- Day 1 -1 Week
- Day 1 -12 Hours
- Day 1
- Day 2
- Day 3
- Day 4
- Day 5
- Day 6
- Day 7
- Day 8
- Day 9
- Day 10
- Day 11
- Day 12
- Day 13
- Day 14
- Day 15
- Day 16
- Day 17
- Day 18
- Day 19
- Day 20
- Day 21
- Day 22
- Day 23
- Day 24
- Day 25
- Day 26
- Day 27
- Day 28
- Day 29
- Day 30
- Day 31
- Day 32
- Day 33
- Day 34
- Day 35
- Day 36
- Day 37
- Day 38
- Day 39
- Day 40
- Day 41
- Day 42
- Day 43
- Day 44
- Day 45
- Day 46
- Day 47
- Day 48
- Day 49
- Day 50
- Day 51
- Day 52
- Day 53
- Day 54
- Day 55
- The End
- Retrospective
Today started like most days; breakfast of waffles and juice, maybe a little cereal or toast and some coffee. A woman asking if I was going to use this table. Which I found odd, that I clearly just put my coffee on the table in question. I replied “I was going to”. And she started to walk to away. I asked if everything was ok. She said they were looking for a table of four. When I looked I could see that the table I was ablaut to use and it’s neighbor were the best two tables to make four. I then offered to move. She was shocked at my niceness.
I don’t think I was all that nice, not that I was mean but I moved from one table I had no real vested interest in to another. But she never asked me to move, she never asked if I would move, she didn’t offer the information that why she would have wanted the table I was about to sit. And this gave me repose. I mean, if I had just sat down after she had asked me if I was going to use the table, would I have been ‘ a bad guy’? It’s strange to me that if I didn’t go out of my way to ask her why she was taking me about the table I would have been ‘bad’.
Things are better on the a bike. My ass gets sore and my legs might be tired but as I want to go I just push the peddles and the road flows behind.
We made our way through Buffalo toward the border. We stopped for a quick phone call that turned into a long one.
A few twists and turns and we are approaching the Peace Bridge, from New York to Canada. The bridge is under construction and feels like we should not be crossing. I would later find on line in fact the bridge was closed to bike traffic. However there were no signs and no one said stop, so we rode right across. On the Canadian side we looked for any signs as to where bikes should go. We assumed it would be to the far right, so we headed that way. The toll booth style border control told us to go too the next lane over since this was some special lane. As we made our way toward the first first line over there was a border agent in a golf cart like vehicle tell people which lane. We rode up to him and he told us to go to the front of the line on gate 4, one over from where we were. Jerry pulled right up while I paused to inform the people we were about to get in front of that we were told to do this and we were just rude. However, the woman sitting in passenger seat shuck her head no to my miming her to roll the window down, then angrily pointed toward the back of the line. Jerry was already in front of them so I just joined him and we pulled up once the person at the gate was told to go ahead. The border agent was skeptical of us. As she questioned us a second border agent came around the corner. He was clearly the attack dog, just waiting to be told to sick. It came up naturally, but once it did I told her about the agent telling us to go to the front of the line and my experience with the car we cut in line. Once I said, ‘sorry to them, but the agent told us to go to the front’, she handed us back our passports. 48 countries, many of which I have been to several times and yet this was my first time crossing a border on foot (or bike).
A few peddles and were rolling through Canada. Jerry had wanted to go cross Canada, but on the road I’m doing most of the navigating. Looking at the map going over Lake Huron looks way out of the way, especially if bikes aren’t allowed on the 400 series highways. I started looking into the possibility of cutting across Canada, back into the States (Michigan) and heading North from there. However looking at that we started to see things like needing to stop near Flint, which didn’t seam like a good idea, and also the upper peninsular might be crazy with tourists and vacation rates.
We rode into the head wind. Way less hills, but much more wind and the sun felt somehow more relentless. But we are in Canada which feels like some kind of an accomplishment.
We rode into a town that had five hotels listed on my phone. First sold out. Second closed. Third number disconnected. Finally someone asked if we’d tried the hotel. It never ceases to give me a smile when people know you are not from here and yet talk to you as if of course you should know the college rents out dorm rooms in the summer. It was actually kind of nice. A dorm room with two separate bed rooms, a common kitchen and bathroom. No WiFi though, which is kind of killing me since I’m trying to learn how to use WordPress, while writing this, while mapping out our routes, while keeping in contact with my lady. Hopefully the professionalism (or lack there of) of this sight doesn’t keep people away, our routes work, and my lady remains as cool and understanding as she usual.
Latest posts by MikeDiazTheFirst (see all)
- Pandemic - April 15, 2020
- A farewell to EJ - March 27, 2019
- The three children - February 13, 2019
