Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it's all right
Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right
Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
-The Beatles - "Here Comes the Sun"
Carrying Place – Ivy Lea – Day 49
164kms / 101 miles
The weather this morning was misssssssserable – drizzly rain… the kind that you can’t dress for because if you wear Gore-tex you get sweaty and if you don’t wear Gore-tex you get damp… Whatever way you slice it, you’re wet and uncomfortable. I promised myself that I wouldn’t complain and that I’d smile and ‘suck it up’ for the day. Quite an ambitious target by my standards..!! On the positive side (because Andrew is always telling me to be positive), it is meant to be an ‘Easy terrain day’ apart from a climb past Rednersville. The route would take us diagonally across Prince Edward Country but close to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Ian joined us again as he was done with his whirlwind tour of Ontario for family visits. It is also a century day of 101 miles. Yikes....
We left at our usual time – 7:30 and I kept a close eye on my odometer which hit 5000 (!!!) today! A true cause for celebration…! Yahooooooooooooooo!
Kingston - Home of the Tragically Hip..!
Cycling into Kingston we saw Alan, John, Dave, Lani, Ross, Dave, Tony and Darlene and a number of others applying the same strategy as us – trying to cycle quickly and avoid the rain. We decided to do our ‘overtaking strategy’ for a bit of a laugh but then the joke was on us as we took a wrong turn and came face to face with a GIANT WALL OF RAIN. It was heading STRAIGHT for us about 20 meters away and you could literally see it moving in our direction. I screamed,
“Aahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Go back! Go back…!!! Raaaaaaaaaaiiiinnnn!!!”
I don’t think I’ve ever biked so frantically in my life – we quickly turned around and flew up a residential street in Kingston desperately looking for any sort of restaurant where we could hide in and seek shelter from the storm and eat lunch at the same time. Looking left and then right and then left and then right as we tried to find a place to eat we suddenly saw the light… - the giant neon lights that is - of:
“The Hoagie House”.
I was in Hoagie Heaven. Totally.
(Funny though as the only Hoagie I’ve ever heard off was on an episode of the 'Bill Cosby show' and I always thought that ‘Hoagies’ (also known as ‘sub sandwiches’) were purely an American phenomenon...)
As soon as we walked into the restaurant it POURED down. And I mean POURED. We must have looked hilarious – we sat giggling a bit delirously in the corner of the completely empty restaurant, looking out the window at the torrential rain, chuckling at the misfortune of all those caught out in it (sorry guys!) and then we devoured our warm, delicious and filling ‘hoagies’. It was a first and I will never forget Kingston for that..!!
We ended up waiting for about 1.5 hours for the rain to subside – it seems excessive but every time the rain seemed to stop then it would start again. Nightmare..! The temperature also seemed to drop by about 10 degrees..! We finally braved the weather and headed outside to explore the sights of Kingston. I have only been to Kingston for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament and avoided it because of the McGill vs. Queens University rivalry. It is a great University town though with a good vibe. We stopped outside of the Kingston Penitentiary and took a few choice photos. Originally constructed in 1833–1834, and officially opened on June 1, 1835 as the "Provincial Peniten
tiary of the Province of Upper Canada," it is one of the oldest prisons in continuous use in the world. It is often referred to as "Alcatraz North".
We then continued on to the Murney Tower, another historical point where we took a few more photos and began to accept the fact that we were going to have a damp afternoon.
Finally, we continued down onto the Main Street of Kingston onto Ontario Street where we passed Kingston City Hall. City Hall in Kingston is a giant, rather imposing looking building that was once intended to be the country’s Parliament building. It was designed by George Browne in 1844. The original design of City Hall had a hemispherical dome with no clock faces or belfry. The belfry and clock were housed in a large square end block that originally extended the market wing all the way to King Street. The market wing end block was destroyed in a fire on January 10, 1865. The original clock that had been given jointly by John Counter and John A. Macdonald was moved to the main dome. There was a huge speedboat show on along Ontario Street so we stopped and had a quick look around. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay to explore much more than 5 minutes because we were already running behind schedule due to our ‘rain avoidance’ strategies.
We continued on to take the Bridge over the Cataraqui River which was a bit of a dodgy ride – the bridge had a precarious steel grate deck and I didn’t trust my thin tires on it so I dismounted and walked over the bridge. We met up with Rick and Jan and Ned who had been caught out in the torrential rain but, as always, were in excellent spirits and enjoying the day in spite of the crappy weather..!
Andrew, Ian and I made FANTASTIC speed for the next 30kms averaging about 32kms / hour over some rolling but perfectly paved terrain. I’m not sure what happened but I led and I am pretty sure that the hoagie kicked in as I felt like my bike had suddenly grown turbo boosters. I was FLYING and even Andrew and Ian were scared to catch me ;-) I was having a great time and was really enjoying myself. I had music in my ears, was happy because we’d stayed dry on a day which we thought was going to be terrible and had a few great laughs as we sped along the highway. It is on days like this where I really enjoy being out and I sometimes wonder what it is like to have ‘worries’ – or wonder why I have ‘wasted’ so many hours of my life crying or worrying over things that are definitely not worth crying or worrying over..! It was a great ride and we were ticking off the kilometres into camp.
Somehow we took a wrong turn when we reached the Gananoque River. We tried to backtrack for a few minutes and then decided to abandon our mission and look at a map in the comfort of an ice-cream shop in downtown Gananoque, near to the famous Thousand Islands. (http://www.gananoque.com)
This was where things started to go horribly wrong – depending on how you look at it….
We sat in the comfort of the ice-cream shop licking our giant 3-scoop cones (mine was my favourite, mint chocolate chip!) and discussing our haute-cuisine for the day – lattees, gelato, hoagies, ice-cream… Mmm… Suddenly we noticed that the clouds had again begun to form and it was looking like rain AGAIN..!!! I couldn’t believe that it could actually rain THAT many times in one day..!! We had a bit of a moan as it sucks getting rained on when you are a mere 15km from camp and when, against all odds, you managed to cycle the previous 150 without getting wet!!! We decided to wait a bit longer and called in to the TdC line to say that we were running late and might not be back in time for dinner (it was nearly 6pm already).
Ian, in his wanderings, found out that there was a concert playing at the Gananoque Festival that night – a live band and it was the CARPENTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have no idea what the Carpenters sing but I was sure that my Dad had the Carpenters record (yes, a recordl!) and he has pretty good taste in music so the Carpenters HAD to be cool.... What excellent luck! We immediately wandered over to the ticket stand where we were met with some suspicion (I keep forgetting that we do look a bit unusual all decked out in our tight padded shorts, grease covered legs, weird cleated shoes and bright shirts…) and told that there were tickets and they were $15 each. A bargain..! The concert was due to start at 7:30 and would go on to about 10:30. We discussed whether it would be feasible to stay in Gananoque for the evening and then cycle the final 15 kms back that night after the concert – in the dark…. It was a bit of a risky plan and we were torn in our decision making process.
and I say it's all right
Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right
Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
-The Beatles - "Here Comes the Sun"
Carrying Place – Ivy Lea – Day 49
164kms / 101 miles
The weather this morning was misssssssserable – drizzly rain… the kind that you can’t dress for because if you wear Gore-tex you get sweaty and if you don’t wear Gore-tex you get damp… Whatever way you slice it, you’re wet and uncomfortable. I promised myself that I wouldn’t complain and that I’d smile and ‘suck it up’ for the day. Quite an ambitious target by my standards..!! On the positive side (because Andrew is always telling me to be positive), it is meant to be an ‘Easy terrain day’ apart from a climb past Rednersville. The route would take us diagonally across Prince Edward Country but close to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Ian joined us again as he was done with his whirlwind tour of Ontario for family visits. It is also a century day of 101 miles. Yikes....
We left at our usual time – 7:30 and I kept a close eye on my odometer which hit 5000 (!!!) today! A true cause for celebration…! Yahooooooooooooooo!
By the time we actually got cycling, most of the drizzle had stopped and the sun could be seen breaking through the early morning cloud. Sure enough, after about 15kms the sun began to shine and we enjoyed a relatively easy ride on County Road 3 up to Rednersville. It was an entertaining one as we did our best to catch up with a few choice riders and try to overtake them – sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. We had a good laugh as we planned our overtaking strategies – cycling as fast as we could up behind the ‘victim rider’ and then passing them smiling asking if they were going so slow because they’d "eaten too big a breakfast…." Yes, cruel but fun. I knew that I was becoming a stronger biker because even when the Cue Sheet indicated that there would be a climb up the escarpment past Rednersville, we didn’t even notice it..!
Ian was keen to stop and even more keen when he noticed advertising for
‘The Bean Counter Café’ in Picton at km 48. Ian was a genius for that stop – it was fantastic..!! Definitely one of the best coffee shops on the trip so far. Brendan, a coffee shop connoisseur would have loved it. We sat down and I had a monster of a latte and a huge cinnamon bun. The boys went on to also enjoy a giant gelato ice cream. Sooo good. It was hard to leave..! What made the coffee shop even better was that it was next to a bicycle shop which opened at 10:30 and where we met Laura and Tak. I bought a new blue tire (for when mine wears out..!) and we each received a free water bottle from the owners – good timing as I had discovered some particularly nasty green slime growing in my water bottle the previous evening. Apparently old Gatorade is a haven for bacteria growth and my water bottle would have made a great science project.
It was a beautiful morning but you could tell by the way the fluffy clouds were gathering that the weather was ‘changeable’ and the 90% chance of rain would probably materialise. We cycled on until we reached km 60 and the Glenora Ferry. It was a great ride – wide, smooth shoulders, not too much traffic and lovely scenery along the route. It was ‘Loyalist Country’ and you could tell that there was a lot of history in the area. I tried to picture what it must have been like about 200 years ago. Loyalist country was a primary destination for those who chose the British side when American colonies declared independence.
The ferry ride was (unfortunately!) a short one and about 20 minutes long. We met up with Eve and Graeme and Laura and Tak and had a fun journey over, snapping pictures and laughing as Andrew’s bike tried to mate with Eve’s. The motorists on the ferry must have thought we were quite a rowdy bunch…! We always seem to be laughing and having a great time.
Loyalist Country
We got off the ferry and continued on our way – just past the ferry dock there was an old stone house that was the home of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald’s father (John A. Macdonald was ‘the father of Confederation and Canada’s first Prime Minister). By this point the sky had grown much darker and by the time we cycled past a giant power-plant at Conway I was 120% positive that we were going to get poured on – it was a question of where..! Fortunately we managed to get all the way to the lovely town of Bath before we made a quick stop at a 7-11 outside of town to stock up on iced-tea and to take shelter from the impending rain. No sooner had we stopped at the convenience store than the skies opened and it began to POUR down. You c
ould tell that it would only be a short shower as the rain was very heavy and very local. Fortunately it only lasted about 3 minutes before the storm blew over and we were left to continue on Route 33 to Kingston.
Ian was keen to stop and even more keen when he noticed advertising for
‘The Bean Counter Café’ in Picton at km 48. Ian was a genius for that stop – it was fantastic..!! Definitely one of the best coffee shops on the trip so far. Brendan, a coffee shop connoisseur would have loved it. We sat down and I had a monster of a latte and a huge cinnamon bun. The boys went on to also enjoy a giant gelato ice cream. Sooo good. It was hard to leave..! What made the coffee shop even better was that it was next to a bicycle shop which opened at 10:30 and where we met Laura and Tak. I bought a new blue tire (for when mine wears out..!) and we each received a free water bottle from the owners – good timing as I had discovered some particularly nasty green slime growing in my water bottle the previous evening. Apparently old Gatorade is a haven for bacteria growth and my water bottle would have made a great science project.
It was a beautiful morning but you could tell by the way the fluffy clouds were gathering that the weather was ‘changeable’ and the 90% chance of rain would probably materialise. We cycled on until we reached km 60 and the Glenora Ferry. It was a great ride – wide, smooth shoulders, not too much traffic and lovely scenery along the route. It was ‘Loyalist Country’ and you could tell that there was a lot of history in the area. I tried to picture what it must have been like about 200 years ago. Loyalist country was a primary destination for those who chose the British side when American colonies declared independence.
The ferry ride was (unfortunately!) a short one and about 20 minutes long. We met up with Eve and Graeme and Laura and Tak and had a fun journey over, snapping pictures and laughing as Andrew’s bike tried to mate with Eve’s. The motorists on the ferry must have thought we were quite a rowdy bunch…! We always seem to be laughing and having a great time.
Loyalist Country
We got off the ferry and continued on our way – just past the ferry dock there was an old stone house that was the home of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald’s father (John A. Macdonald was ‘the father of Confederation and Canada’s first Prime Minister). By this point the sky had grown much darker and by the time we cycled past a giant power-plant at Conway I was 120% positive that we were going to get poured on – it was a question of where..! Fortunately we managed to get all the way to the lovely town of Bath before we made a quick stop at a 7-11 outside of town to stock up on iced-tea and to take shelter from the impending rain. No sooner had we stopped at the convenience store than the skies opened and it began to POUR down. You c
ould tell that it would only be a short shower as the rain was very heavy and very local. Fortunately it only lasted about 3 minutes before the storm blew over and we were left to continue on Route 33 to Kingston.
Chasing the Storm
I felt like we were off of the movie ‘Twister’ where Helen Hunt and her sidekick chase tornadoes across the US. Rather than chasing tornadoes, we were chasing a storm but cycling strategically so as to stay just behind it. Unfortunately however the storm that we were cycling into soon was joined by a storm to the north and then another one to the south, forming over Lake Ontario. The sky seemed to get darker and darker and darker and created quite a contrast to the deep grey waters of Lake Ontario. We made it all the way to Kingston without getting caught in it
and hoped that we’d be able to find a Tim Hortons (or an equivalent!) before it hit us full force.
I felt like we were off of the movie ‘Twister’ where Helen Hunt and her sidekick chase tornadoes across the US. Rather than chasing tornadoes, we were chasing a storm but cycling strategically so as to stay just behind it. Unfortunately however the storm that we were cycling into soon was joined by a storm to the north and then another one to the south, forming over Lake Ontario. The sky seemed to get darker and darker and darker and created quite a contrast to the deep grey waters of Lake Ontario. We made it all the way to Kingston without getting caught in it
and hoped that we’d be able to find a Tim Hortons (or an equivalent!) before it hit us full force. Kingston - Home of the Tragically Hip..!
Cycling into Kingston we saw Alan, John, Dave, Lani, Ross, Dave, Tony and Darlene and a number of others applying the same strategy as us – trying to cycle quickly and avoid the rain. We decided to do our ‘overtaking strategy’ for a bit of a laugh but then the joke was on us as we took a wrong turn and came face to face with a GIANT WALL OF RAIN. It was heading STRAIGHT for us about 20 meters away and you could literally see it moving in our direction. I screamed,
“Aahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Go back! Go back…!!! Raaaaaaaaaaiiiinnnn!!!”
I don’t think I’ve ever biked so frantically in my life – we quickly turned around and flew up a residential street in Kingston desperately looking for any sort of restaurant where we could hide in and seek shelter from the storm and eat lunch at the same time. Looking left and then right and then left and then right as we tried to find a place to eat we suddenly saw the light… - the giant neon lights that is - of:“The Hoagie House”.
I was in Hoagie Heaven. Totally.
(Funny though as the only Hoagie I’ve ever heard off was on an episode of the 'Bill Cosby show' and I always thought that ‘Hoagies’ (also known as ‘sub sandwiches’) were purely an American phenomenon...)
As soon as we walked into the restaurant it POURED down. And I mean POURED. We must have looked hilarious – we sat giggling a bit delirously in the corner of the completely empty restaurant, looking out the window at the torrential rain, chuckling at the misfortune of all those caught out in it (sorry guys!) and then we devoured our warm, delicious and filling ‘hoagies’. It was a first and I will never forget Kingston for that..!!
We ended up waiting for about 1.5 hours for the rain to subside – it seems excessive but every time the rain seemed to stop then it would start again. Nightmare..! The temperature also seemed to drop by about 10 degrees..! We finally braved the weather and headed outside to explore the sights of Kingston. I have only been to Kingston for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament and avoided it because of the McGill vs. Queens University rivalry. It is a great University town though with a good vibe. We stopped outside of the Kingston Penitentiary and took a few choice photos. Originally constructed in 1833–1834, and officially opened on June 1, 1835 as the "Provincial Peniten
tiary of the Province of Upper Canada," it is one of the oldest prisons in continuous use in the world. It is often referred to as "Alcatraz North".We then continued on to the Murney Tower, another historical point where we took a few more photos and began to accept the fact that we were going to have a damp afternoon.
Finally, we continued down onto the Main Street of Kingston onto Ontario Street where we passed Kingston City Hall. City Hall in Kingston is a giant, rather imposing looking building that was once intended to be the country’s Parliament building. It was designed by George Browne in 1844. The original design of City Hall had a hemispherical dome with no clock faces or belfry. The belfry and clock were housed in a large square end block that originally extended the market wing all the way to King Street. The market wing end block was destroyed in a fire on January 10, 1865. The original clock that had been given jointly by John Counter and John A. Macdonald was moved to the main dome. There was a huge speedboat show on along Ontario Street so we stopped and had a quick look around. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay to explore much more than 5 minutes because we were already running behind schedule due to our ‘rain avoidance’ strategies.
We continued on to take the Bridge over the Cataraqui River which was a bit of a dodgy ride – the bridge had a precarious steel grate deck and I didn’t trust my thin tires on it so I dismounted and walked over the bridge. We met up with Rick and Jan and Ned who had been caught out in the torrential rain but, as always, were in excellent spirits and enjoying the day in spite of the crappy weather..!
Andrew, Ian and I made FANTASTIC speed for the next 30kms averaging about 32kms / hour over some rolling but perfectly paved terrain. I’m not sure what happened but I led and I am pretty sure that the hoagie kicked in as I felt like my bike had suddenly grown turbo boosters. I was FLYING and even Andrew and Ian were scared to catch me ;-) I was having a great time and was really enjoying myself. I had music in my ears, was happy because we’d stayed dry on a day which we thought was going to be terrible and had a few great laughs as we sped along the highway. It is on days like this where I really enjoy being out and I sometimes wonder what it is like to have ‘worries’ – or wonder why I have ‘wasted’ so many hours of my life crying or worrying over things that are definitely not worth crying or worrying over..! It was a great ride and we were ticking off the kilometres into camp.
Somehow we took a wrong turn when we reached the Gananoque River. We tried to backtrack for a few minutes and then decided to abandon our mission and look at a map in the comfort of an ice-cream shop in downtown Gananoque, near to the famous Thousand Islands. (http://www.gananoque.com)
This was where things started to go horribly wrong – depending on how you look at it….
We sat in the comfort of the ice-cream shop licking our giant 3-scoop cones (mine was my favourite, mint chocolate chip!) and discussing our haute-cuisine for the day – lattees, gelato, hoagies, ice-cream… Mmm… Suddenly we noticed that the clouds had again begun to form and it was looking like rain AGAIN..!!! I couldn’t believe that it could actually rain THAT many times in one day..!! We had a bit of a moan as it sucks getting rained on when you are a mere 15km from camp and when, against all odds, you managed to cycle the previous 150 without getting wet!!! We decided to wait a bit longer and called in to the TdC line to say that we were running late and might not be back in time for dinner (it was nearly 6pm already).
Ian, in his wanderings, found out that there was a concert playing at the Gananoque Festival that night – a live band and it was the CARPENTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have no idea what the Carpenters sing but I was sure that my Dad had the Carpenters record (yes, a recordl!) and he has pretty good taste in music so the Carpenters HAD to be cool.... What excellent luck! We immediately wandered over to the ticket stand where we were met with some suspicion (I keep forgetting that we do look a bit unusual all decked out in our tight padded shorts, grease covered legs, weird cleated shoes and bright shirts…) and told that there were tickets and they were $15 each. A bargain..! The concert was due to start at 7:30 and would go on to about 10:30. We discussed whether it would be feasible to stay in Gananoque for the evening and then cycle the final 15 kms back that night after the concert – in the dark…. It was a bit of a risky plan and we were torn in our decision making process.
Somewhere in the conversation we also found out that it actually wasn’t the Carpenters that were performing (apparently one of them is dead anyway..?!). Rather, it was ‘The CARVENERS” – a Beatles TRIBUTE band..!! Even better than the Carpenters..!
We decided that even though we were keen to stay, it likely wasn’t the smartest idea and we started to head back to the highway and continue on to Ivy Lea where the rest of the ‘gang’ awaited us. We then passed a ‘Travelodge’ and then Ian, aka Einstein, had a bit of inspiration. Why not stay in a hotel for the evening?!! That way we:
(1) stay dry
(2) shower AND swim (the hotel had an indoor pool!!)
(3) eat ‘normal food’ (eg. No plastic plates using more than just 1 utensil)
(4) can go to the concert
(5) get a good nights sleep
(6) cycle the last 15kms tomorrow as part of our cycle into Ottawa
A cunning plan..!
We decided that even though we were keen to stay, it likely wasn’t the smartest idea and we started to head back to the highway and continue on to Ivy Lea where the rest of the ‘gang’ awaited us. We then passed a ‘Travelodge’ and then Ian, aka Einstein, had a bit of inspiration. Why not stay in a hotel for the evening?!! That way we:
(1) stay dry
(2) shower AND swim (the hotel had an indoor pool!!)
(3) eat ‘normal food’ (eg. No plastic plates using more than just 1 utensil)
(4) can go to the concert
(5) get a good nights sleep
(6) cycle the last 15kms tomorrow as part of our cycle into Ottawa
A cunning plan..!
Andrew went in to enquire about rates and immediately booked us a room to share between the three of us. Rather than pile into the room and get too settled we ran to the nearest “Giant Tiger” (poor-mans Walmart) and I splurged on an outfit (underwear, pants, shirt AND flipflops) which came to $15. Bargain..!! It wasn’t quite haute couture but it was the first new outfit I’d bought in months and I felt well stylish in it. Ironically, as soon as we stepped into the Giant Tiger it began
to POUR TORRENTIALLY outside. The sky was BLACK as night and if it had been a bit more humid I would certainly have predicted a tornado. It was pretty crazy and no sooner had the rain started than it stopped again..! It was enough to soak Polly though as unfortunately I forgot to take her off of my seat. Yick – soaking wet, spongy sheepskin…
We raced back to the hotel and bumped into Denis along the way. He too was feeling a bit discouraged by the rain and we had no problems in convincing him to join us in our room for our evening of fun in Gananoque.
We managed to sneak 4 bikes into our slightly crowded room and headed off for the pool. I didn’t bring my bathing suit but decided to swim in my bicycle shorts and sports bra which made for a very stylish swimming costume. At that point I really didn’t care and it was so nice to be in a well chlorinated, warm pool with the knowledge that everyone in camp was likely sat in the mud, swatting mosquitoes, and dealing with the prospect of crawling into a soaking wet sleeping bag… I am really, really, really le
arning to appreciate the simple pleasures in life on this trip. I even went into the sauna before heading back to the room for a quick shower and then walk the downtown catwalk in my new stylish evening wear courtesy of Giant Tiger. Andrew and Ian were also looking pretty stylish in their new outfits – t-shirts and jogging pants and flipflops that looked remarkably feminine... Pretty hot there guys..!
An Irish pub was recommended where we had an AMAZING dinner along with a few ‘jugs’ (I am trying to teach Andrew that in Canada they’re called PITCHERS!!) of beer. There was a fantastic live band which took requests (no Danny Boy unfortunately..!) and provided plenty of entertainment. The singer did an excellent rendition of ‘Wonderwall’ which has been going throu
gh my head all day. The band and the cosy, warm atmosphere was so good that we nearly forgot the sole purpose of our stay in Gananoque was actually to see the Carvenors Beatles Tribute Band..! Dennis left at around 9:30pm and I decided to head out as well and go for a walk and catch about 5 minutes of the band. As soon as I heard the music of the Beatles wafting from the fairgrounds, I couldn’t help but determinedly head back into the pub to drag Ian and Andrew away from their jugs of beer and out to enjoy the final 40 minutes of the performance.
It was definitely worth it…! The tribute band was EXCELLENT and we had a blast singing at the top of our lungs and dancing up a storm – ‘Hey Jude”, “Back in the USSR” and all of the oldies but goodies…. It was such a fun evening. There were giant screens set up alongside the stage and a dance floor was set up along the front of the stage. The crowd was seated comfortably in rows of lawnchairs staring up at the screens and tapping their feet to the beat. When we arrived on the scene and began to ‘shake our booties’ then slowly but surely we had a few more people drift onto the stage area. It was great.
At 11pm (after 2 encores!) we headed back to the hotel where Denis was already fast asleep and snoring up a storm. I was exhausted and found a little corner in front of the door and beside my bike to fall asleep on the floor on two duvets. Fortunately I am so tired at the end of every day that I can sleep pretty much anywhere…! It took me a whole 30 seconds to fall asleep. What an awesome, fun filled and adventurous day..!!
to POUR TORRENTIALLY outside. The sky was BLACK as night and if it had been a bit more humid I would certainly have predicted a tornado. It was pretty crazy and no sooner had the rain started than it stopped again..! It was enough to soak Polly though as unfortunately I forgot to take her off of my seat. Yick – soaking wet, spongy sheepskin…We raced back to the hotel and bumped into Denis along the way. He too was feeling a bit discouraged by the rain and we had no problems in convincing him to join us in our room for our evening of fun in Gananoque.
We managed to sneak 4 bikes into our slightly crowded room and headed off for the pool. I didn’t bring my bathing suit but decided to swim in my bicycle shorts and sports bra which made for a very stylish swimming costume. At that point I really didn’t care and it was so nice to be in a well chlorinated, warm pool with the knowledge that everyone in camp was likely sat in the mud, swatting mosquitoes, and dealing with the prospect of crawling into a soaking wet sleeping bag… I am really, really, really le
arning to appreciate the simple pleasures in life on this trip. I even went into the sauna before heading back to the room for a quick shower and then walk the downtown catwalk in my new stylish evening wear courtesy of Giant Tiger. Andrew and Ian were also looking pretty stylish in their new outfits – t-shirts and jogging pants and flipflops that looked remarkably feminine... Pretty hot there guys..!An Irish pub was recommended where we had an AMAZING dinner along with a few ‘jugs’ (I am trying to teach Andrew that in Canada they’re called PITCHERS!!) of beer. There was a fantastic live band which took requests (no Danny Boy unfortunately..!) and provided plenty of entertainment. The singer did an excellent rendition of ‘Wonderwall’ which has been going throu
gh my head all day. The band and the cosy, warm atmosphere was so good that we nearly forgot the sole purpose of our stay in Gananoque was actually to see the Carvenors Beatles Tribute Band..! Dennis left at around 9:30pm and I decided to head out as well and go for a walk and catch about 5 minutes of the band. As soon as I heard the music of the Beatles wafting from the fairgrounds, I couldn’t help but determinedly head back into the pub to drag Ian and Andrew away from their jugs of beer and out to enjoy the final 40 minutes of the performance.It was definitely worth it…! The tribute band was EXCELLENT and we had a blast singing at the top of our lungs and dancing up a storm – ‘Hey Jude”, “Back in the USSR” and all of the oldies but goodies…. It was such a fun evening. There were giant screens set up alongside the stage and a dance floor was set up along the front of the stage. The crowd was seated comfortably in rows of lawnchairs staring up at the screens and tapping their feet to the beat. When we arrived on the scene and began to ‘shake our booties’ then slowly but surely we had a few more people drift onto the stage area. It was great.
At 11pm (after 2 encores!) we headed back to the hotel where Denis was already fast asleep and snoring up a storm. I was exhausted and found a little corner in front of the door and beside my bike to fall asleep on the floor on two duvets. Fortunately I am so tired at the end of every day that I can sleep pretty much anywhere…! It took me a whole 30 seconds to fall asleep. What an awesome, fun filled and adventurous day..!!
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