Monday, August 12, 2013
Ride Day 137
I left the campground at the crack of dawn and despite feeling cold, especially my fingers, I hit the road without even drying my tent. The ride was more boring farmland but this time with more curves and hills in the roads, still not much excitement to see or any pic ops. I rode for a while and then stopped for a 3 egger and some coffee. I ate a Sub sandwich later instead of my usual third breakfast. The roads were a bit bumpy and there was almost 10 miles of construction where I had to ride over either gravel or freshly scalloped road surface. My tires took another severe beating. I hope they last me to at least Bar Harbor. More new tires would hurt my budget which is already broken beyond repair I think. Canada and the East coast are both very expensive compared to traveling in the rest of the country. Hotels, motel, food and campgrounds are way more expensive. Basically I can’t afford to be in either of those places on my tight budget. But I have to find a way to stretch it so I can finish this ride. I crossed the Rainbow Bridge from Ontario to the American side. I sat on the bridge in the hot bright sun for well over an hour waiting to get through to the American side. I was sweltering in the heat. I drank a whole bottle of ice water and then half of my second bottle while sitting in the traffic jam. Finally I made it back to the US and immediately headed north east to get out of the even more expensive tourist place that Niagara Falls is. At about 70 miles I lost my get up and go. I needed a campground so I stopped to ask some fire fighters that were out admiring their brand new ladder truck. They were helpful with directions but then one of them said why don’t you just stay here, I will go ask Mike. Mike came over and after asking me some quick questions said sure put your tent up behind our building and join our birthday party that we are having out back for Elmer who is 100 years old. I told him thanks and put my bike out back. Mike showed me the shower so I could get cleaned up before joining a large group of people. My clothes were all covered with white salt residue from sweating so much today, mostly while sitting idle on the Rainbow Bridge. After showering and some clean clothes I joined the party. I had a great time talking to Elmer the birthday man and all the rest of the wonderful people. There was a ton of great food with a potluck and a lot of catered food also with cake and ice cream at the end of course. I filled up for sure with all the food and desserts. Lots of the people were interested in my ride and I explained it to them and then later showed a few pics. They took my blog address and told me they would look it up. I enjoyed the party tremendously. You watch the news on TV and it sounds like the world is full of nothing but assholes and axe murdering wierdos but I find that there are so many truly wonderful people around that the news is seriously misrepresenting the current state of the world, especially here in the US. After the party I helped clean up then put up my tent and rested. Tomorrow I head to Holley only about 40 miles away. A guy there told me he wanted to ride with me so I am going to meet with him to see if we would be able to do that. It would be good to have a fellow rider along for a while. More later….
Ride Day 136
Today I rode 80 miles from Talbotville to Cayuga ON. The ride was flat to slightly rolling farmland and was not very exciting and had few pic ops. I did stop at a McDonalds to use the wifi for a minute and they had lobster rolls on the menu. Here I am. I mean here I am. Riding my bicycle 12,000 miles for a lobster roll and now before I get there they are selling them at McDs. Kinda makes me feel like I wasted a lot of time. No not really I know that nothing outside of Maine is a real lobster roll so I will wait till I get there. I am only 2 weeks out of Bar Harbor unless I find something to do to kill some time. I wanted to be there for the fall color change and I will be about three weeks early at this rate. I am looking for a way to hole up cheaply so that I can be around for the colors. I can’t afford to hang around at the prices they charge for camping and hotels are out of the question so I would need to find a free or very inexpensive time killer you know like being in jail or something. No jail won’t work for me but maybe a hot lover would work if I could find one. I ended up in a family campground called the Oaks in Cayuga Ontario. I had a good time there talking to Kat who ran the café in the camp. She was lively to talk to. Then I talked with a group of boy scouts that were doing a canoe trip to get merit badges. Otherwise I just crashed and burned in my tent. I had planned on watching the meteor shower at midnight but when I woke up to do it I just looked quickly saw a few shooting stars and went back to bed. It just did not excite me watching alone. More later
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Friday, August 9, 2013
Ride Day 135
I woke up early and crawled out of my tent still tired but unable to sleep. My tent was all wet so I emptied it and turned it over to dry and put the fly and tarp over picnic tables to dry also. While I waited for them to dry I charged my electronics and made some coffee and oatmeal. When I finally got loaded onto the bike I took off. The road today was a long straight flat kind of boring farmland county road. There was construction for about 6 miles where the road was scalloped for resurfacing and I had to ride over the scalloped road. That short ride probably shortened the life of my bike tires by 1500 miles. I felt them after I was past the construction and there was a coating of rubber dust on the tires from the abuse of the rough road. I came to my first small town at about 40 miles and stopped for a breakfast of bacon and eggs. I got back on the bike and rode another 30 miles before I stopped for some lunch then I stopped just up the road from lunch at Holland House for a second coffee break. I started talking to the owner and all the customers about biking and ice skating because an 82 year old Dutch man told me he still skates competitively and rides century bike rides as well. We talked for about an hour which I enjoyed and then I finally got back in the saddle. I rode another 10 miles before I suddenly started to feel sick so I checked into a motel for the night so that I would have easy access to a toilet. After a few hours of agony on the toilet I felt better. Tomorrow I will try to make it to Niagara Falls but my stomach may have something to say about that so I will just do whatever I feel up to. I have to stop staying in hotels or I will be bust in a week. Hotels just are not in my tight budget and I have had two in the last week, both "emergency" hotels so to speak.
I took very few pics but here they are.
Ride Day 134
This morning my friend Regi gave me a ride through the worst parts of Detroit that I needed to get through then we said goodbye and I took off pedaling along the lake near Grosse Point which is a ritzy area right next to a bombed out area of Detroit. I rode for 25 miles along city streets with an increasing headwind slowing me down then I turned out of the wind and hit road construction. I finally made it to the ferry very tired for such a short ride. After the ferry took me to the Canadian side I had to go through immigration. they almost did not let me in the country. I had to correct them when they told me I had been arrested multiple times when in fact I have never been arrested other than the fiasco in Nigeria but I failed to remember that at the time. They would not tell me what arrests they were talking about but rather asked me to explain all my arrests. I told them I have no arrest record and maybe they have the wrong records or something. They finally gave in and allowed me to enter. I immediately found a campground and set up camp then I jumped on my bike and when looking around. I rode north along the river and ended up stopping at a bar grill and had a beer and a burger. I chatted with the owner and the waitress for a long time and a had fun with a few drinking patrons also.
I then ambled back to the campground which cost $30 by the way plus tax. Some of the people in the campground came over to talk when they saw my bike. I then went down to the river to see what was going on and ran into a man named Jim that was monitoring the ship traffic on his scanner and then watching each ship go by. He told me all the facts of each ship as it passed. He is a retired ship worker and also worked for GM long enough to get a pension. We talked for a long time about his career and then about his daughter that is doing a charity bike ride from LA to Jersey. She raised over $10,000 for her charity. He also told me about the storm the night before that brought down a lot of large branches and a few trees along with some heavy rain showers. Glad I got here a day later. The night was beautiful but again the campground was very noisy until very late at night. I really do prefer the quiet solitude of camping alone along the side of the road somewhere. I got my 2 hours sleep in but they had no wifi so I could not communicate with anybody.
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