All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling Im not the only one
All I wanna do is have some fun
Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard...
- Sheryl Crow "All I wanna do"
I got a feeling Im not the only one
All I wanna do is have some fun
Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard...
- Sheryl Crow "All I wanna do"
Goulais River to Thessalon – Day 40
123 kms / 76 miles
It was soooooo nice to wake up in a BED and I slept incredibly well. It was 8am by the time I was ready to go and certainly didn’t miss the ‘taking down the tent, making peanut butter sandwiches, eating breakfast’ routine (with intermittent black fly and mosquito swatting). I can certainly get used to this ‘real world’ thing..! Unfortunately however we still had about 100kms to ride to catch up with t
he others who were making their way from Goulais River to Thessalon.
During our walk the previous day a quaint eating establishment called ‘Neils Diner’ was spotted by both Brendan and I. We all met up at the diner for a fantastic ‘fry up’ breakfast happily served to us by the manager of the shop. We were the first customers at 8am and the brekkie provided a great ‘base’ for the mornings journey ahead. It was nice to have a relaxed breakfast with unlimited coffee in such a relaxed setting. Neil’s diner was a real ‘find’ and if I lived in Sault Ste. Marie I would certainly be a regular there – although I’d likely gain about 300 pounds if I continued my current eating habits without the cycling..!
The rest of the morning was a nice easy flat-ish ride which continued on Route 17 until we reached a turnoff to Garden River which led us on to Route 638. Here the terrain changed and the tailwind no longer gave us a huge advantage as things got a bit ‘hilly’ from that point. The climb out of Echo Bay was, according to our Cue Sheets, the toughest hill in the Lake Huron section of the trip. I wish that this had been true as it seemed that the hills which followed (and there were quite a few of them..!) were much tougher and they didn’t seem to let up especially as the grade on several of them was quite steep. It was also getting hotter and the sun had me reaching for my Gatoraid bottle on a regular occasion. As it got hotter it also seemed to get hillier and I wondered if there was a co-relation between the two.
A welcome sight in every TdC riders eyes is a ‘General Store’ in a place where you would never expect it – at times it can be like a mirage and there is a temptation to take your hands off of your hoods (handle bars) and rub your eyes in disbelief. Even better is if the General Store is locally owned, well stocked with ice cream, chocolate milk, sardines and has a friendly chatty manager. The General Store at Leeburn was just that and more. The shop is owne
d and operated by a former Dutch miner named Jake from Apeldoorn who had immigrated to Canada in the 1950s (and, at the time, earned 63 cents an hour working in a textile factory!). After a life of travel all over the world in the mining industry he ended up in Leeburn which boasts its Canadian fame as ‘The Smallest Town in Canada’ with a population of 6 people. The brightly painted yellow General Store was immaculately kept and was surrounded by a lovely garden and was adjacent to a clean outhouse. Inside the shop was well stocked with a fantastic and exotic array of icecream flavours which included Apple Pie, Moosetracks, Caramel, Moose and Cariboo, Creamsicle, Vanilla and Cherry Cheesecake. It was hard for many riders to leave and whilst Andrew, Brendan, Ian and I all arrived together, Brendan shot off after about an hour or so and Andrew, Ia
n and I stayed behind to relax in the sun, enjoy the warm breeze on the shop patio and chat with the owner. Procrastination is soooo incredibly easy on these kind of days..! After our 1 ½ hour break we hopped back on our bicycles and had a relatively uneventful final 40 kms into Thessalon with a few side trips to Rydal Bank and Bruce Station – both very small towns with populations of 1000 people (at most!).
The rumour in Blueberry Hill (Goulais River) was that the Thessalon campsite wasn’t especially nice but it turned out to be a lovely site right on Lake Huron. It was our first campsite on Lake Huron and great to be on a clean and sandy beach. I set up my tent in the sun and braved my way into the water in an attempt to train for the triathalon which proved to be a short lived but refreshing experience.
123 kms / 76 miles
It was soooooo nice to wake up in a BED and I slept incredibly well. It was 8am by the time I was ready to go and certainly didn’t miss the ‘taking down the tent, making peanut butter sandwiches, eating breakfast’ routine (with intermittent black fly and mosquito swatting). I can certainly get used to this ‘real world’ thing..! Unfortunately however we still had about 100kms to ride to catch up with t
he others who were making their way from Goulais River to Thessalon.During our walk the previous day a quaint eating establishment called ‘Neils Diner’ was spotted by both Brendan and I. We all met up at the diner for a fantastic ‘fry up’ breakfast happily served to us by the manager of the shop. We were the first customers at 8am and the brekkie provided a great ‘base’ for the mornings journey ahead. It was nice to have a relaxed breakfast with unlimited coffee in such a relaxed setting. Neil’s diner was a real ‘find’ and if I lived in Sault Ste. Marie I would certainly be a regular there – although I’d likely gain about 300 pounds if I continued my current eating habits without the cycling..!
The rest of the morning was a nice easy flat-ish ride which continued on Route 17 until we reached a turnoff to Garden River which led us on to Route 638. Here the terrain changed and the tailwind no longer gave us a huge advantage as things got a bit ‘hilly’ from that point. The climb out of Echo Bay was, according to our Cue Sheets, the toughest hill in the Lake Huron section of the trip. I wish that this had been true as it seemed that the hills which followed (and there were quite a few of them..!) were much tougher and they didn’t seem to let up especially as the grade on several of them was quite steep. It was also getting hotter and the sun had me reaching for my Gatoraid bottle on a regular occasion. As it got hotter it also seemed to get hillier and I wondered if there was a co-relation between the two.
A welcome sight in every TdC riders eyes is a ‘General Store’ in a place where you would never expect it – at times it can be like a mirage and there is a temptation to take your hands off of your hoods (handle bars) and rub your eyes in disbelief. Even better is if the General Store is locally owned, well stocked with ice cream, chocolate milk, sardines and has a friendly chatty manager. The General Store at Leeburn was just that and more. The shop is owne
d and operated by a former Dutch miner named Jake from Apeldoorn who had immigrated to Canada in the 1950s (and, at the time, earned 63 cents an hour working in a textile factory!). After a life of travel all over the world in the mining industry he ended up in Leeburn which boasts its Canadian fame as ‘The Smallest Town in Canada’ with a population of 6 people. The brightly painted yellow General Store was immaculately kept and was surrounded by a lovely garden and was adjacent to a clean outhouse. Inside the shop was well stocked with a fantastic and exotic array of icecream flavours which included Apple Pie, Moosetracks, Caramel, Moose and Cariboo, Creamsicle, Vanilla and Cherry Cheesecake. It was hard for many riders to leave and whilst Andrew, Brendan, Ian and I all arrived together, Brendan shot off after about an hour or so and Andrew, Ia
n and I stayed behind to relax in the sun, enjoy the warm breeze on the shop patio and chat with the owner. Procrastination is soooo incredibly easy on these kind of days..! After our 1 ½ hour break we hopped back on our bicycles and had a relatively uneventful final 40 kms into Thessalon with a few side trips to Rydal Bank and Bruce Station – both very small towns with populations of 1000 people (at most!).The rumour in Blueberry Hill (Goulais River) was that the Thessalon campsite wasn’t especially nice but it turned out to be a lovely site right on Lake Huron. It was our first campsite on Lake Huron and great to be on a clean and sandy beach. I set up my tent in the sun and braved my way into the water in an attempt to train for the triathalon which proved to be a short lived but refreshing experience.
The triathalon was definitely on my mind as I waded into the water trying to guage exactly how far 750 meters was and whether I had the strength and stamina to make it. I decided that for today, mental preparation was more than enough and waded back out of the water just in time for a delicious dinner.
The French Connection then ceremoniously awarded me with a fantastic present -- a flashy and especially stylish, bright red, very Canadian looking wet suit!!! Perfect for the triathalon...!! Apparently this would take minutes off of my time and I would be like lightning in the water. I carefully packed it away in my bag hoping that it would fit and realising that the first time I would actually ever swim in a wetsuit would be the first time I would swim 750 meters in my first triathalon. It was going to be a loooong week..!!
I ducked into my tent shortly after dinner and fell asleep almost instantly in spite of a screaming sound coming from Andrew's tent where a snake had apparently found its way. I am such a party animal that I can barely stay awake past 8pm these days ;-) Yawn..!!
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