The day started ominously--spurts of rain we could see fromour windows. And scratch what I said before about humidity because I was wrong. TODAY the humidity began--and it was at 100%! It was reminiscent of our days living on the East Coast in Pax River and DC. Yuck!
The air was actually hard to get through! So the riding was a bit more difficult, but at least we stayed dry for the first 10 km or so. Then the skies opened! We were DRENCHED within a few minutes! And although we were prepared for rain, we still were soaked.
The route we have chosen through Ontario is Rt. 17--the Trans-Canada Highway. When we asked about the route at the Sault Ste Marie visitor's center, we were told it had a pretty good shoulder all the way to Ottawa. LIES! I don't know what Canada was thinking, but this road is the ONLY option for traveling east-west, and there is no paved shoulder on much of it! To make matters worse, the shoulder that exists is one of deep gravel--not a cyclist's friend. We started with a 4-lane road and less than a foot of space outside the white line. This quickly deteriorated to a narrow 2-lane road with no shoulder from all. And the final blow is that locals tell us this road will not get better. So our plan to spend 500 miles on it doesn't seem very prudent!
With the rain, it was a pretty terrifying experience. Visibility was not good; vehicles were coating us with road sludge at every passing; and people weren't slowing down a lot when they passed, although they did try to move over when they could. I spent a good part of the day thinking about death as it appeared to be imminent! No major profound thoughts on that subject came together, but I'll let you know... We'll try to find alternative routes as soon as there are some available.
Last night, we watched the prologue of Le Tour de France, which was happening in London this year! It was a time trial and was very exciting. Stage 1 was today and the cyclists were going about 125 miles from London to Canterbury. We checked it out before we left the hotel, and they were AVERAGING 26 mph over the entire route! That is SO fast! If you want to check it out, try the OLN network. It carries the entire Tour and is very interesting. These guys are SO strong!
We did NOT match the Tour riders during our morning--in fact did worse than usual. The rain makes you cold and creaky, and it's hard to get into the groove of riding. We stopped at the Bavarian Inn in Bruce Mine, which gave me a chance to change shirts and warm up. They were also having an art show, which was fun to see--lots of Canada-inspired oil and watercolor paintings as well as some fabric art. Nice! We came away without anything else to pack onto our bikes (whew!) and tried to finish the last 12 miles of our ride into Thessalon.
Once we got started, we had a big headwind! How did that happen? Canada was throwing everything at us in one day! Luckily the rain had ended, so we fought our way over short hill after short hill. We weren't sure which was worse--the rainstorm or the windstorm, but the traffic made it all nearly unbearable!
Once we made it to Thessalon, we stopped at teh Carolyn Beach Inn. Turns out they weren't completely friendly or helpful (no guest laundry, etc.). And they didn't want us to take the bikes into the room--a problem for David because it's very difficult for him to remove his panniers. We thought we might go into town and see if there was another hotel there, but guess what! Carolyn is the only game in town! So we sucked it up and decided to be happy we had a place to stay at all. It turned out to be a lovely spot on a gorgeous part of Lake Huron's North Channel. The food was fantastic (although very expensive) and the owners turned out OK after all! Our next door neighbors were a group of motorcyclists who were a wealth of information about Canada's roadways! They were such nice people, and they really helped us figure out some alternatives to the sure death we had originally planned for.
We "discussed" our alternative plans for awhile before bed and didn't come to any conclusions. I insisted on being positive--thinking that the rain and Sunday traffic had a big part to play in our impression of the highway. David was equally sure that we needed to change our plans. We called a truce until after one more day of riding--to make a more informed decision.
We had the biggest thunderstorm that night, with lightning everywhere! I was so glad we stayed at the hotel!
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