Day 111 - Wallaceburg to Strathroy - Two Far 2022 Reunion Bound (the long way around) - CycleBlaze

August 28, 2022

Day 111 - Wallaceburg to Strathroy

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It was a long, hot ride today.  We didn't get into the motel until about 5:30.  It is not a very nice place, but clean enough and will do for one night.  

For most of the day, we had nice quiet roads like this.
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As soon as we left Wallaceburg, we encountered several large-scale vegetable fields, rather than the corn and soybean fields that we have grown accustomed to.

A large field of cabbage, with Brussels sprouts in the foreground.
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Close up of immature Brussels sprouts
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Acres of Banana Peppers
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We couldn't determine if this was a field of squash or large overgrown cucumbers
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Tomato field. Several tractor loads of tomatoes passed us on their way to a Conagra processing plant in Dresden. The processing plant recently celebrated its 75th anniversary.
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In addition to the vegetables growing in the fields we passed this large greenhouse. We don't know what is grown inside, but it looked very similar to a greenhouse that we toured in 2018 that grew Jack-and-the-Beanstalk sized Bell Peppers.
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In addition to vegetable fields, we passed several fields of sugar beets as well as the ever present corn and soybeans.

Close up of a sugar beet with the top of the beet protruding above the surface
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Several of the soybean fields were starting to turn yellow, indicating that harvest is just a few weeks away.
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This was the only herd of cattle we saw today.
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Barn photo of the day. Scenes like this we numerous today.
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Dresden is about 10 miles east of Wallaceburg and was picturesque.
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Downtown.
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A bridge festooned with flowers on the north side of Dresden.
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Our museum-for-the-day was the Oil Museum of Canada in Oil Springs.  Oil Springs is home of the worlds first oil well. The staff at the museum said there is a friendly rivalry with Titusville, PA about that claim and concedes that Titusville is home to the worlds first DRILLED oilwell.  Oil Springs' well was hand dug about a year earlier than Drakes well.

In the mid-1800's the area around Oil Springs was swampy, and contained large amounts of crude oil on the surface, known as gum beds. The black stuff that looks like cow patties is actually petroleum.
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North America's first commercial oil well.
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Although it looks like a whiskey still, this kettle was used to distill kerosene.
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The oil wells were operated using the Canadian Jerker Line system.  Here is and interesting article about the system: The Mechanical Transmission of Power (2): Jerker Line Systems - LOW-TECH MAGAZINE (lowtechmagazine.com)

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The engine room. One engine could power up to 45 wells using the jerker-lines.
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A bull wheel routed the jerker lines (the wooden sticks in the photo) to individual wells. In this photo you can see two jerker lines that are parallel with one another and a third is going off at a right angle
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An operating well at the end of a jerker line
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Used farm equipment at an action site just outside of Alvinston.
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After the museum we pedaled to Alvinston for lunch at the Riverstone Pizzeria.  The place was packed, as the entire restaurant was reserved for a private party.  However, the owner of the restaurant, Barbara, said she would ask the party's host if we could eat lunch at the bar.  The host graciously allowed us to crash the party and we had a very good mushroom pizza.  We learned that the party was to celebrate the 80th birthday of a gentleman named Norm.

Thank you Barb, for letting us stay and have lunch.
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Norm, the man of the hour. Happy 80th!!!
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The final 20 miles of the ride had us battling both a headwind and the heat.  However, just before we reached our hotel, we made a quick stop at McDonald's for an Oreo McFlurry.  That was all that was needed to put us back in a good frame of mind!

Today's ride: 66 miles (106 km)
Total: 3,535 miles (5,689 km)

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