Saturday, July 31, 2010

Day 40: Port Huron, MI to London, ONT, Canada

This bike ride reminded me of one definition of marriage: a long dull meal with dessert at the beginning.

All excited and mildly nervous, we started the day by massing just outside the entrance to the Bluewater Bridge between the U.S. and Canada. Traffic across the bridge was stopped and we were escorted across as a group. Eerily quiet with no other traffic pounding by, we climbed up one side and sailed down the other-- riding in a group for the first time.

At Canadian Customs the official talked to Mike, then simply asked the group if we had any weapons. Upon our chorused "no", he said "Welcome to Canada" and we rode on through. Perhaps one minute, max. One of our Canadian riders then led us on a little tour through the parks of Sarnia and to a viewpoint under the bridge-- all of us bright and cheerful.

This little gadabout took us off the cue sheet, however, and as we worked our way back to the official route we encountered two detours around road construction. Adrift in a long stream of bikes without the comfort of the cue sheet markers and watching the mileage pile up, I began to feel decidedly less bouncy. The nagging disquiet turned to pure discouragement when we finally got back on track and I realized we were 7.5 miles ahead of the cues. That shouldn't seem like much, especially as we have ridden nearly 3000 miles, but on an 80 mile day it seemed like more than I could bear. The road "Churchill Line" was straight as an arrow, high traffic, almost no shoulder and back in the ubiquitous corn and beans. Uggghhhhh! And not even any roadkill to count. I pondered-- are there fewer animals? smarter animals? kinder drivers? Or is just that someone picks up the carcasses?

Eventually we got off the high traffic road and onto some smaller and nicer ones and I began to count my blessings instead of cursing the mileage. The road conditions were good, the winds mostly helpful and the temperature pleasant. We had a good lunch with ice cream in the town of Delaware and with about 20 miles left to ride I pedaled into London with a happy heart.

1 comment:

  1. Dereka, last year we did RAGBRAI- ride across Iowa, and they had road kill signs everywhere along the route- ususally possums. What are you doing posting at 3am??? Keep on pedaling!

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