Saturday August 1, 2015

A lovely sunrise this morning.

We finally decided to take the TransCanada Highway through Dryden to Thunder Bay. Why? Well the TCH has a shoulder and although it may be busier, we will be safer on a wide shoulder than a road with no shoulder.

As we left Kenora we passed the Tim Hortons – the Drive-thru lane extended out on to the main road and into the centre turning lane, very bad planning.

If it was up to Ralf, he would not allow drive-thrus at all. In his opinion, it would be the only exercise some people get, to get out of their cars and into the Timmies for their donuts!.

North-western Ontario is one of the areas that the company I used to work for did a lot of their work. As we are cycling along I am reminded of all the municipalities that we worked for.

I remember one of my co-workers travelling all the way to Machin to hold a public meeting and the clerk had forgotten to give the required notice for the meeting, no one showed for the meeting.

This Trappers Museum also reminded me of the time when a municipality wanted to create a trappers museum, but to have live trap-lines to show European visitors how they trap animals. My boss at the time persuaded them that maybe it wasn’t a good idea considering the uproar over wearing fur.

The stories Bob and Jim could write about working in Northern Ontario would make for a very funny book.

There were sections today when the shoulder went to nothing! Of course that is where they created a passing lane and took away the shoulder! This is not the only country that does this.

A lovely ride today, we are back into some rolling hills and lovely scenery. The tail-wind pushed us along and up the hills, I am glad I am going east-bound.

Northern Ontario is beautiful, very rugged with big granite outcroppings, trees of birch and white pine hang on to the meager soil and lakes dot the landscape. There is a ditty about Ontario and it goes like this: “rocks, and trees and trees and rocks and water”!

I was tired by the time we got to Vermilion Bay.

We had lunch and then looked for a campsite. The weather again looked ominous and the nearest campsite was another 5 kms up the road. Not too far, but of course next to the rail-road. We had checked on the prices at the motel and initially decided it was too expensive. Ralf could see I was needing a motel, so we cycled back and broke the budget. Breakfast is included, I hope she has enough to feed and fuel two cyclists.

One of the things that is driving me crazy as I cycle along, is the distances. In Ontario most of the advertising signs are in time – for example the Best Western roadside sign – Kenora is one hour away from Winnipeg! No it isn’t it is a day and a half! Tim Hortons is 15 minutes away – NO it is half a day away. Even when I spoke to the young woman in the Kenora Tourist Information Office she told me how long it would take for me to get to the campground in time spent. \”It’s about 15 minutes\”! I pointed to my cycle helmet, that was on my head and the clothes that I was wearing – \”15 minutes by bike\”? I asked “Uhm No by car, I don’t know how many kilometres it is”! she responded.