4 Days and Counting...

After I left you off yesterday I made my way back to camp where two things happened which I wasn't super fond of.

1.) I found out there were very large snakes in our campground. Now, as a biologist, I love all creatures. However, when your tent no longer zips up properly and you're sleeping right next to the site where said 4-ft long snake was seen, you feel less than inclined to like the creature.

2.) Meatloaf was for dinner. I love our cooks and I love their food, but I was secretly hoping for lasagna, or stir fry, or... well, anything but meatloaf. That, and they were all out of chocolate milk, and 1% so I had to settle for 2%. My mom understands how much of a sacrifice that is for me... Not a big fan of the 2%.

Oh, and a 3rd thing. We also found out that we could have taken a different route that day that would have been much more pleasant, and would have brought us to Vermont! Apparently, we could have taken the ferry to Vermont (which we passed and several people took anyways just to visit), traversed the distance in Vermont, and crossed back over to NY state to reach our destination. Oh well. That 6,600 and some ft of climbing was good for the soul.

Well, enough complaining. After dinner I cleaned my bike chain because it was squeaking quite a bit, had peloton, found out about the route for the next day, and then settled into my tent. Some of the others head back to the tavern to hang out, but I was pretty tired and settled for reading my book. It was fairly short-lived, and I fell asleep before 9pm :)

After our success yesterday leaving early, we decided to try it again, so we left this morning at 7:15. Not as early as yesterday, but still a great starting time! We biked easily along the route which consisted of rolling hills and beautiful views. I'll hand it to New York. They may have the worst grades on ills, but they sure have beautiful views.

At one point in the ride, early in the morning, we caught up with a large group of cyclists. I thought it looked pretty neat to see us all biking in a line, going around the corner, so I took a photo.

After skipping the second SAG, we stopped at a small coffee shop. Many riders had come through there that morning and so they knew all about our cause. I think they may have been slightly overwhelmed by the number of costumers they got that morning, but they still wished us well!

 

To be honest, I was ready to leave the café about 30 minutes before we did (we were there almost an hour), but stayed because everyone else ordered breakfast and I ate my peanut-butter sandwiches. In retrospect I should have continued on my own so they didn't feel rushed by my desire to leave. Live and learn!

 

By SAG 3 it was starting to get pretty warm out. It was around 11:30 and I was ready to get going an dhead into camp without more stops, so Zach and I just grabbed water, a piece of watermelon, and head back on to road. I really enjoyed only taking about 2 minutes at the SAG because my legs didn't feel tired when I got back on the bike. All of these things you wish you knew/had done 8 weeks earlier :P We repeated the same technique at the last SAG, which had "imitation Tim-bits" (Dunkin' Donuts), and set back on the path. Here are some of the sights along the way, from the saddle.

 

At one point, only about 10km from camp, we had to go up a large ramp, and were required to walk our bikes up and down the ramps, but could bike on the flat part. Weird, but interesting to experience.

 

When we got into camp we were greeted with Cowbells and signs, food, and the promise of a nice shower :) Today's stop is at the YMCA! Zach and I set up our tents and also Matt's, Sara's and Laura's because they weren't in yet, and worked up a real sweat in the process! it was over 90 degrees by this time and we needed to cool off. The showers were as wonderful as promised, and even better because there were 12 for men and 12 for women! A huge difference compared to yesterday, when there were only 2 for everyone. 

 

 



And so concludes Week 9, Day 4. Stay tuned for the rest of my last week on Sea to Sea!

Return to the U.S.A. & The Hills are Alive

 

Well folks, the time has come for another blog. Remember how I said that I would post 2 blogs today? Well, I've mushed them into one because they are both quite short. So here we go.

 

Monday - our last Monday of the tour! It was a bit of a sad thought, but to be honest, I think we're all getting ready for the tour to come to an end so we can go back home to our families, friends, and lives. This tour has become our lives for the last 8 weeks and I think we're starting to miss normalcy a bit. That, and showering alone, not using public washrooms, and no longer sleeping in tents :).

 

 

Well, the ride was 120km for the day to take us from Montreal, crossing the border, and heading into the state of NY. It was a great Monday! Our group biked together, had great conversations, and enjoyed the time we had this week. We really tried to savour the time we had left. Then we ran into a very large patch of gravel. When I say large patch, I mean a stretch of it over 2 miles long. On a road bike, these sorts of areas are to be avoided at all costs, but there was no avoiding this one. 

 

 

It wasn't too terrible. There were a few scary patches of deep gravel that made our tires slip a bit, but we were doing okay. That was, until Laura got a flat. In our group, flats are rare and only 1 person in our group carries a pump. This person is Matt. Normally a flat wouldn't be an issue, but in this case Matt was a good mile ahead of us when Laura got the flat, and so we had to walk for over 20 minutes until we reached him. It was relaxing, but it did take up a bit of time..

 

 

Eventually we got to the border and after a stop at the Duty Free and illegally re-entering Canada to find a washroom, we were the last of the Sea to Sea riders to enter the USA. We were all surprised at how friendly the border patrol was! I thought that sort of reception only happened at Canadian borders! Of course, we had to take a picture at the NY state sign!

 

 

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. The group got some ice-cream at a rest stop while I looked for a washroom, and after 2 large climbs we were in camp. Showers, dipping my feet into the pool, and laundry took the remainder of the afternoon. Following an amazing chili dinner, can you guess what I did? That's right, Gregg. I blogged :)

 

 

Today (Tuesday) was an early start day. I had kind of become a bit tired of leaving camp at 8am (several hours after many people leave) and getting into camp last, so I talked to the group and we agreed to leave by 7. Aside from arriving late, we knew that today would be tough. Almost 7000ft of climbing and 130km, I didn't want to be on the road in the heat of the day. Laura was in charge of the wake-up call, and we got up, cleaned up, ate up, and were ready to go. Matt was still in his tent, despite the wake-up calls, so he was left to bike with another group.

 

 

The first site we ran into exiting camp was the Au Sable Chasm. Here is the view from the bridge we biked over. 

 

 

The river along the road was also beautiful.

 

Beginning in the earlier morning was also great because there was no wind! But the view going down the road was pretty with all of the trees lining the way.

 

We passed several lakes. I believe this one was called Champlain.

 

And saw the mountains in the distance, just beyond the beautiful fields :)

 

There were so many hills today, and they were exhausting for me at times. Zach kept things interesting for the ride and kept me paying attention so I didn't bonk or go crazy.

 

Along the ride we ended up picking up Betty Bandstra, and passing by Betty Adams! It was a Betty day :) Here is Betty Adams with her pomp-pomps she always has flying off the back of her bike. Isn't she adorable? She just turned 65 last week and bikes like a champ.

 

Another lake view just before getting into camp!

 

So remember that one time in my blog where I said the words "I love climbing!"?? Well.. I may have to take those back after today. Several hills were well over 12% grade and stretched out over long distances, and one hill was actually 16%. I have never worked so hard to pedal at 8km/h...

 The 7000ft over 130km in the blazing heat was hard to handle. Also, our SAG stops were spaced out more than normal because one of the vehicles got lost, and so we essentially skipped a SAG on the hardest day since the desert. So after today, can I say that I still love climbing? ... I'm not sure. Right now I want to say no, though.

 

 

Anyways, sitting at the pub at our campground, blogging away. It's about time for dinner, so I'll say adios for now. Until tomorrow!

Week 8, part 2 - Sunday's blog, posted on Monday :)

It's time to finish off the blog from week 8. Here is part two folks; fasten your seat belts.

Thursday morning we head from Kingston into Brockville, ON. At this point in the tour, the days start to blur together. This day was fairly uneventful. We rode along a nice bike path for the majority of the day, but stopped partway at a boat tour of the 1000 islands. Our group didn't go on the tour unfortunately, but we did end up making it into camp a lot earlier than usual, which I suppose can be taken as a positive!

We quickly set up our tents, which was good. The space available in the park was limited, and it soon became tent city, with the only available real estate on the slope of a hill.

 

While we sat around waiting for something to do, Christeena braided my hair. It was so great! I wish I had taken a picture... I guess I'll just have to ask her to do it again?! :) Anyways, she braided several girl's hair, and so Dan decided to take a swing at it on Danita's head while Christeena supervised. Always learning on Sea to Sea.  

 

After the braiding and sitting around eating delicious homemade cookies from Jess's mom (her family lived close by), we head into town to do some blogging. At Tait's Bakery we got some Wi-Fi and after telling the very interested owner about what we were doing on Sea to Sea, we also the promise of free breakfast for the next morning! We were very excited. Everyone went to get a brew because the Wi-Fi was getting slow with all of us using it, but I stayed to blog (I knew that Gregg would be checking!). After the blog I joined up with them and had some poutine. It was a delicious afternoon snack :)

 

Dinner was provided by a local church and we had peloton meeting. When it came time to tell stories of donations or receiving money along the road, Sara came up with her mom and told us about how she has a jar in which she saves her money, and when it gets full, donates it to a cause. She was donating the contents of her jar to Sea to Sea, and the total came to over $300.00! So amazing. She was very happy and proud to be able to make that contribution :)

 

 Post-peloton and small groups, I head down to the docks at the lake we were staying at. Christeena is a bit of a "tent-rebel" and sleeps outside each night, (You gotta commend her for it!), and told me she would be sleeping on the dock that night, so I decided to join her and stay under the stars. We were joined by Jess and Katie later on, and had a small group of people come out and hang out there for a while to talk and sit under the stars. Kaitlyn brought cider and snacks to make it a complete party :) The guys tried to play a joke on us by distracting us while one of them slipped into the water, and swam up to the other side of the dock, popping out of the water to scare us, but unfortunately I wasn't scared and all I got was a wet mattress from all the water they splashed up. However, Katie gave a good scream of terror so it was pretty funny. Here is a view of the lake from the hill that I took earlier that afternoon.

 

The next morning, Friday, Zach's angel's head into town for our free breakfast. We brought along with us Christeena and "Little" John Stehouwer, Carla, and Jess. We had breakfast sandwiches with bacon and they tasted amazing. Also, the coffee was pretty great! 

 

Not 15km down the shoreline in our route we had another stop at Jess' place. Her mom had made cinnamon buns and boiled eggs for all of the cyclists, so we stopped and had a few. By the way, the cinnamon buns had cream cheese icing... it was amazing! The view from their street was also beautiful.

 

Here we are, enjoying the coffee and food. Matt looks pretty content.

 

Here is my bike! Across the waters is the state of New York! We were so close!!

 

That day we had a time-trial (TT). For those of you who don't know what this is, a TT is where you bike a particular distance, in our case, 26km, as fast as you can and time yourself. I had only done 1 other TT before, and it was 10km, so this seemed impossibly long. Especially since my last TT took me almost 20 minutes. This was part of my motivation to not participate. However, after seeing all of my riding buddies take off to participate (it started at SAG 2), I decided to join in. The ride was great, but I definitely could feel my body working pretty hard. It was funny... I wasn't tired, but my muscles were pretty tight and starting to burn. Anyways, I did much better this time than on my last TT. I averaged 33km/h and made it in around 47 minutes according to my watch. The actual results wouldn't be released until Peloton that evening :) I wasn't worried about getting first because I knew it wouldn't happen, but I was happy to have participated anyways! Probably helped to work off those cinnamon buns a bit!

 

Camp for the day was at NAV, a conference center in Cornwall, ON. It was a beautiful complex with a pool, bar, restaurant, spa, etc. Unfortunately the spa was all booked and so we couldn't get massages, but we set up tents, took the nicest showers of the entire tour, (some sat in the sauna), blogged, and got a delicious Keith's cider at the pub.

 

At dinner we were surprised by a local church with desserts! Here is just some of the spread that was there.  

 

We also found out at Peloton who the time trial winners were. Katie took second place!!

 

Saturday's ride was a great one because we got to move into our second province, Quebec!! We unfortunately missed the large sign because we were on a separate highway, and could only see it from a distance, but luckily this small sign was to be found along our route :)

 

 

We saw some beautiful lakes...

 

 

And found this great little bagel shop, where the bagels were made on site. Dough was made, poached, and baked in a wood oven. I had to say that it is definitely the best bagel I've ever eaten! Not to put down "Bert Bagels", but.... Quebec knows what's up.

 

A few other riders may have found this site also :)... It might have been so good that I ordered a second helping...!

 

The ride continued with great sights like the following...

 

It was smooth sailing on a beautiful riding day until, about 15km from camp Jess got a flat. A few of us were a little ahead and pulled into the nearest drive where we entered into the beginning of a horror movie plot.

 

Flat tire, middle of nowhere, no cars coming by, and the place we choose to pull into is a closed business with terrible taxidermy of Nationally protected geese hanging from the roof.

Broken down cars and no one in site...  people splitting off from the group in search of an open convenience store...

 

Luckily we all made it back and after the flat was changed, we continued on our way. However, it didn't stop us from playing out in our minds this bad horror movie plot.

 

After the flat we got a bit lost. The C's on the road were saying 2 different things, so we just made a decision to follow one set. We thought we were on the right track, but after several back alleys which resulted in a lack of C's later down the road, we figured a local got a can of spray paint and decided to mess with us a bit... Luckily I still had access to data and so I used google maps to bring us back to the right road. We'll never know what really happened there...

We eventually made it to our stop for the weekend - Kahnawake Survival School. Here is a bit of a blurb that I looked up online because I was intrigued by the school's name.

 

"Kahnawa:ke Survival School was established in September 1978 by parents, students and community members as a strong reaction and response to Quebec’s Language Law Bill 101."

 

I wasn't sure what Bill 101 was, so I looked it up. I found that it was the language law making French the official language of Quebec. I gathered that this school was established to maintain the aboriginal languages of the people there and avoid losing that aspect of their culture by adopting French as their sole language. It is my understanding that the students at the school learn their native language, as well as French and English. I thought it was pretty neat! 

 

That night, since we were too far from Montreal to make a night trip in, we had a progressive Euchre tournament, organized by Julia. It was a lot of fun and I was actually doing pretty well, but some of us wanted to see a movie that night, so we got one of the Sea to Sea vans and head to the closest theatre where we saw Elysium. I won't give anything away for those of you who haven't seen it, but it was a great idea, and in my opinion, a plot ruined by attempting to get an R rating. Oh well. it was our first movie night on tour and we had a great time going out! Here is the crew... well, those who made it into the flash range at least :)
 

 

Sunday was to be our day in Montreal and we didn't have to get up until pretty late because the shuttles to the church didn't leave until 10, however, we got up early that day. Carla was leaving that weekend with her parents and so they took us out for breakfast to Cora's! It was delicious and really fun.

 

When we got back we boarded the school buses we rented and head into Montreal. This is a picture of the church we were worshiping in. It was really impressive.

 

It was a very formal service, but they had a great choir and an excellent sermon on the issue of poverty in our local places of living. Very appropriate.

 

Following a time of refreshments in the "quiet gardens" we went to explore Montreal. Here are some of the sights I got to take before my camera died.

 

Julia and Zach dancing in the bubbles of a bubble machine on the street.

 

A mustache for each day!

 

Very big lollipops at the candy store...

 

And the world's largest gummy bear! Way too big.

 

And drinks in the park, listening to the parade go by.

 

That evening we went to do laundry and were out of luck with every place we went to . Either they were closed or weren't actually laundry facilities... Stupid Google maps... Oh well. It was good bonding time and we got to see a beautiful sunset.

 

And so concludes our blog. Stay tuned for 2 blogs tomorrow! (Have to make up for the missed day, Gregg!)

 

Week 8, part 1 - Ajax, Trenton, & Kingston



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!