Bicycling New England, the
Erie Canal, & around Lake Ontario 2005
Toronto to Port Hope Ontario

July 27, 2005
Distance 65.5 Miles

Hi again-it's me, Barb. We got up early and went to breakfast and were on the road by 7:30. There was a light drizzle going on when we left. We were trying to cross a busy street in Toronto and a police car stopped in the middle of the road and turned his lights on for us. We stopped at a Mercedes Dealership to put on rain gear. Scott asked one of the guys for a rubber band and the guy said "10 bucks", which was pretty funny because I am sure the Mercedes guys charge a lot more for a lot less. He ended up giving us the rubber band for free, though. We rode over 20 miles in the rain this morning. We stopped to have a snack and my Dad took off his Happy Feet waterproof shoe covers. It turned out to be bad luck because as soon as we started pedaling again, the rain started falling again. We stopped at a Burger King in Ajax and we were pretty wet. We all went in and blew the hand drier on ourselves and had fast food and hot chocolate. By the time we left, the rain had mostly stopped. We still had some drizzle, but it wasn't bad. Now, you all have to promise not to call our grandmas because we sent out postcards yesterday talking about our sunny weather. OK-I just swore the World Wide Web to secrecy.

Then, we started going up and down some pretty big hills. The hills were mostly 6-8% grades and they were long. We had rain for the first 30 miles, then hills for the last 35.5 miles. We rode on a road that was still being paved-in one part, the other lane was paved and we drove on mashed down traffic bond. We drove into a Canadian gas station and had more hot chocolate and snacks. The girl behind the counter couldn't tell us how many more miles until we got to Port Hope, but said she can get there in 20 minutes from the gas station at 100km/hour. So, we guessed it was another 20-25 miles.

So, we want up and down more hills until we got into the area of Port Hope. The area was influenced by Irish immigration, as many of the farms had names of Irish descent. We took one last break at a gas station and ended up going to a pharmacy to buy more ibuprophen. Canada is great-they sell my allergy pills over the counter and they sell ibuprophen in 400 mg tablets. There was this really adorable little 2 seater Jr Executive mobile in the parking lot. It looked about the size of a fancy golf cart. What a great country. We pulled into the motel and we and our bikes were pretty dirty. After washing the bikes and showering, we walked over to the restaurant and had dinner. Our waitress brought us these cute little finger bowls to wash our fingers in. Tomorrow is another 60+ mile day. So, that's our story and we're sticking to it. Thanks for listening Barb.