Will This Ever Get Easy???

Day 52: Tobermory to Owen Sound, ON--72 miles

...Not today!!!


After a gorgeous sunset last night overlooking Lake Huron, we slept in and got going at about 9:30. We headed toward the Georgian Bay.

As we headed down Rt. 6, we realized that the sad fact is with the number of people traveling, the main roads just aren't great for cycling. Mostly in Canada, the roads are few and the cars are many! Although the speeds were slower and there were less transports, there still aren't any shoulders to speak of and you have to watch constantly in your rear view mirror. This dampens the fun of the experience!

The good news is that the drivers for the most part are very good with cyclists. So they try their best to go around as widely as possible. We're on a popular cyclists route--900 km around the Georgian Bay. We saw a group of 7 cyclists today, which were a couple of days from the end of their 9-day tour. Wimps! Ha! Actually, they all looked quite fit and seemed to be having a fun time together--they were from Quebec.

I struggled today to get any speed up at all. The cycling was relatively flat and should have been easy, but for some reason (hormones? just plain tired? homesick?) it wasn't. However, we saw some beautiful country--farmland and national parkland--the beautiful yellow fields of rapeseed (canola) in bloom, and Cottage Country. They call this Cottage Country because it's the second home area for Toronto (which is to the south). It really reminded me of Winter Park! These "cottages" run from normal cottage size to absolutely huge! Many have a boat out front and their little piers seem to be made of stone. Really fun sightseeing!

It seemed like we traveled uphill to reach the water. We were traveling down the Bruce Peninsula, which was created from the Niagra Escarpment--an escarpment that must have helped create the Great Lakes. We stopped at this little gas station to get something to drink for lunch, and it turned out to also be a restaurant. We figured "What the heck?" and went in. We had some fabulous beef stew and fresh fruit with homemade bread (they have GREAT bread up here). It was in the town of Mar, and it was really fun to find this little place disguised as a gas station! By the way, they sell gas in litres here, and the equivalent would be about $4.25 per gallon. So the USA gas is still much cheaper than most of the rest of the world.

As soon as we could find an alternative route, we left Rt. 6 and traveled the back roads. Much better! Although they might be a little less smooth, it is worth it to have less traffic. A little more uphill, and FINALLY we found a nice downhill that stopped near the water of Owen Sound. What a sight! This is just gorgeous territory. We turned to go into the town of Owen Sound, and got some great house sightseeing. The houses on the water were big and beautiful, and the town on that side of the sound was really nicely kept and picturesque.

We rode through town and stopped at the local bike shop. As usual, we found friendly and very helpful people! They gave us some local bicycle maps which showed suggested bicycle routes that avoid the highly traveled roads. What a treat to have some more alternatives!

We rode for a couple more miles to the hotel on the Sound, and spent a happy night watching Le Tour!

Chi-Cheemaun

Day 51: South Baymouth to Tobermory, ON--1 mile (bicycle), and 30 miles by ferry!

Today was a bittersweet day. The bitter is because today is the one-year anniversary of the day Tom got hit by the car on his bicycle. So we've been thinking about him even more than ever--feeling a little anger at the events that ended his life, and also appreciating how long we had him here. We know he's with us on this ride, but it would have been so much more fun to have him here in person. I also have been overrun with thoughts of David's mom and dad, so they must all be up there throwing thoughts my way! I checked, and we're at almost $1500 in donations. Today would be an appropriate day to donate to Tom's charity: the link is http://www.active.com/donate/BNB_Membership/tomsride if you want to check it out. I'm still going for $10,000!

It's weird to be happy and sad at the same time, but today started out with rain and clouds and then turned into this bright, beautifully vibrant day in a village by the water!


We started our day with a nice breakfast at the guesthouse, and then went over to catch the ferry to Tobermory. It's called the M.S. Chi-Cheemaun, and it's about 365 feet long. I think it holds about 100 cars or so. It looked big enough to me! We met another cyclist on the ferry--Neskie who is riding from Vancouver to Nova Scotia to do his last year of college. He's REALLY traveling light, and was just a great guy! We hope to see him again someday.


The ferry ride lasted 2 hours, and was really cool. We were first on and first off, so we got to see the motorcycles, vehicles, trucks, transports, and motor homes all join us and leave behind us. Once in Tobermory, we thought that we'd just take the day off from cycling in Tom's honor, and enjoy this beautiful place!


Lots of shopping and a little work and some blogging later, we're ready for dinner. In one of the shops, I found a quote (no attribution) that I thought was really neat. Here it is:

"Courage does not always roar. Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying "I will try again tomorrow."

So we will.

This Island Ain't Flat

Day 50: Little Current to South Baymouth--42 miles


The profound thought for the day: Planning an easy day and HAVING an easy day can be two very different things!

We decided to experience a bit of this gorgeous place and do a 42-mile bicycle tour of the island--still progressing toward our goal. We cycled from the north to south ends, which was the short expanse of the island. It is probably 3 times that wide. We were looking forward to an easy day!

What we didn't count on was the 35 kmph wind screaming from the west. Oh, sure: where were those winds when we were heading EAST? It was hard to stay in your line on the road--we kept being pushed into the lane by gusts. Today, the traffic was light and the people were great about passing us with plenty of room to spare. So we considered ourselves lucky!

Our tough ride was broken into segments. First, we rode about 12 km to Shegoiandah and stopped at the museum there. They were having a pottery exhibit of present and past potters. We saw lots of nice pottery some interesting glaze techniques. It got us itching to get back to the studio to make some things of our own!

Then we cycled about 10 more km to Ten Mile Point, which was a wonderful spot to see the view--the huge South Bay and Manitoulin's peninsula that sticks out to the East. They also had a trading post for shopping--and David, as always, was a super shopper! Several people who were shopping mentioned that they had seen us on the road, and commented about trying to ride in those strong winds. It was just like small town America!

After that stop, the wind picked up (unbelievably)! We also turned and spent some time heading straight into it! Even strong-man David could only muster about 8 mph into the wind. And to throw another insult at us, Canada threw in some extra tough hills! How rude!

But we made it to Manitowaning for lunch, and the last 15 km or so we persevered into South Baymouth. This town had a lot less than Little Current, but we found an interesting Gallery/Guesthouse to stay in--the Southside Gallery and Guesthouse. By guesthouse, they mean something like a B&B, except we had to share a bathroom with two other rooms. Interesting! Somewhat like a hut trip, but with strangers. Anyway, it worked out OK, except for our door didn't lock! One of the other guests kept mistaking our room for hers--and kept walking right in! We would just say "Hi, Brenda" and she would apologize and quickly go out! But it kept us on our toes...

David had liver & onions for dinner and I had perogies, which we have seen on almost every menu in Canada so far. We were at Carol and Earl's restaurant, and it was a hearty family meal!

We slept with the breeze from the South Bay coming into our window (and Brenda occasionally coming into our door), and got ready to catch the ferry!

7 Weeks Later...

Day 49: Spanish to Little Current, ON--63 miles

Flat tire #12. Luckily, it happened before we left the hotel! So David bit the bullet and put a brand new tire on the back of my bike. Hopefully it helps with the problem. Of course, the new tire required a brake adjustment, etc. It delayed us almost an hour!

We did our swansong 30 miles on the Trans-Canada and hoped for much better things on Rt. 6. A strong headwind, two big transports per minute (that's what they call tractor-trailers here, except they are about twice the size of our 18-wheelers: up to 34 wheels!), and a lot of traffic on Rt 17 made us happy to turn south. Of course, when we turned, the headwind obliged by turning with us! We must be wind magnets, and not in a good way.

We stopped for lunch and blogging in Espanola and then headed toward Manitoulin Island. The first thing we found was a very bad road with no shoulder--and it was really hilly! These were not gradual hills; they were the steepest we have seen since our days in Montana! David was even having trouble--he thought someone slipped a mickey into his lunch-time coffee! For 15 miles, Rt 6 made Rt 17 look GOOD. We were worrying about our decision when the bad road ended and a nice shoulder showed up. It stayed with us for the rest of the ride.


The hills didn't go away and that darn headwind just stuck to us whichever way we turned. How weird is that? The up-side is that we saw some absolutely GORGEOUS scenery! We also saw our first BEAR--a black bear. The scenery was very changeable, with lots of lakes and water, wildflowers, and different rock formations. It reminded us of what we imagine Norway's fjords look like. We saw some loons and lots of other water birds, lots of little islands, and sailboats in the distance. We spent a lot of the day on First Nation land, so we also saw lots of tee-pees and the names of all the towns were hard to pronounce.

The bear was on the opposite side of the road. As we learned later, there is a dump nearby the spot, and he had evidently been having some lunch there! We surprised him and he moved into the shadows to have a look at us strange creatures. David tried for a few pictures, but we'll probably have to brighten them up once we get a computer to work. I just stopped and looked at that bear--forgetting all the things you hear you should do. But he wasn't interested in eating us since all that trash was on his side of the road, I guess. It was very exciting!

Finally, the wind rejected us and chased us the last 10 easy miles to our destination. We had to cross an ancient "swing" bridge to get into Little Current, the first town on Manitoulin Island. This type of bridge twists on it's middle support to let boats through instead of raising and lowering. It's pretty cool!

Once we finally got to Little Current, we stopped at the visitor's center and asked about places to stay. They sent us to the Anchor Inn, Bar, and Grill. Talk about having everything you need in one spot! It certainly was the hot spot of the town--packed with people having fun! The summer brings lots of people to Manitoulin Island--the largest freshwater island in the world. It's name means something like "Spirit Island." It is a family vacation mecca, with lots of small lakes for any water sport or fishing, mountain bike trails, and lots of little villages to visit. It's also one of the most beautiful places I've seen. We want to come back (of course). The food was fantastic at the Anchor Grill, and they had lots of good beer on tap. Yay!

We had a huge thunderstorm that night--and were happy there were no campgrounds available in Little Current. Seven weeks down--three to go!

Change of Plans

Day 48: Thessalon to Spanish, ON--68 miles


Today started with a lot more concern about our route. We realized that our first-hand experience and that of people we talked to is much better than the advice we got from non-cyclists. The motorcyclists were especially helpful because they have more of a clue what we're going through on the roads.

We had a wonderful breakfast and retrieved our bikes from the shed in order to pack--and got started a bit late. I'm happy to report that the situation on the road was much better without rain. We still had the tiny shoulder and gravel, but we felt better with less traffic and more visibility. So the first 20 miles or so was uneventful!

At Iron Bridge, we saw a couple of cyclists loaded with gear at a hotel. We stopped to ask them about their route. They were going from East to West Canada, and the one guy (Will) is riding to raise funds for MS--a great cause! It made me think of our several friends in CO who have MS! If this guy has his way, he will find the cause this summer! They gave us good scoop about the route. The thing I noticed about these two 20-something guys was the stuff they had. Both were on mountain bikes and both had little trailers with them. One of them had a guitar with him! He had metal signs all over his trailer, and who knows what heavy stuff inside! It was crazy (from a 45-year-old woman's standpoint). Oh, the passion and energy of youth! Will is from the Kingston area and invited us to stay at a hippie commune sheep farm if we make it down that way--and we certainly will if we do! That's a do-not-miss experience, and if everyone is as nice as Will, we would certainly have a wonderful time there.

We had lunch in Blind River at Olive's Pasta and Sub Shack. What nice folks! Good gyros too. Then we stopped at the Ontario Governmnet Information Service to talk with them about our route. They were wonderfully helpful and nice, and helped us plan a safer route for bicycles that hopefully goes through flatter terrain! So we're changing our course. We'll head south on Rt. 6 over to Manatoulin Island and then will take a ferry to Central Ontario. We'll go across that part of Ontario north of Toronto and hope to still cut into NY in the northern part of the state. We'll let you know. And hopefully this route will keep us alive!

We continued through some of Canada's "First Nation" territory--that's what they call their indigenous folks! And I found the town of Missasauga--which reminded me of the Fraser Valley Elementary school singers who I accompanied on a crazy song about Missasauga rattlesnakes! I was thinking about that song for the rest of the day!

The other interesting thing we saw today was a couple of German women riding from east to west! They must have been in their 20's also, because the one in front was bringing a GOLDEN RETRIEVER along in a huge kennel! It was hilarious looking (and probably about 75 pounds of dog and kennel. The dog was completely relaxed and happy with his head hanging out on a pillow. The woman looked exhausted! Her friend also had a trailer filled to bursting with stuff. Makes me happy to have to do laundry every three days...

At about 60 miles, I was looking for a place to stop--either a campground or hotel! We did stop for a quick snack a picnic area and got to know some of the local mosquitos! From then on, I was looking for a motel.

We found one in Spanish--Vance's Motor Inn. We had some fantastic walleye for dinner and will chart our new course tomorrow!

The placemat at the restaurant had interesting tidbits of info and here's something I though was interesting about the USA from the Canadian perspective: and very fitting right around the 4th of July:

America's Glory: Whether or not Americans have big heads, or perhaps big hearts, is not really the issue at hand. Americans have a deep pride...but they also have fears. Their backs are strong from working long and hard. The truth is they sometimes forget their greatest strength comes from when they bend their knee to be thankful they are free. IF ever this trust is broken; then what they believe in doesn't exist.

I'm more thankful than ever that we are free in our country! How about you???

The Trans-Canada Highway

Day 47: Sault Ste. Marie to Thessalon, ON--53 miles


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!

We've Gone International!

Day 46: Newberry, MI to Sault Ste. Marie, ON--70 miles

Milestone: 2,500 miles today! Wow!


We had been worried about these last 2 days in the U.P. because it promised to be a green wilderness similar to our experience in Minnesota. But our fears were for naught--there were populated areas all along this ride and places to stop every 10-15 miles. We were very happy to see that!

Unlike most days, this one did NOT start with a hill. It was flat for the most part and we had several stretches where you could see the road ahead for about 5 miles--it was so straight and flat. There was not much wind at all, and we were thankful taht we didn't have to fight any wind tunnels down those straight roads.

We crossed a lot of creeks and rivers during the 4 hours we were on the bikes in the USA, and saw plenty of small ponds and lakes. It was a really fun day of riding--just like our other days in the U.P.!

We turned north toward Sault Ste. Marie, MI and found our first real wind of the day--a crosswind to fight for 9 miles. It wasn't too bad, and we made it almost to the international crossing. But we wanted to explore the town on the USA side, so we headed into the historic downtown area. We checked out the Soo Locks, which can accommodate HUGE ships! We actually saw a couple of ships go through, and it was really neat to see them angle themselves into the lock. We stopped at the Lock View Restaurant (lots of tourist stuff about those locks) and had a nice, fresh whitefish lunch. The Lake Superior whitefish is awesome and I wish we could get it at home (Colorado is kind of a fish desert).


Sault Ste. Marie was a neat little town on the USA side, and is a much bigger city on the Canada side, so we decided to go for it before the afternoon ended. We headed to the International Bridge, which is a toll bridge that is about 3 miles long and connects the two countries. We paid one car toll, and I got to ride over the car counter but David had to take his bike around (so we didn't mess up the count). The bridge had NO pedestrian or bike lane, so we were a little concerned about making that 3 miles with two hills in it in traffic. Luckily, the side going into Canada was not crowded! We only had to stop once to let a big RV go by--there just wasn't enough room for both of us on the bridge.

The other side of the road, however, was a mess! The bridge into the USA was backed up at least 2 1/2 miles of the 3-mile bridge (lucky for us--they broke the cross-wind we would have had to deal with otherwise). The wait was probably about 2 hours. People had their windows open and their cars turned off. We felt lucky to be going the other way! It seemed a bit ridiculous for them to be so slow on the USA side when we waited only about 30 seconds to get into Canada. After a few questions and not even a glance at our passports, we were off to the Canadian welcome center! This was a good lesson for us--we will plan our re-entry into the USA for a mid-week day to avoid some of the wait.

Once we were in Sault Ste. Marie in Canada, we checked into a Days Inn and checked out the town. Unfortunately for us, all the shops close up at about 4 p.m. and so we just got to window shop. Actually, that was a lucky 7/7/7 break, because everything here is MUCH more expensive than home. The Canadian dollar is about par with the American dollar (thanks, current administration), and so we paid $11 for a beer and a glass of wine; $18.50 for movie tickets; and a LOT for dinner. The money here is pretty cool. It is all the same size like US dollars, but they have different colors for the different money. A $20 is green; a $5 is blue, etc. And they have NO $1 or $2 bills--they use all coins for that. Interesting throw-back to our failed attempt to adopt Sacagawea dollars, eh? They have made it work here.

We had a good dinner with VEGGIES at the Quality Inn's restaurant! And then we went to see "License to Wed" which opened yesterday. It was OK--not Robin Williams' best effort, but fun and we didn't fall asleep.

Kenny, we did find some good beer, but it took two pubs to do it! The first one had only Bud on tap--and no dark beers at all. The second one (after dinner and the movie) had several darker beers on tap--so all is not lost! David has already had one Molson!

Dinner, a movie, and some blogging--a good first day in Canada! We'll see how it goes for finding computers for the next 10 days or so. We have a lot of territory to cover here in Canada, and can't wait to see it!