I'm working pretty hard to keep up this blog-a-day thing, and I figured that if I'm going to keep my sanity I should catch up on all of the days I missed already. In other words, week 8. So I've decided to break it up into 2 or 3 blog posts. Today's blog will cover the first half of week 8 where we travelled from Ajax to Kingston, ON.
Well, I left you off Sunday night at Redeemer University College with the idea of the travelling tu-tu game. I can proudly say that it worked pretty well that first day! Again, the rule was that if you receive the tu-tu, you have to wear it for 1 hour before you can pass it along. Since I wore the tu-tu Sunday night, I was able to give it away Monday morning. I knew that if I wanted the game to catch on at all I would have to give it to someone who would play along. Someone with a good sense of humour. A guy who was secure enough to wear a tu-tu all breakfast. Who did I choose? None other than Matt Hoogsteen. :)
And before we left for the ride that day, he passed it on to Adam :) They were such good sports about it, and got a lot of laughs from the other cyclists.
The ride that day was beautiful. We were traveling on the waterfront trail, and had amazing views the entire day. Here are a few photos I got along the way!
We were fortunate enough to have the route pass by one of the cyclist's houses, where coffee was served :)
We rode for a while and finally stopped when we first saw the CN tower. It was a ways away, but we figured it was time for another photo :)
A little ways further down we decided to stop again... I suppose we were a bit photo-happy today?!
As the extra observant of you may notice, there are 2 additional riders with us in these photos. Carla Cranbury and "Gypsy" Jess joined us this week. Carla is riding to Montreal and Jess is going to NY. You can expect to see them in photos for this week :)
We eventually made it into downtown Toronto where we got more pictures of the sights. In other words, the CN tower.
After stopping on Cherry Street for lunch, we head back on the bike path. Several of the girls were tempted to stop for ice cream earlier, but we decided against it. Luckily enough, a church from Newmarket had set up at one of our SAGs and was giving out drumsticks!! We were very happy :) The only thing better than ice-cream is free ice-cream.
When we finally got into camp that day I checked on the tu-tu. It had got stalled during the day when someone gave it to a SAG driver. I quickly retrieved it from the SAG truck and gave it to Len "Papa" Kooy. He wore it wonderfully :)
As did Julia (didn't get a picture), and Rudy...
And Larry...
And Steve!! ! The number of ways in which you can wear the tu-tu is amazing :)
The next day we head out to Trenton, ON. Riding alongside the lake again was great. We got a bit of rain that day, but nothing too serious. We mostly didn't mind because of the many church stops we had, full of food, including olie bollen :)
After we got our things from the school we head out to Sara's place. She lives in Carrying Place, just outside of Trenton. We were all eager for a laundry stop which included home-cooked food and real beds :). But, before we had dinner or did anything else, we went with her dad to the lake where he took us boating. It was a very chilly day, and pretty windy so we got pretty wet and cold. We had originally wanted to go tubing, but it seemed to chilly. So, we opted for a dip in Lake Ontario!
It was far warmer than expected, but as soon as we got out again we were pretty cold. Good thing we were having so much fun that we didn't care!
After dinner, a Walmart run, and grabbing some snacks from the school where everyone was staying, we head back to Sara's place. Here, we enjoyed chips, drinks, a movie, and painting our toenails. It is possible that we may have also painted Zach's... :)
We spent the night watching our movie and relaxing, which felt amazing. The best part was the real bed, and the amazing breakfast Sara's mom had prepared for us! Bacon, eggs, home-made muffins, chocolate milk, orange juice, coffee... you name it. It was fantastic! We also got great lunches! What a great day in Trenton :)
On a funny "it's-a-small-world" note, before we left from the school I looked at the old class photos on the walls to see if I could find Sara in them. Imagine my surprise when instead I found people that I knew from Regina?! Apparently the Kooger's lived nearby at some point and sent their children to that school! It was so surprising I had to take pictures.
Oh, and Carla got the tu-tu :)
Before we left, Sara's father (local cop), came to the school. What a treat - he was going to escort us for the day!
He may have pulled someone over and given them a ticket...
As we continued to Kingston, Alice Brinks was fortunate enough to get the tu-tu! She rocked it like she owned it.
And we continued down the road. This is our pace-line as we head to the ferry.
From time to time we will see signs along the road to encourage us. I saw this one and quickly snapped a photo. We love having these along the way!
There was a line-up for the ferry, so we decided to go a bit off route to see the Mountain lake. It was a 2km climb, which isn't much. However, this day was a 1-gear challenge day. What is this you might ask? Well, let me explain.
1-gear challenge day is where you ride in 1 gear for the entire day. No changing part way through because it gets too tough. You choose your gear and you stick with it. This is tough because sometimes you are spinning way too fast, and other times you can barely make it up a hill, depending on which gear you chose. The reason for this is to help us understand limitations better. People in poverty live within such limitations, and often have no choice of change or making things "easier". Although it isn't exactly a similar experience, it was one way for us to understand the frustrations of limitations in our ride.
I definitely had to stand up the entire way up that hill... but the view was worth it!
It was here that Henry got the tu-tu.
This is the group on the ferry!!
And me taking a break at the last SAG stop of the day :) It was pretty cold so I wore my leg covers and sleeves all day. Who knew Ontario was this cold in August?!
Sara got the tu-tu to wear all the way into camp :) She wore it proudly!
At the campground in Kingston we saw this sign, with about 100 tents behind it. It was too funny. I had to take a picture.
There were only 2 showers at this campground, so the line-up was pretty long for the 60 some women who needed to hose off at the end of the day, but we had some entertainment. A man was playing bagpipes in the park, and the view of the lake was beautiful!
Stay tuned for the rest of week 8, coming up soon!
It is possible that we may have also painted Zach's... :) -- Hilarious!
ReplyDelete