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).
Day 7: Better Bargaining
Written by Ian Hincks for May the 13th, 2009
Distance Today:100km Distance Altogether:545km Weather:Sunny until late afternoon. Heavy tail wind turns into storm.

We woke up this morning in Chutes Provincial Park. I will emphasize again that it is a strange and great feeling to camp in a deserted provincial park. It seems that a few of the locals have caught on to this. We saw a couple go by for a stroll in the morning. We had our first hot outdoor breakfast: instant oatmeal. I had four packages, and it still didn't feel like quite enough.

Highway 17 was much better today. I think we hit a bad time for traffic last night. Some stretches were flat and boring, but some patches opened up to a great view of the lake. Despite more cars then we are used to, it was nice to have both no head-wind and a flat road, the first occurance of this on our trip. Directions are also very straight forward: take the only paved road that goes West.

We're all starting to feel stronger. We'll be ripped in no time.


View Larger Map

We stopped for lunch in Blind River at a grocery store, after a healthy 70km. As usual, the person outside watching the bikes always ends up in a conversation with two or three of the locals. We found out that a storm was headed our way tonight. Heavy rains and 75km/h winds predicted. Sure enough, the wind started to pick up as we were eating, but happily in a favourable direction. We all were cold eating so we put on warm clothes as well as our rain gear, and started to ride. It was drizzling rain and we started to get a bit warm with all of our clothes. But we were doing a fair click. We were going 30km/h or more for the rest of our ride.

We debated getting a motel, but opted for the cheap camping option. The first campground, a private one, tryed to charge us $30 dollars for the night. We told her we would keep going and she lowered it to $21, but we thought we could do better. A few minutes down the road we found another private camp ground. Without much work at all we are staying here for . There's mini-golf, a waterslide, a swimming pool, and everything. Most importantly a pic-nic shelter where we built our tents before transplanting them, and where we cooked our spagetti dinner.

Now we are taking an eary bed-time. We hope to make it to the outskirts of Sault Saint-Marie by tomorrow night, about 120km away. We look forward to spending the day there, so that we can do some laundry, check some emails, and make some decisions. We are not sure yet about whether to go North or South of Lake Superior.



Comments:
Comment by Geoff Stanley:
While Martin and Ian were inside the grocery store and I was waiting outside, an eldery lady appeared from behind a truck, looked at me, looked at the bikes, and then made this enormous circle with her mouth and really got her face into the expression. Then she said, "Three bikes??!", and continued walking into the grocery store as I muttered some meagre response. That brought quite the smile to me.
Submitted by Geoff Stanley at 12:41pm on 2009/05/14
Comment by Geoff Stanley:
Riding in the early morning with a strong tailwind and big trucks crashing by brought Neil Young's "Thrasher" to run through my mind all day:
"And I was just getting up, hit the road before it's light
Trying to catch an hour on the sun
When I saw those thrashers rolling by,
Looking more than two lanes wide
I was feelin' like my day had just begun."
Submitted by Geoff Stanley at 7:40pm on 2009/05/16
Add a comment:
Question:
In what year was Lester B. Pearson born?

Answer:
(what's this about?)