Saturday, June 27, 2009

To Lake Huron and Back

It's been almost two weeks since we last rode. Somehow, our wedding plans always seem to get in the way. Fortunately, after making substantial progress in that department over the last week, we got out today on a very beautiful day. A key piece of our planning was completed on Friday as our customized stamps from Canada Post arrived less than a week after ordering them. So last night we managed, with my mom's help, to pretty much finish assembling the invitation packages. We were even able to hand deliver a handful of them.


Sheets and sheets of stamps.

We left on today's ride at around 9:30 am. As usual, I planned the ride a few days in advance and made sure that it took us through, unknown to us, roads of Southern Ontario.

Today's first stop was on Harriston. We stopped at the local bakery, the Harriston Bakery, and picked up a croissant, a cinnamon donut and an apple-cinnamon bread. Somehow, I feel we'll be making a few more trips to that establishment. On the way over to Harriston, I noticed a number of signs promoting something called the Canadian Redneck Games. It seems today was the second day of that three day competition. I just looked it up online and the Games consisted of several events involving mud and a Hubcap Hurl, among others. Maybe next year.

We filled up a couple miles out of town and continued on through Mildmay, Walkerton and onto Kincardine. It felt like the traffic was crawling all the way over but that could be because last time I rode was 4 days on US interstates. We decided to have lunch in Kincardine but after zipping past a couple of family restaurants we settled on Crabby Joe's. We sat on the patio and Heather had a plate of apple-pecan salad while I had a Hawaiian sandwich (a BBQ chicken sandwich with a slice of pinapple in the middle). Needless to say, we were both satisfied with our selections.


After lunch at Crabby Joe's.

We then rode along Lake Huron to Goderich. From Goderich, we finally started heading in the general direction of home but with frequent stops, mostly due to fatigue, in places like Seaforth, St. Marys and Woodstock. In Woodstock, we filled up once again and finally decided to head straight home. It was well past 4 pm when we left the gas station.

Our menu of destinations from Seaforth.

Because it was getting to be a long day for us, we chose the quickest way home which meant getting on the 401. The traffic wasn't very heavy but the first 5 miles or so from Woodstock were in a construction zone with reduced lanes, no shoulders and a small section of stripped asphalt. We got home at about 5:15 pm and after an hour to unwind we started work on more wedding plans, this time trying to select music for key parts of our special evening.

And one more note about riding. We rode all day today without gloves and I may have to consider using sunscreen in the future. And now, from wrists to knuckles, I got a great tan.

Caught red-handed.

SEASON STATS
Today's trip: 405 km - 252 miles
2009 to date: 4,277 km - 2,658 miles (50.3%)
2009 goal: 8,500 km - 5,282 miles
To obtain goal: 4,223 km - 2,624 miles


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WATER TOWERS
Harriston,
ONKincardine,
ONGoderich,
ONCambridge,
ON

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