July 27
Friday, July
27 London, ONT to Brantford, ONT 67 miles
Yesterday, the wind drove me fully
insane. Today, only half insane. Overall today was a beautiful ride even going into the wind. Because it was blowing less today we all
felt lucky. It was shorter mileage so
we took it slow and easy. Our breakfast
wasn’t scheduled until 7:30 which the early birds weren’t too happy about. The wind is less in the very early hours and
I would have liked to have been out by 6:30.
But it turned out fine and I still got in by 2 PM.
The sights were nice today all along the
way on the back country roads we were on.
Big farms everywhere with acres and acres of crops. I saw cherry orchards, lots of tobacco
fields, golden oats and come barley crops too.
Most of those fields of oats were just now being harvested. The other interesting crop grown here is
Ginseng. Hundreds of acres of it. The rows are all raised beds and then the entire crop is under a
black mesh raised cover. The “tent”
that shades the growing ginseng is about five feet above the crop. It must be a
great deal of work to get all that cover attached to the network of poles over
many acres. I noticed a lot more
flowers today too. There seemed to be lots of hollyhocks in many different
colors.
After I settled in my room and got out of
my lycra, I asked directions to the public library. Only a short way the clerk said.
I decided to walk instead of bike.
The traffic was bumper to bumper out on the road so I didn’t want to get
back into it on the bike. The walk to
the library was nearly 40 minutes, but I did enjoy seeing the semi residential
and business area on the walk.
Thanks everyone for your
e-mails. They mean a lot to me!
Dinner tonight was right here at the
Holiday Inn in the ballroom. It was
above average food tonight. They served
two kinds of lasagna, herb baked chicken, mixed vegetables, wheat rolls, mixed
salad greens and cherry cheesecake for dessert. The kitchen was still bringing out the food to the serving table
when most of us were already there fifteen minutes ahead of time. The cheesecake was all in plates on a table
so we got tired of waiting and we all got up and took our dessert – and ate it
first. Then at 6:00 ( the scheduled
time of the dinner ) we all jumped up and formed two lines at the buffet. The
kitchen help who were trying to get everything set up were taken back by the
herd of hungry people. They were trying
to light those little flames under the food trays. We told them, “Don’t bother, the food won’t be there long enough
to need those little flames!” they just
looked at us really strange. Yes, we
know that most people coming into a banquet room are much more civil, but
starved cyclists are a different species.
Our cue sheet for tomorrow’s ride to
Niagara Falls, NY has lots and lots of turns.
Doug is trying to keep us off some of the big main roads as much as
possible as it will be very busy around Niagara Falls.
I hope the wind changes, it sure would help me get in early. Paul should be there when I arrive.
Time to remove my ice packs. My knees are really aching after these days
riding into the wind. I rarely ever
have any complaints about leg or knee problems, but the strong winds made the
legs work so hard. There were others
who had this complaint tonight too. The
ice treatment will take care of it and they’ll be fine in the morning.
A comment Gail heard the other day back
when we were riding in the awful heat brought a chuckle. Big Jim said, “It’s so hot my brain melted and turned to Mush”.
I guess it was
Brian who was riding with him said,
“It’s so hot my brain melted and turned to Mush and ran out my nose!”
Day 42 coming up tomorrow. Wow!
Our 50 days are almost up.