay to other touring cyclists that might be passing through their area. I’ver been on the list for years, since back when I lived in Connecticut, but we haven’t hosted any cyclists since I moved to the Boston area.

Anyway, it turns out that Brenna had started out from Boston yesterday morning, then got caught in the downpour of cold rain and found herself trying to warm up using the hand dryer in the rest room at our local McDonalds. I gave her our address and soon enough she was at the door, wet and cold but in a cheerful mood. We muscled her heavily laden bike down the stairs and into our condo, and Brenna treated herself to a hot shower and threw her wet clothes into the wash.

Brenna turned out to be a delightful guest. SHe did her first ever bicycle tour last year, cycling from Vancouver, British Columbia to Winnipeg, Manitoba in 28 days. For her second tour she set her sights a bit higher. Brenna set off from Winnipeg back in June, rode the rest of the way across Canada to the Atlantic, then headed south bound fro New York City. She’ll be in New York soon after exploring Cape Cod and heading through Connecticut to catch the ferry to Long Island. Once she reaches New York she will pack up her bicycle and gear and fly to Cape Town, South Africa. From there she will be spending most of a year exploring the continent of Africa.

I took a couple of photos of Brenna before she left this morning, then managed to delete everything on the card when I put it into my computer. A quarter century in IT, and I go and delete everything by mistake. Sigh…

Brenna does have a blog, which you can find at http://www.mooncycleafrica.ca. Check it out; she is a very interesting young woman!