Milestone: 3,000 Miles today! (And it looks like about 600 more to go)
We are getting excited to finish the ride, and keep planning longer days--but something always comes up. We thought we'd get an early start, but as soon as we left the hotel in Orillia, David had a flat tire. I think that was number 14? I'm losing count at this point... Anyway, we stopped in a beautiful park right by the water and David fixed the flat--then we left Orillia on the local bike path.
The path was gorgeous--along the Couchiching Lake down to the Narrows which crossed between Couchiching and Simcoe Lakes. It was a pretty neat path with lots of users. The crossing left us on Rt. 12, which is a fairly busy highway--again with no shoulder. It wasn't too bad in the morning because the traffic was light. We rode into Brachin and stopped for coffee at a pretty marginal spot. But we met a nice woman there who told us there are about 12 quarries in the area, and to look out for dump trucks. Sure enough, once we got back on the road, there were more trucks than we have seen yet! They weren't those huge transports, but they were big enough to be of concern. We had a tough 15 miles before we found a side road we could take.
Once we left the highway, we were much happier! The riding was very good--ups and downs, but fun. I was a little slow from the long ride the day before, and of course, letting myself get a bit dehydrated was not a good idea. It takes a while to recover from that. We had tried to plan a backroad route in advance, but had to divert from it several times because the roads we picked were gravel. But we made it through Argyle, where we had a good lunch at the little General Store (which also had some great home and garden stuff for shopping--darn those little panniers!).
We worked our way to Lindsay, where we had planned to take a short break and check out potential paths at the local bike shop. We found the shop, called Down to Earth Outfitters. It was a real gem! Not only do they have bikes, they have great outdoor clothing and shoes. Again, I wished for LOTS more room in my panniers, but only bought a lightweight pair of shorts.
Ian and Sandra, the proprieters of the shop, were just fantastic! They were extremely helpful to us in finding our way on back roads to Peterborough. And Ian suggested that we avoid highway 7 altogether by going from Peterborough down toward Lake Ontario and taking Rt. 2 up the St. Lawrence River to our New York crossing. Great idea! We decided to adopt that re-plan and he showed us how to do it.
They were the most hospitable shop owners we have met in a long time, and that's saying something because almost every bike shop we have been in has been great. They let us park our bikes inside while we went to the local coffee shop for a drink, found a seat bolt that fit my bike to replace the alternative from Montana, and even did a quick check-out of David's gears because they weren't working exactly right. They did all this service for free, and wouldn't even let us buy them a beer! It's almost worth the trip to Ontario just to visit Down to Earth Outfitters!
We spent so much time there, we decided to just stay the night in Lindsay and head to Peterborough first thing in the morning. That turned out to be a good idea because we got a chance to see the new Harry Potter movie and to have a great meal (steak) at Hobart's Steak House--all right on the main street of Lindsay! I thought the movie was very good, and can't wait to read the next book when it comes out. But I won't be carrying that heavy thing in my panniers--I guess I'll have to wait to buy it until we get to Maine!
P.S. to my friends--I'm going to NOT allow comments on the next few blogs to see if we can't eliminate those junk comments we're getting. Sorry about that--I didn't realize junk could happen on a blog!
