The End of the Golden Weather!

Hello from Canada!

Today is day 68 on the road. It is hard to believe but in that time we have only had about three days of riding in the rain -and one of those so light we didn't even need jackets. Anyway Friday we crossed the Sr Clair river from Marine City, Michigan to Sombra, Ontario Canada! Thursday had been cold but big blue skies. We stayed Thursday night with Scott and Cheryl (warmshowers.org) in M City who kindly gave us a roof over our heads, dinner and breakfast and waved us on on Friday at about 8 a.m. into a grey old day. By the time we had made the short ferry crossing (we were the only ones on board) the rain was getting real heavy. The Canadian border people asked if we had any guns or other weapons and stamped us in with no hassles. And into the icy cold rain we rode! At about 11.30 a.m we came to the first settlement of the a.m. and went into the small diner completely soaked and frozen! The locals assured us that this WAS NOT cold and as successive people came and went tried to find us and our bikes a ride to London. One kind lady who lived next door called her son who got on the intenet to find out where the closest accomodation was and then took our bill for the soup & coffee we had just consumed and paid for it! What a great welcome to Canada. Back out in the rain we slowly warmed up and rode another hour or two before deciding to try our hitching skills once more! We bought a felt tip got some cardboard and wrote a big London on it cycled on a few more miles and had barely stopped to try hitching when a man who had just pulled in to a store across the road yelled out "I'm going to London" and we threw our bikes on the back of his pickup and an hour later were being dropped off in the south of London where the cheap motels are! Another Canadian angel that day! Saturday (yesterday) we chilled as N has a cold and needed some rest. I cycled around London a little with no paniers (which feels very light and weird after 2 +months lugging all our gear!) and got some more maps and info for Ontario and New York. At night we stayed with Dave (also found on www.warmshowers.org) who treated us like royalty and fed us a great dinner,gave us a bed with sheets and sent us on our way this morning with a hearty breakfast inside! It has been grey all day but no rain or headwinds so made good time and had enjoyable day including a look around the cute town of Paris. Now in Ancaster on the edge of Hamilton and on to St Catharines tomorrow and Niagra the next. Weather forecast is not good but hoping they've got it wrong for when we are in Niagra!
So ...our lunchtime search for a cool Sprite has now been replaced with a search for soup or coffee and the sunscreen has been put away! Despite that we have received a very warm welcome to Canada and hope we'll get to come back someday.
Tomorrow we will pass our 2500 mile mark (about 4000km). Still doesn't seem real that WE are doing this as we don't feel like real cyclists at all! We just keep the legs pumping and the wheels turnng and slowly but surely we are getting there. We expect to be in NY city Oct 31 where there will be some crazy Halloween antics to commemorate the end of our cycle trip! Plently more tn to he had tho before then! Marty