May 24 - Rye Road

We went our separate ways - Jason et al to Brantford; Sandy to Sudbury; Cassie and I to Loring & Rye Road ..

Stopping for mail on the way through Loring, I was told that today's mail had not arrived. Oh well, I'll catch you on the flip-flop.  At least that was the plan.

Onward to Rye Road, 40kms east of Loring and our riding route north from South River on the 600k ride. I wanted to check it out, ensure that it hadn't deteriorated from the prior year although I don't know what I'd do if it had ...

If anything, it was better.  That's because it's been dry.  I hope that it stays dry as it would be a mess; clay can be slippery !  The soft sand of last year has been absorbed.  The brusher has been through parts of it.  Even so, there's 5km of rutted, clay/sand/gravel seasonal logging road to get through out of the 15.2 kms of non-paved road.  It's a tough one; epic.

I drove south to pavement and then back north, marking kms so that I could inform the riders, which I did this a.m.

On the way back, I spotted the Purolater truck following me coming into Arnstein.  I was expecting delivery of the Invisible Fence for Cassie so I slowed down, but he must have stopped in Arnstein.  I had an errand at the Caisse, so I went there and signed some paperwork for the Local Roads Board and then went to the Post Office, only to find that she's closed from 2-3 and of course it was only 2:15.  Drat.  I'm expecting delivery of that compression plug one of these days !

Back to Buchanans, I waited a few minutes and along came the delivery truck.  Sure enough, my package was in there, even though it's a day early.  Thank you amazon.ca ! 

Cassie can get car sick and does.  All that bouncing around on Rye Road did it; luckily it was on her car mat.  I cleaned that up and we went outside to enjoy the weather.

What a day !  The thermometer was over 80F, even a warm breeze out on the lake.  The black flies are mostly gone, just the occasional one to pester you. That amounts to a very short season.  Of course, if you hang around in the sun at the driveway, I'm sure that more gather for fresh meat, but I didn't do that.

The god weather is supposed to continue into today so I'll take advantage of that and go for a ride.  Thursday and Friday I will setup the invisible fence; Sandy will do the training.  She's been through this before !

We arrived here 10 days ago.  When we arrived, there were only buds on most of the trees.  They're not mostly fully leaved, although some of those leaves aren't fully open.  It's an amazing transition. Spring "explodes" here with the trees and the bugs perfectly synchronized with the arrival of the cottagers ...

Onward !