After a wonderful night's sleep in a real bed, after a real shower without 10 other women, and waking up to a beautiful breakfast prepared by Zach's dad and sister, we finally had to head back to school to get our bikes and head out on the road. To be honest, we all wanted to stay a few days longer, but we couldn't quite figure out a way to still bike across the continent while staying in one place. Oh, the dilemmas of life.
When we got back to the school almost everyone had left. Perhaps we had reaaallly taken our time that morning eating ham, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwiches, fresh coffee, juice, and greek yogurt. However, while we waited the Mayor of Sarnia showed up, took some photos with us, and talked with the cyclists. Can we call this a Local celebrity moment? I think so. While we waited on Matt (as usual), Mark decided to take my bike out for a spin. He suggested we switch bikes for the day because he felt really fast on mine, but I had to decline the offer. Mostly because he is over 6 ft tall and I only ride on a 50 inch frame.
The great thing about riding with a local is that they know all of the short-cuts. Zach was kind enough to show us one, which cut off about 8-10km from the original route. Now, you may not think that is much or really worth noting in my blog, but to a cyclist, 8-10km is huge. Especially with the cross-headwind we had. We arrived at SAG 1 and, even though we left last, had caught up with other cyclists who took the long way around. To be honest, I was feeling pretty tired and hoped desperately that we would be getting out of the headwind soon.
Riding with women can be a challenge. Not because we chatter too much, or because we get grumpy if we don't eat often enough (both of which may happen from time to time), but mostly because we have small bladders and need to use the bathroom frequently. This was one of those days! So we stopped at a gas station along the route. It was here that I introduced Laura to the Mars bar. I still can't believe that she had never eaten one before, but I think she was happy with the purchase :)
We also saw this sign on the window. Who knew?!
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, but included a Tim Horton stop around lunch-time. What can I say?! We're in Canada!!
After arriving at the school we would be staying at for the night and setting up camp in a small foyer, we got cleaned up and all spent some time relaxing. I watched a great movie on Netflix called "Won't back down" (look it up and watch it!) and my riding friends napped. However, we all had something to look forward to :) Zach's sister and Brother-in-law were coming to the school to take us shopping and out to dinner. Of course, the girls wanted to go to Lulu-Lemon.
Now, I generally have a rule that I don't enter Lulu-Lemon because it is so expensive. however, I had been convinced over the years that the clothing was worth the cost, so I went along. After about 10 minutes of wandering around, trying on tops, shorts, pants, etc., we were gathered into a group by one of the employees and told that they were speaking with Zach and his family about what we were doing on Sea to Sea and loved the idea. In fact, they loved the idea so much that they wanted to help us out by giving us each a free item such as a tank-top, water bottle, etc. We were blown away! We were so excited and quickly began trying on tank-tops... none of us went for the water bottle idea.
After a really long time of trying things on, and great patience by Zach's family, we were ready to check out!
I may have also purchased a pair of pants and a pair of shorts...
After over an hour at the store we were all VERY hungry, so we head into downtown London to get something to eat. Zach's family brought us to a great place called Jack Astor's where we enjoyed an amazing meal. It felt really nice to ride in a car, shop, and eat out, mostly because we felt normal again. And also the food was great because we hadn't eaten it 7 times already on the trip :)
There was so much that I had to box some of mine up!
And we got some pictures from the balcony where we ate our dinner, with a beautiful view of the city behind us.
Apparently the theme of the day was "FREE", because Zach's Sister and brother-in-law paid for our meals too!
After dinner we wasted away the rest of the evening walking around downtown London and getting a tour from Zach's brother-in-law. We saw some pretty buildings!
One of the great buildings included this CRC church.
Stay tuned for a blog about Friday-Sunday of week 7!
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