Day 46

JULY 24 Houghton Center to Stromness Ontario


For the first time on our trip, I was out of my tent before dad (it's been my goal all along to get up first and start the hot water boiling... dad usually does that). Because we woke up early, we actually an earlier start than usual, leaving around 7:30.


That morning, we ran into William, a high school history teacher from Florida, "I can't get over this street name!" he commented, gesturing to the street sign over our heads, "Spooky Hollow. Back in the states, it would say Sleepy Hollow." Dad told him that I was interested in history, so William pulled out a weathered sheet of note book paper, "Here, you can look at this. I made a list of all the historic sites we'd pass through along the trip. That section's for New York." The list had sites as famous as Fort Ticonderoga, and as obscure as the birthplace of Milicent Fillmore. I scanned the rest of the paper, noticing that he had no sites down for Wisconsin.

"So, nothing historic happened in Wisconsin?" I asked, knowing Bill and Dave would have argued that point.

"Well, basically. Not that I'd say that in Wisconsin." William admitted sheepishly, "But it has been by far my favorite state for riding conditions and scenery. I guess there was some history, but all the big stuff happened in the south, near Madison, and we didn't go there. Well, my man, I'll see you on down the road."

"You too!" I called as he snapped one last photo of the 'Spooky Hollow' sign, and rode away.


Ten miles down the road, dad and I stopped for lunch in Port Dover. We ate at our first Subway of the trip, largely because dad felt that we needed all the veggies they put on their sandwiches. I enjoy eating at local shops, but the subway sandwiches still gave us the needed calories. As we finished, William rode up with a bag of blueberries, "I found a u-pick blueberry farm and had to stop. It's sort of embarrassing, but I've never picked blueberries before. Want some?" he proffered the bag, and dad took a handful. "Boy, the weather sure is nice today. I always see the big clouds on the horizon-" (lately, as we ride, there are always big black clouds ahead of us, and clear, blue sky behind us.) "- and ride on to get as many miles in as possible while it's dry. I don't even stop to have a bowl of cereal by the grocery store any more. I was like that with the winds in North Dakota, too. You never know when they're going to change. It makes it harder to take the time to really enjoy my trip." He poured himself a bowl of cereal for lunch, clearly enjoying the sunny weather. "Did you ever read the book on the Northern Tier?" he asked between bites of cereal.
"No..." dad said, "But I've heard a bit about it."
"I was just wondering if you had the same impression about it as I did. I thought the author was a real jerk! He kept putting down his wife, and other people he met. I talked to another pair of cyclists who thought the same thing...."
"Oh, was that Barb and Bob?" I asked excitedly, remembering that Barb had made a similar complaint about that book.
"Yes! I think it was they! I met them way back in Glacier. I haven't really seen any other riders since then, so it must have been they." he took another bit of cereal, "Well, the only thing I got from that book was to bring pepper spray to use on dogs. Usually, I just use my water bottle, but the author was pretty adamant about pepper spay. So I went out to a military surplus store and bought the pepper spray and carried it with me the whole way. I never used it once! And then, at the Canadian boarder, the confiscated it!" he smiled, shaking his head, "Not like I really need it." We talked a little bit more with William, then wished him well and traveled on.

Riding that afternoon, we ran into six new cyclists (poor, poor souls). First, as we rode along, a strange contraption traveled into view: it was lime green and riding low to the ground, carrying two riders; as it got closer, we saw that it had two front wheels, a single rear wheel, and a bob. The best way to describe it would be an inverse-trike, tandem-recumbent. The riders, Ken and Kari, had just started their trip out of Rochester New York, heading to see family in Rochester Minnesota, "Ken's been retired for a while," Karin told us, "But I just retired last Friday. We started this trip on Sunday." We exchanged blogs, and then two more riders showed up.
"It's a biker convention!" I joked.

The two new riders, Lizzie and Rachel, are both twenty-something year old girls from Seattle, "We flew out to New York to start," Lizzie told us, "So that if we're broke when we get to the east coast, at least we're home. We also figured it would force us into doing it: if we started from Seattle, we could always push it back just one more day."

We left them, but just down the road, we spotted a very tan couple heading towards us. They swerved over to our side of the road, and pulled out their iPod ear phones, then introduced themselves, "I'm Don and this is my wife Vicky. Where're ya from? And where're ya going?"
"From Oregon, to Maine." dad told him.
"Wow, that's impressive. We're just on a short trip around Lake Erie. We live in Ohio, so we started out riding along the south shore, and now we're going home along the north shore. How far do you go a day?"
"Our longest day was 120 miles, but we had really good tail winds," I told them, "Our shortest was about 40 miles. We usually average 70 to 80 miles."
"We only go about 40 miles a day, but that's good for us."
Dad nodded, "Yep, it's however it works for you. That's what's important."
"It's funny, our kids are really worried about us. They make us call them every night to let them know everything's okay."
"My wife does the same thing." Dad said knowingly. "Hey, did you know there's four riders just a couple of miles in front of you?"
"Oh! No we didn't!" Don said, and soon they were wishing us farewell and gearing up to catch Ken, Karin, Lizzie, and Rachel.

We rode all afternoon right along the shore of Lake Erie, until some miles later, the road bent inland. Just ahead of us, the road glistened slightly, and the air had a hazy shimmer to it. "Seth, do you think that's rain?" dad asked.
I squinted at it for a second, then pulled over to the side of the road, "I'm putting my rain covers on." We both frantically started pulling on the yellow covers to our panniers as the first drops started to fall. I had just covered my last bag and pulled out my rain jacket 30 seconds later, when the storm hit full force. I never got the jacket on; the rain and the hail fell so hard that they stung when they hit uncovered flesh. All I could do was shelter my face and fore arms behind the raincoat, which I held in front of me like a shield. Suddenly, I found my self laughing hysterically. Peering out from behind my raincoat, I noticed dad was too. The rain fell, and we laughed harder and harder, the same maniacal laughter that struck me as we rode into the headwind our first day in Minnesota. What were we doing out here?? By the end of the storm, five minutes and at least an inch of water later, I was thoroughly drenched.

We sloshed our way into Dunnville, stopped at the bike shop to pick up a replacement for my broken water bottle cage, then headed to the library. I tried to type up a blog entry, but found my fingers were too cold to hit the proper keys, and that I was simply too wet and tired to think clearly. So I just wandered the rows of books, finally pulling out a biography on Tolkien to read while dad caught up on his emails. Outside, we ran into William, who had completely missed our freak thunderstorm. We ate dinner at a bar called Jonny Rottens, then rode six more miles to Rock Point Provincial Park, a beautiful park right on Lake Erie. Unfortunately, exhausted as we were, dad and I only spent a handful of minutes appreciating the scenery before curling up in our tents and blacking out for the evening.