August 13, 2024. Caledonia to Turkey Point Provincial Park, Ontario

     We were tired from the day before so slept in and didn’t get up until a little bit after seven. We had a great breakfast with our friends and talked about photos and camping and faith. Then we got all ready to leave and as Kay started to wheel her bike out, discovered that the front tire was flat. It was leaking from an old patch so decided to use the new innertube we had along instead of trying to patch over the patch. As we left town we stopped at a local bike shop then Canadian Tire; they both had the right size innertube but without the right valve stem. So we are hoping for no more flats or for flats that we can least fix with patches without needing a new tube.

   As we left town, we even got to ride along the Grand River! (Jim grew up near the Grand River in Michigan.)

   Today was a wonderful day to ride. The temperature was nice. The wind was in our face, but was pretty quiet so we hardly noticed it. The roads were low traffic and it was the type of riding that we are more used to—where you travel several miles on a road before making a change versus going four blocks in the city then make a turn, or follow dedicated paths, then jump to streets and winding around, then onto a path again, trying to figure out which way to go. So we were able to make pretty good time today as we headed toward Lake Erie. Once we were going along the lake, we we usually on roads that we would have been on 36 years ago when we rode around Lake Erie on our tandem, except we would have been going the other direction as we went clockwise around the lake then. 

   At one point today there was a lot of noise coming from something running under the road, so we stopped to take a look. It was a conveyor belt carrying taconite pellets from a large ship at the end of a long pier to a large steel plant on our right, and was probably a half mile long or longer. When we were in the Upper Peninsula, we saw where the pellets were loaded onto the ships, and now we got to see them being unloaded. 

          Another interesting thing we saw was acres of plants that we didn’t recognize covered with extensive netting or shading. We saw a sign at the corner which said it was a ginseng farm. 

       We were doing great until about 4-5 miles from Turkey Point Provincial Park which is where we were headed. All of a sudden we heard a crack, then JIm had some rattling that he shouldn’t have in the front of this bike. One of the rods making up his right front pannier rack had cracked competely, so the broken end was rubbing against the spokes.

     Kay broke off a branch from a nearby shrub and whittled several short pieces from it and Jim used them, a couple of nails left over from the earlier repair to Kay’s seat and two hose clamps to make a splint for the broken rod. It held well for the last few miles to the park so hopefully it will continue to hold up as we travel on as it may be hard to find a similar front rack in stock at a bike shop.

    When we arrived at our campsite in the park, the dog in the spot behind us started barking at us and seemed very agitated (afraid of bicycles?) So we offered to come over and see if spending some time getting acquainted would help the dog to relax more. We chatted for a bit with Julia, and found out that the dog’s name was Wrigley, she’s a young goldendoodle, and that she’s not food motivated by anything but cheese. So Julia got some cheese for us to give Wrigley which helped her to accept us and then we could spend some time petting her. Hopefully Wrigley will be quiet tonight!