We love you, Canada...

Today was the PERFECT day for a bike ride from London, Ontario to Brantford, Ontario.  And I mean PERFECT.  The ride was listed at 67 miles but I rode 69 miles.  Not sure why the difference but I'm going with 69 miles.  The sky was clear, no humidity and a fun route with lots of stops made it a great day.  We also started seeing some new scenery - tobacco farms, ginseng farms, tree farms, and a few others.  We stopped at a local market and picked up fresh cherries, nectarines, blueberries and some horseradish cheese.  At the market I noticed my front wheel was a little low on air - turns out I had a flat tire (my 5th of the trip) but if you have to have a flat tire I was in a great location with two of our leaders who had me fixed up and back riding in about 5 minutes.

Once we were closer to our destination, I stopped into town for lunch.  Turns out Gary, Matt and Terry had the same idea so we had a nice lunch at a local cafe before heading in.  Later this afternoon, Lucy and I had a picnic with the fruit and cheese - YUM!!

I think we are all excited for tomorrow - riding to Niagara Falls.  Have to get my passport out because we head back into the US and NY tomorrow.

Oh Canada...

Today we went international.  We rode 82 miles from Port Huron, MI to London, Ontario, Canada.  It was amazing.  Our hotel in Port Huron was just on the Michigan side of the Blue Water Bridge that we rode over this morning to Canada.  We did things a little differently.  We all assembled together and rode together over the bridge.  They closed the bridge to traffic so for a few minutes, it was just us on the bridge.  It was an awesome sight.  Then we went through customs with no problems and we were off for the day.  It stormed all night long so initially the roads were wet but then things cleared up and we had a great day - and I need to mention we had GREAT tailwinds so the ride went pretty fast.

I did not blog yesterday because I really had nothing left to say about Michigan.  It was farm after farm for our 87 mile ride from Birch Run, MI to Port Huron, MI.  When we woke up it was pouring rain, so the ABB team pushed back our departure by 30 minutes.  Then the rain stopped and stayed away the entire day.  So lucky!!  Our route took us past Lake Huron and and the second SAG stop was in Andreae Park - yes -  relatives of Nancy and Adrienne Andreae who are on our ride (Nancy is originally from Michigan) - pretty cool.

I was looking forward to getting to Canada for some different scenery, however, it's not much different then Michigan - lots of farms - we did pass a solar panel "farm" - which was different.  Everyone was very excited to get to a Tim Horton's - a cross between Dunkin Donuts and a sandwich shop. 

Gathering together first thing in the morning to get ready to cross the bridge - yes it was jersey day so we all look alike

Waiting to go through customs and get our passports checked

The Welcome sign to Ontario, unfortunately it was in the middle of the highway so we could not get too close

The solar panel "farm"

Oy vey, the WIND again...

It is unbelievable how the wind can impact us.  Yesterday we did 113 miles and it was a glorious day.  Most of us were looking forward to a shorter day today to recover from yesterday.  Well, it did not work out that way.  My body was exhausted from yesterday.  I was in bed at 7:45 last night, sleeping by 8:30. When I woke up, my legs and bum said we are not ready to get back on that bike.  My brain said, Oh, it's only 74 miles and totally flat, it will be fine.  Today's 74 miles from Mount Pleasant, MI to Birch Run, MI were twice as hard as yesterday's ride.  We had a headwind most of the day, which changed the day from recovery to work.  Luckily, we had a nice cloud cover so the temperature was perfect.

As I said, today was flat.  I know I have said that before and I will admit that most of you would probably not consider the other days flat but today was our flattest day of the trip.  Today, I hit another milestone - I have biked over 2500 miles (2508 miles to be exact).  When I look at the map I can't believe how far we have come.  I was hoping to see some different crops in Michigan, but we continue to see cornfield after cornfield and soybean field after soybean field.  Maybe tomorrow will different - maybe not.

The PERFECT day for our FINAL Century Ride

It does not get better than this.  Today we rode 113 miles from Ludington, MI to Mount Pleasant, MI.  I never thought I would say this - But we had an AWESOME day!!!  When I left at 6:15 AM (a bit later than usual because we were in the western most part of the time zone and I need to wait for daylight.) it was crisp, no humidity, no heavy winds and just beautiful.  It stayed that way the whole day - we had a nice breeze and clear skies.  All day long I could not believe how lucky we all are.  I kept thinking - this is one of those days that if I was working, I would be trying to leave work early to get out on my bike - and here I am already on my bike.  Additionally, because this ride came after our rest day, my legs felt good all day.  The Michigan roads were great today and Mount Pleasant has a great downtown area.  I do think that I will have to take a road trip eventually to truly explore all of these little towns. 

At 113 miles, today was our final century ride - which means I have completed 6 Century rides since our trip started.  When I was reading the trip materials before we started, I was very nervous about these long days - now I can't believe this was our last one.  Looking forward to another great day tomorrow.

So many milestones..

Yesterday and today have been very busy.  Yesterday we rode 57 miles from Fond du Lac, WI to Manitowoc, WI.  It was a fun and quick ride and waiting at the end were my first visitors - Dolly and Carolyn drove up from Chicago (see pic below).  It felt like visiting day at sleep away camp - they brought me tons of goodies and we had a great time catching up and eating some good meals (no buffets).  They came to RAP and met the group.  It was nice to be part of the real world for a little bit but I am definitely not ready to be back full time - just yet. 

Today was a rest day - sort of.  Unlike our previous rest days, today we were on the move.  We took the ferry from Manitowoc, WI to Ludington, MI.  I got to spend the morning with Dolly and Carolyn and then the group rode the 3.5 miles from our hotel to the ferry station.  The ferry was  huge - it holds cars, semi's, people, bikes, RV's, etc and it is like a cruise ship with movies, food, bingo, everything.  It was a 4 hour ferry ride.  So we said goodbye to Wisconsin and hello to Michigan.  AND hello to eastern standard time.  It was a beautiful day and the ferry ride was a nice way to relax.  Once we left the ferry, we rode 3.8 miles to our hotel to get ready for our final century ride tomorrow.

Arriving in Manitowoc.  Carolyn, Me and Dolly at the hotel.

Driving around Manitowoc.  Me and Lucy on someones front lawn.

The ferry docked in Manitowoc.  The ferry is fueled by coal.

Lake Michigan from the ferry dock.

From the deck of the ferry - after leaving Wisconsin.

View of Lake Michigan when the ferry was pulling into Michigan.

Phylis and I arriving in Michigan.