Canada Day at the Cottage

A couple of days ago, my brother Wojtek said that he, Agnes and her parents had just rented a cottage for a week in the region of Bluewater, ON. He also said that Heather and I are welcome to come on Canada Day, our only day off this week, and enjoy the scenery. Of course, we said yes.

Now, the only thing we had to decide was to whether we would take the car or ride in on motorcycles. It's been a pretty wet week so far and things weren't looking much better for Canada Day. But since the forecast didn't call for any thunderstorms, we decided to ride (as a side note, we both rode without gloves today).

We left at 10 am dressed in rain suits and managed to cross paths with our friends Scott who, decked out in Canada gear, was on his way to Cambridge where he was taking part in Canada Day Parade with members of the Cambridge chapter of SCRC. Heather and I decided to first stop in Stratford where we would get gas that would last for the ride over to the cottage and back home.

While riding to Stratford, we noticed another holiday tradition - a police blitz. A car was pulled over in the town of Shakespeare, most likely for speeding, and another one in Stratford but by an unmarked cruiser. We didn't encounter rain until a light sprinkle just as we were the gas station in Stratford. From there it was more or less dry until about two minutes after we turned onto Perth Line 20. The rain was persistent but not too heavy. However, it made us slow down a little and I eventually pulled into a parking lot in Fullarton where another three police cruisers were congregating.

We stopped only for a minute to make sure that all was good and then kept going. It rained a little bit more and then we actually hit a dry spot. But two more minutes later, we were in rain again. And again we stopped to regroup, this time in Exeter. Since we were close to our destination, we kept riding through the rain, although at or slightly below the speed limit and letting a lot of cars pass us by. The rain finally stopped as we reached Zurich. We finally arrived at our destination at noon.

Our tourpack was packed full for this trip but we didn't end up using our swimsuits, but rather dry socks and shorts. The day at the cottage consisted of mostly sitting on the patio, a great lunch and a movie for the women, while the guys played cards. It was mostly an overcast afternoon with spots of sunshine but at least it was dry.

Heather and I finally left the cottage at 7:30 pm, again dressed in rain suits. This time, though, we managed to avoid rain. Or maybe the rain avoided us. Either way, we were in Waterloo before 9:30 and would have been home then but I wanted to ride by Columbia Lake where an annual fireworks display was set to start at 10. The mass of people and cars cost us almost 30 minutes but we were finally home.

Wojtek in the process of grilling sausages.

SEASON STATS
Today's trip: 277 km - 172 miles
2009 to date: 4,554 km - 2,830 miles (53.6%)
2009 goal: 8,500 km - 5,282 miles
To obtain goal: 3,946 km - 2,452 miles


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