Tuesday, August 3

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, we were invited to dinner by a couple staying in the same campground last night. George and Dale were wonderful hosts in their well-appointed motor home. We spent a couple hours there enjoying their company, and the nice meal the served us. While we were eating we got to see several freighters pass up or down Lake St. Clair, making their way between Lake Huron and Lake Erie.

After a difficult night’s sleep, due to the hot and sticky conditions last night, we somehow made it out of the campground in record time this morning. We rode an easy six miles or so up the US side of the St Clair River, to the little town of Marine City, MI. Before taking the ferry across to Sombra, ON, we stopped in the local diner for a second breakfast. The ferry ride was quick and easy, costing us the princely sum of $1.00 per bicycle. We stopped at the bank in Sombra to try to get some Canadian currency, but they did not have an ATM. No worries, five miles down the road in Port Lambton there was a credit union with an ATM. With some coin of the realm in our pockets, we continued on to Wallaceburg, where we traded some of our cash for an ice cold bottle of Gatorade and a can of peanuts to snack on, then headed to Dresden for lunch. From Dresden we made a long, painful slog south into a strong cross wind, coming at us from about 70 degrees or so. Jodi was handling the conditions just fine, but the wind was shoving me around on the road and reducing my forward progress to a crawl. After an interminable afternoon of hot and sweaty grinding into the wind, we finally made it to Eatonville where the route turns east, but we continued south another 6k to Rondeau so we could camp here at the Provincial Park.

I had heard that the prices in Canada’s provincial parks were getting expensive, and they are indeed. One of the cheapest sites here set us back $37.50. Yikes!

Even with my wind-induced misery this afternoon, I do love cycling in Canada. The drivers are so polite! The roads around here mostly have no shoulders, and several times today we had trailer trucks behind us geared down to low and crawling along behind us waiting until it was safe for them to pass. That simply does not happen in the States.

It was wickedly hot and humid all day today; what Jodi refers to as “a steamer.” But over the last couple of hours it seems like a lot of the humidity has blown out and the air is getting fresher and drier. We are on a bit of a peninsula jutting into Lake Erie, and there is a nice breeze blowing. It will be wonderful if it continues all night.

Tomorrow we will probably strike for Port Stanley, and a night in a motel.

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