Sunday, June 20, 2010

Day 13

Stats
Net Elevation gain: -13 ft.
Average Speed: 8.2 mph
Top Speed: 23.9 mph
Time spent biking: 6 hours 30 minutes
Total time for the day's travels: 11.5 hours
Miles biked today: 53.7
Total for trip: 519.5 miles

Packing up this morning around 9:00 A.M. we neglected to fill our water bottles at the campground before we pedaled away. We got back onto the Lake Ontario Parkway, which is a very quiet road with two lanes and a shoulder in each direction. It's nice enough to ride on, but we had quite a headwind and with our dwindling water supply, we were getting a bit demoralized.

Lake Ontario. Can you see the wind blowing?

We hadn't even eaten breakfast, we were just about out of food, and we weren't likely to come upon any restaurants for many miles. After a few miles, we finally decided to try one of the exits. We got off the Parkway and headed a bit south. Luckily, about a quarter mile uphill from the exit, we found a farm stand that had enough different fruits and vegetables for us to make a meal! We munched on tomatoes, a bell pepper, strawberries, and plums, plus granola and cheese from our supply. After eating, we felt MUCH better about everything. It's amazing what food can do to lift the spirits! We even got to coast back downhill to the highway.

Our breakfast spot.

A fox was enjoying the shade of the raspberry bushes while we were eating our breakfast!

Even with our spirits lifted, the going continued to be slow for the rest of the morning because of the headwind and rolling terrain. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant just before 12:30 P.M. and ordered breakfast (pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes and toast) and drank lots of water and juice. We made sure to fill up our water bottles with nice ice water before we hit the road again. The temperatures were in the high 80's, and there were hardly any clouds in the sky to protect us from the sun. We put on lots of sunscreen, but it was still so hot.

Berries and cookies!

It was delightful riding through fields and fields of cherry trees today. Most of the fruit on the trees wasn't quite ripe, but we passed several roadside stands with cherries, strawberries and raspberries for sale. We spent the last of the cash we were carrying on some raspberries and chocolate chip peanut butter cookies at one of the first roadside stands we passed, so it was a bit torturous to pass by so many more berry stands without any money to spend. Some of the stands were closed anyway, because the Amish don't make sales on Sundays. A very nice older couple did let us fill up our water bottles at their fruit stand and even gave us samples of the cherries and strawberries, even though we couldn't buy any.

We passed so many cherry orchards today. Most of the cherries weren't quite ripe. Jenny made sure to check.

Brett checks out the map, while Jenny is taking pictures of cherries.

By the time we crossed into Niagara County and stopped at a little food store, both of us had gotten some sunburn. Jenny's lower arms and lower legs were burned and Brett's hands and legs were quite red. We will need to get some more sunscreen soon, and think twice about biking in the middle of the day when it's so sunny out.

"You have to make hay when the sun shines..."

It was hard to find shade to take breaks in today. We finally managed to find a spot a few miles past the store, off the side of the road where some tall trees stood. We lay down in the grass, rested, looked at our map and called our parents to wish our dads a happy Father's day. It was hard to get going again after our break, but exciting to find an ice cream place a few more miles down the road!

After our ice cream, it was getting on towards 6 P.M., and had cooled off quite a bit. We were excited about how many miles we had already biked and about the possibility of making it into Canada tomorrow. We were really pedaling well, and enjoying the views of Lake Ontario through the yards we passed.

We were aiming for Four Mile State Park to camp for the night, but what we found before we got there was even better. At the Daisy Barn, a private campground eight miles shy of the State Park, we had a tremendous view of a gorgeous sunset across Lake Ontario. We could clearly see the skyline of Toronto. We were able to show the view in real time to Jenny's parents via Skype, work more on the blog and check all the wonderful comments people had left. We took a great shower, too. Finally, we cooked a spicy meal of pasta, zucchini, tomato, cheese, and hot dogs. It was very late by the time we actually got to bed, but we were very pleased with our progress westward. We have biked over 500 miles so far!

We had a great view of the Toronto skyline from our campground.

And a beautiful sunset, so we took a bunch of pictures.



4 comments:

  1. wahoo! first to comment for the 2nd time!

    the cherries in your picture look so delicious. papa is coveting the raspberries while i'm licking my lips over those luscious cherries. how nice of you to vicariously satisfy our cravings for two of our favorite fruit.

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  2. I can see that I am not going to beat Sherry to any more posts!!! Sounds like a fantastic day. Beautiful photos today. It has been miserably hot here, even for Florida, so enjoy the cooler weather there. Hot though it may be, it just can't be as bad as the humid heat we are having. Even the YMCA pool feels too warm. One of my favorite memories of biking for a month in Europe in 1971 with a friend was finding a plum tree literally drooping to the ground with ripe fruit. We feasted. I forgot that plums make prunes and prunes, well, you know.......

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  3. Sunday June 20 -- I was hot that day too, and I saw a sunset that day too. I was at Clearwater. When I was on duty, I was selling bottled water which was in a tub of ice, and I frequently used the ice cubes to try to cool off, but it didn't help much, and I had a feeling that I just had to get out of here. After my first shift, that urge sent me back to the campsite, but there really was no "out of here" because the whole outdoors was so hot and humid. I took a shower, and that left me feeling cool and fresh for about four minutes afterwards.

    The area where you usually camp at Clearwater was designated as night owl camping this year.

    The juggling place did not seem to have very many jugglers in it. Maybe next year you can come back and liven up the juggling area.

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  4. Somehow I got very behind on these posts, but what a treat to start back on! The pictures are beautiful!
    Sending lots of love your way!

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