Day26: Back to Canada, great weather, and tail winds

Friday July 12, 2019

This morning I realized that, once again it is a weekend day in a resort area of Canada and I'm going to have issues with finding an affordable motel tonight. I decided I would contact the Welcome Travelers Motel and get a room right after I got back into Canada and got access to Canadian phones. That didn't work so I decided to take the change of not getting a room tonight since it would have been a nice night to wild camp if I couldn't get a room.

A got to my daughter's husband's parents summer house about noon and we visited and all three of us took a nap after a light lunch and going out to the local restaurant. I got a shower before my nap since it was a muggy day an I'd ridden about 30 miles. It would have been 25 miles if I hadn't made the wrong turn leaving my motel in Calcium and then, coming into Watertown from a new direction on a sunless day, gotten north and south confused which led to several other bad turns.

This morning, leaving their house on Henderson Bay on lake Ontario, everything went smoothly. I rode from CR 123 which their house is on, to NY 3 to NY 180, to NY 12E covering another 30 miles getting back to the ferry port at Cape Vincent. it was 24 miles from there to Watertown after I got back to the US. On that segment, I stopped at a Subway after about 12 miles to have a late lunch. Today I stopped a Subway on NY 3 to pick up a footlong, and late at that first Subway to get a cup of coffee and eat the first half of that sub.Things started getting messed up when I JUST missed the 12:30 ferry from the US to Canada - I watched it pull away from the dock - and had to wait till 2 PM for the next crossing. Then things got looking up when I discovered a Brewery close to the ferry dock that had it's own good dark beer pints for $5. I had the second pint with the second half of my footlong at the Brewery. After that I was feeling pretty good ;-}. And, after getting into Canada, discovered that my phone, which now worked, thought it was still in the US and wouldn't let it call a Canadian number!

I headed across Wolf Island to get to the second ferry and the stopped after a mile or so to try again to get my room for the night. That time the phone worked and I discovered I'd just missed getting the last room at the motel. I contemplated wild camping on the island, which looked easier than doing it on the mainland, but decided it was just too early in the day. I rode on to the the second ferry port and JUST caught that ferry. I was heading up the ramp as the the crew member started to close the gate at the top of it and I parked my bike as she raised the ramp and we pulled out.

When we got to Kingston, I rode right onto CR 2 and across the causeway that 2 took heading east. At that point, the WT was along 2, although it was not very obvious initially and 2 was the big highway paralleling the newer 401 autoroute. I had ridden 35 miles to get there and decided I would ride on, on CR 2 till I got a room for the night or I got to Gananoque at roughly 60 miles for my day.

Most of the day had been cloudy with a head wind. That kept things cool, but it was not great riding. After I headed east on CR 2, I stopped at Mcds for an Asian Salad - not avaliable in the US - supper and then at a Super 8 which wanted CAD 150 - well over $100 - for a room. I wouldn't go over CAD 100 and I didn't really want to stop yet anyway.

As I rode east on WT - s good shoulder on 2, I saw a group of bicycle tourists coming the other way. I pullled across the road to greet them and discovered that they were a Quebecois family. Two parents and five or six kids, from maybe 6 to 14 years old! We visited and they told me they were from Montreal and had started their year long tour going across Canada, down the Pacific coast to Mexico and ending in Cuba! Wow! I told them about a French family I met on EV-6 in Romania a few years ago. They were had ridden from France and were headed to the Black Sea, Two parents, three kids and almost a fourth kid. That one was born just a month later at the Danube Delta. All of the family I met yesterday were on loaded bikes and they said they were doing about 40 km a day.

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