Apr 24/25 - all a blur

Time passes quickly. It's hard to believe that on Friday I was riding my bike in PA and today we're heading to Loring ... but that's the way it is !

Back to Friday -- I got out of the house a little late, around 6:40 a.m., dressed for the cold. It was cold. I saw frost in the low lying areas. However, the temperature was supposed to get into the 70's so I also had to be prepared to shed.

By the time I got to Wal-Mart I was happy to get inside. It was 7am at that point and I went in the doors only to find that they'd moved the open cash registers to the new end of the building. A lady working the entrance said that she'd watch my bike so I walked down to the other end, bought a chocolate bar (which reminds me, it's still in my pack), got the requisite mark in my Brevet card, walked back to the other end of the building and out into the cold.

The Wal-Mart is being converted from a regular-old Wal-Mart to one of those Supercenters so the building is being supersized -- like 3x. More on that later.

So ... off I rode, route all programmed and that worked for the entire day. A couple of times I missed turns by a little, but only because I was not paying attention to my GPS or my route sheet. The route sheet was very, very detailed with a dozen or so acronyms. The usual were there -- L=Left; R=Right; C=Control; -- but he also used X=Cross; TRO=To Remain On; BL=Bear Left; BR=Bear Right; and several others that I forget now. In typical PA fashion, these were necessary because at many Y-shaped or square-shaped intersections out in the countryside the named road that I was riding on would actually turn onto the smaller road side of the intersection while a new street name took over as the main road. It took six pages of route sheet to cover the 200km of riding.

A side note -- in talking to Terry Shuya from Saskatoon, we commiserated that these Brevets turned into navigational vs riding exercises. In Saskatchewan a handful of turns would make up a 1000k ride ! If I've already mentioned this before in the blog, oh well ...

The ride was beautiful. All the flowering trees were out; the Amish farms were all prepared for planting; I shared the roads with many horse-drawn carriages (equipped with lights, I must say); very scenic. Yes there was climbing. Bikeroutetoaster usually overestimates the total ascent, but in this case it was almost spot-on. 7500 feet of climbing, give or take, with no long hills but many short steep pitches. I was glad that I had the compact cranks ! I have a minor adjustment to make to the front derailleur before I go out again because the chain is rubbing against the inside-side of the derailleur when I'm in the lowest gear. I got to thinking about doing the 1200 and give-or-take this is the amount of climbing in the 1200 per 200km ... oh oh. The only good news is that they usually don't pack such steep pitches into the 1200. I hope.

Later in the day the traffic picked up. Being Friday afternoon people were in a rush to get home and the roads, which don't have shoulders, get crowded with traffic going both ways and a bicycle in the mix. Quite frankly I'd rather be on a State Road at that point with lots of traffic and a wide shoulder. However, them's the breaks.

I was off to a little bit of a slow start with the Wal-Mart control taking 20 minutes in the morning -- me waiting for the single open register behind two people with carts full of groceries -- and then numerous stops during the first couple of hours as I shed clothing. I had everything on -- leg warmers, long sleeved jersey, hi-vis yellow jacket, full fingered gloves, skull cap -- everything that is except shoe covers. I figured that it would warm up quickly enough that the shoe covers would not be necessary. Perhaps had I taken less time at the Wal-Mart I would have needed them ... it was quite cold to start.

I was out there almost 11 hours for this 200km ride, from 7am to 6pm. Taking into account the 20 minutes at Wal-Mart and some dawdling, I could probably have done the ride in 10 hours, but that's just a mental exercise thinking ahead to the 1200 km rides where I might be more pressed for time. To put it another way, on the 1200's I'll be more anxious to get one leg of the ride over with so that I can catch some sleep before heading out again. With the first leg of the Shenandoah being 250 miles -- double what I rode on Friday -- with equivalent dawdling and/or wasted time that could easily take 20-22 hours. With a 4am start, that would get me to the rest stop by 2am ... sheesh. I'll have to do better than that !

The Control at the end was Wal-Mart again but this time the store was busy. A different lady at the entrance had no idea what I was talking about in terms of bringing the bike inside and leaving it where it was safe -- she said that she had no authorization to do anything like that -- I think that no-one had authorized her to think. At any rate, I did the same thing, leaving the bike inside where they were now dismantling that area, walked to the other end of the store, bought my pack of gum after standing in queue, got my card signed etc. and then back to the bike and back to Jeffrey's. His house was about 3 miles from the start so I was back around 6:30.

After showering and changing I busied myself with packing the car and boat. Jeffrey and Sara had arrived home from work while I was in the shower. I also made a quick trip over to the beer store to pickup some to take north.

Sandy had picked up Emma at daycare around 2pm and had enjoyed her company for the afternoon. In the a.m. she had done some kitchen cleaning and grocery shopping because she was making dinner. We had pork loin, asparagus and potatoes. With no barbie she had to do it all in the oven -- a new experience !

So the day was done.

Yesterday, Saturday, I was up early and finished packing, getting the last-minute stuff into the boat and car. We were late leaving from plan -- and I expected that -- getting away around 8am. Sara, Jeffrey and Emma had just gotten up so we were able to say our goodbyes. It's nice that they now have a place to sleep when we visit ... we'll be back !

The ride was uneventful, other than the extremely strong headwind that we encountered on I90, the New York Thruway, between Syracuse and Buffalo. When we got out of the car at the last Service Center to gas up you could hardly stand up the wind was so strong. My gas mileage was running about 12mpg at that point, between the head wind and towing the boat.

I've never seen so much police activity on the Thruway and on I81 prior to the Thruway. With my cruise control set at 7mph over the limit though, they didn't bother me -- even when they came up behind me. I suppose that one day I might hit an over-zealous officer but not yesterday.

There was a queue at the border but it did not take too long. The guy asked us where we were going and what we were bring over and I told him that we had the water filter, some shoes, some kitchen stuff -- that's really all we had -- and he wished us a good day. Oh -- I also told him that we had two cases of beer. He asked if we had any "tobacco products" -- nope ! Away we went.

The wind was getting stronger. It made driving over the two skyways -- Welland Canal and Burlington Bay -- interesting. When we got to Stef's I rushed around to find out which church I could get to, found a close one with a 5pm Mass (It was 4:10 at that point), unpacked, relaxed for a minute and left. While at church the wind blew outside and then the sky opened and later the thunder crashed. I thought about the beer in the boat ... oh well, it wouldn't hurt the beer but the cardboard cases would be fun ... and then found when I got back to Stef's that all had been taken care of by Sandy and Aaron. Great !

When I got back to Stef's there was a debate about whether to eat out to to bring home -- Swiss Chalet, that is. I as ambivalent as was Aaron. Stef wanted to eat at home, the girls wanted to go to the restaurant. Sandy was the tie-breaker so to speak and we all headed over to the restaurant. When you get right down to it French Fries are better right at the restaurant. They are always soggy by the time you get them home in boxes. After dinner I stopped at the Baskin Robbins next door and picked up an ice-cream cake ... which we took home for desert.

Before desert, however, I hooked up the boat and backed it into the driveway. The limit to parking in the street here is three hours. I don't know if they would actually put a ticket on the boat, but probably ... although with an out-of-state plate, who knows. There was no point in finding out. It would be un-neighbourly to park it on the street anyway if that is the rule.

Another side note -- at the Food Lion shopping center/mall close to us in Florida, they make it crystal clear with a sign that says no overnight parking of "motor vehicles, trailers or vessels" -- that covers cars, RV's, trailers, boats -- you name it.

By a little after 9pm I was heading to bed -- no surprise there. I heard Sandy come to bed later but have no idea what time that was. I've been up for about 1.5 hours now doing my usual early-morning thing. My goal is to get out of here by 8am -- I have no idea whether that will work. I have some more packing to do in the meantime -- the coffee roaster is here to pack (yes, we bought another so that we don't have to haul that big thing back and forth), the beer has to go back into the boat; I also have three cases of wine that we left here -- I have no idea whether I can manage all this, but I'll try. It's a short trip from this point and Abby might lose even more space !

Today promises to be cool and rainy. Tomorrow is supposed to be hot. It should be a good day to travel; The weather was wild yesterday, with temperatures in the mid 80's almost from the start all the way to Oakville. After the rain, however, the temperature had dropped to 62F, setting the stage for today.

Enough typing for now. I'm caught up.

Onward !