Day Sixty-one: 7/24/08

*Note, this was drafted last night, so no anonymous commentary is necessary on the date issue....

We made up for lost time yesterday after our foul weather delay. PeterB and I cranked out 100+ miles and made it to the Canadian border. Along the way we ran into a group of a half-dozen college-aged guys heading west along the Northern Tier route. These were not the first people we've seen going west, but they were the first we'd actually talked to. They told us about the strong tailwinds we would get going through Ontario, as they had fought hard headwinds on the way through. Everything I've read about the route indicated that the winds were relatively light, which made me think these guys were going to be miserable once they hit the Dakotas and Montana. Now those were winds. Every other person we had seen riding west through that area, (and they were very rare), looked utterly beat down by the headwinds, and they had no desire to talk with us – who were riding the wind full bore the other way. I'll never understand why some people opt to ride though the Midwest from east to west....

We rode into Ontario on a ferry out of Marine City, Michigan. The river isn't so wide as to prohibit a bridge, but a number of ferries still operate up and down the river, which is nice. There's some romance in riding a ferry no matter how short the trip may be. I think the forced waiting makes the transit and the subsequent destination that much more meaningful. PeterB told the Canadian border agent that he was not carrying any mace with him when asked about it, even though he was, in fact, carrying some with him. Of course, we still got through without any problem. I told PeterB that I wasn't about to go to jail because of his lying ways next time.... (I've heard the Ontario jails are REALLY bad. They make Mexican prisons look like country clubs....)

The geography here is unbelievably flat. It makes Nebraska look downright mountainous. But that made for some really quick riding when we had a tailwind for about half the day. Ontario is, of course, almost indistinguishable from the U.S., but with some noteworthy exceptions. First, a lot of people really do use the non-word, “eh” quite a bit. It's such a bad stereotype, but it's true. Secondly, all distances are listed in kilometers which requires a bit of math in the head to figure them out, (1km=.62mi.!). Lastly, and perhaps this is the most important, the currency is all weird. It's a lot of different colors, and there's a liberal use of coin dollars, (the 'Loony”), and 2 dollar coins (the “Two-ny”). The use of both of these measures makes a lot of sense – as does the use of the metric system – but since we don't use it in America, it feels strange.

The people here are really friendly though – which was not the case in Michigan! PeterB left his wallet at a gas station 15 miles, (or 25km!), from the campground we're staying at. As soon as he realized that his wallet was missing when we arrived at the site, he dumped his stuff and headed back to hopefully find it. Meanwhile a woman who worked at the campsite scoured the phone book, found the gas station and confirmed that his wallet was there, and called her friends who were in a car nearby. The friends picked Peter up about 8 miles away from the campground, put his bike in their truck and gave him a lift to the gas station and back. And to think we're only about 90 miles from Detroit!

If the good weather holds – which it should for at least the next day or two – we'll be in Buffalo, New York on Saturday night or Sunday morning. At that point the plan is to break off from the mapped route we have, which takes us northeast into the Adirondacks, and forge our own route into the city. If everything goes well, we should be there by next weekend. That prospect makes me both very relieved and profoundly sad....