So it's been more than a couple of days since I got back from San Francisco,
and I have let you down in making a cyclocross (or more accurately, cyclodown) entry.
But
here is a
photo album of my trip. Further, check out
this picture. It was
made with Google Earth, and is quite accurate (except for the stars).
Just a small part of the Prince Wind Farm.
I've become completely happy sleeping inside my tent on my Therm-a-Rest sleeping pad, and I feel I could do it indefinitely. So to sleep in a bed is now to me a soft, precious luxury. I woke to the smell of blueberry pancakes from downstairs. Wild blueberries that our WarmShowers host, Doug, had picked himself, no less! After breakfast, Doug took Ian and I to his couple hundred acre property northwest of town, next to Lake Superior, on which three of the 126 wind generators of the Prince Wind Farm sit. This is one of the largest wind farms in Canada. And I love wind farms. Anyone who's stood under one of these generators must have felt a sense of awe. Such massive structures, yet so elegant, sleek, quiet. I would think a high rise building would generate more noise by the wind it blocks than these creatures. A brief video of standing under one of the generators is
here.
From here, we hiked down the extension of the Bruce Trail, about a kilometer to the rocky shore of Lake Superior. It's only warm enough to swim here in August, so we didn't stay long in the spitting winds.
Doug and his dog, Cally, on the shore of Lake Superior just behind the wind farm. Somewhere behind Doug lies the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
We then went into Sault Ste. Marie, where Doug showed us around town. We stopped at Velorution to see if they had any rain pants for me. They didn't, and so Doug offered to loan me a pair of his, to be mailed back at the end of the summer. To me, this amazing gesture represents our entire stay with Doug and Sharon. They are such beautiful people. Theirs is a picture of a good life I would like to have one day: "I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness" (Tolstoy, Family Happiness). We dined on homemade pizza, Caeser Salad, and home brewed wine, before another precious night in the luxury of a bed. Tomorrow should be good weather, and we will begin our ride north!
