South we go

July 21, 2016

Today we started our slow southward crawl back to Florida. We didn't make it very far south, but a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single snack. In our case we snacked throughout the day just to be safe. We started with a light breakfast at the hotel in Stratford, then headed west and had lunch in the town of Exeter, population 4,000.

In the suburbs we hail from a town of 4,000 would be indistinguishable from the surrounding towns, but in the wheat country we were riding through it was the biggest thing around. We left the highway we had been riding on to check out the downtown area. We were pleasantly surprised to find a vibrant main street with lots of shops and sidewalk sales. I would hate to see what a Walmart would do to the town, but a local told us that people around there make a special effort to support the local businesses.

We did our part by having lunch in an Exeter cheese shop / cafe. The sandwiches were good and the ice cream was outstanding.

As usual Kerry's bike attracted a crowd.

As forecast the temperature climbed into the 30s, and this was definitely Celsius 30s, not snow flurry 30s. We pushed on until we reached "the west coast of Ontario" on the shore of Lake Huron.

For the remainder of the day we followed the shore of Lake Huron. We plan to do the same tomorrow. That brings up our latest geographical conundrum. Lake Huron separates the United States from Canada, the US is South of Canada, we are on the south shore if Lake Huron, but somehow we are in Canada, not back in the USA. Go figure...

A guy named Giordano asked to take his picture with us. So we asked to take our picture with him. Here it is! It marks the point where we reached Lake Huron.

In Lambton Shores we visited an excellent museum documenting rural life in Ontario.

These 2 cats run the Lambton Shores museum.

The museum had a bike with a wooden frame and wheels.

A single piece of wood is bent to form the top and bottom of the frame.

Other bikes used more conventional materials.

As we approached our destination we encountered a few stalls on the side of the road selling tobacco products. Apparently they don't have to pay tobacco taxes if they are on tribal land. The first one also sold fireworks. I'm not sure I would want to combine smoking products and fireworks under one roof.

We had several eating options when we got to our destination at Kettle Point on Lake Huron. There was a farm stand a tenth of a mile from the hotel, a small restaurant adjacent to the hotel (run by the hotel owners son), and a grocery store 2 km down the road. We don't like to play favorites, so we got food from all three locations.

The farm stand had baked goods in addition to fruits and veggies. Even though they seem to have built the stand around a car, they don't deliver.

Just as we returned to the hotel with our food items it started to rain. This has happened multiple times on this trip. They really need rain up here, so we are happy to have it rain once we are indoors.

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