Day 86 Hepworth to Wasaga Beach, Ontario

July 25, 2011

It was a restful night, but we have another equipment failure to deal with:

This cancer on our Cabela's thermarest clone grew to cover half its skin area

This brand was disappointing, despite Cabela's large stores and many catalogs

We have naturally had a lot of fun being with Glenn

Our shared site with Glenn at Whispering Pines in Hepworth on the way to Owen Sound

Glenn and Dodie - it must be seniors day at Whispering Pines

Ready to go, 6:45 a.m. It's getting light a lot later now.

This first little installment of the blog is being written as we are sitting with Glen (oldmanonabike) just down the road from the campsite at a cafe. No real progress yet!

We are sending Glenn off ahead, as he is much faster than we are. Here is our last look at his setup:

Glenn's mascot, Willie the One Eyed Pooch. Willie was hitchhiking in Winnipeg and said he was going to Halifax, so Glenn picked him up. Now Willie thinks he owns the bike!

Highway 26 across to Meaford offers a sort of semi usable shouder at times and the traffic volume was semi tolerable. So it made for a semi safe, somewhat enjoyable ride. Construction in the last 10 km into Meaford looked like it could be a problem, but the flag people were agreeable and we made out way through without much problem.

Actually the flag people were quite nice.

Owen Sound is a bit like Wiarton - built in a hole

This man walked up to us on the East side of Owen Sound and gave good advice about the streets and roads to come

The last 4 km down to the water is all downhill, and fun, despite the broken shoulder and construction. As we sat in a picnic area at the beginning of this fun run, Matt and Tamara (Riding the Thin White Line) sailed past and called out. It was great to see them, if only briefly.

Arthur, GSXCCC seems to be alive and living in Toronto. It seems to be called CHIP, the Coalition of Homeowners for Intelligent Power

At Meaford the highway turns to parallel the water of Georgian Bay. It heads along the shore, passing the communities of Thornbury and Collingwood and finally Wasaga Beach.

Any waters of Lake Huron seem to be amazingly colourful, and the colour sparks up the appearance of everything around here. The towns are combinations of century old and older buildings, new vacation homes, and lakeside beaches and marinas. It's an ideal vacation playland.

Unfortunately our overall impression is that the Ontarians here are not happy. First off, we were honked at irritably more than a dozen times today. This compares to absolutely no such bad behaviour in any of the ten states or provinces that we have previously passed through. We also note unconscious sour looks on many faces and an unwillingness to exchange greetings.

This is not to say that everyone here is a sourpuss. We ran in to three old timers that were sweetie pies. We think it's the younger people that are having problems with pokers in private parts.

One super neat thing was the Georgian Trail. It's a rail trail that runs 34 km from Meaford to Collingwood, and it's beautiful. It also gave our nerves a break from the heavy traffic and more or less no shoulder.

We picked up this hard packed trail at Meaford. It runs 34 km to Collingwood, a useful distance for xcountry cyclists. The trail kept us off a very busy small shoulder road.

This lady was also a trail user. Under intense Grampies interrogation she admitted that she had come to Canada after the war as a 33 year old. Clearly she liked it here.

Hugh Timmerman, about 1/2 way down the trail. The trail opened to the public in 1989 and Hugh has been riding it since 1998. Now eighty years old, he has logged over 30,000 km on it! Hugh is also a writer. Check out http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/bombers-in-the-night-sky/3233814

Jumped slightly off trail at Thornbury and scored these. They lasted only 5 minutes!

The trail dropped us out in Collingwood in an area of Canadian Tire and Walmart type stuff. This included a Montana's steakhouse and though it was getting late, we went in. It was good, but cost $45. Campgrounds are rare here and in any event can cost $35. We set off toward the nearest one, in the west end of Wasaga Beach. It is called Jell E Beans. We had almost reached it when with twilight upon us we weakened and jumped into the Wasaga Motel. $84 bought the smallest room we have seen so far. We need a different province or state to cycle in!

Today's ride: 94 km (58 miles)
Total: 5,415 km (3,363 miles)

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