Miles 4 Melanoma

Another rainy morning as we got started on today’s 90-mile route. It stopped by the time we got to the lunch stop in Brown City, the self-proclaimed "Origin of the Mobile Home." The staff had cooked up some nice hot vegetarian chili and hot chocolate, in addition to the usual delicious sandwiches, salads, fruit, and snacks.

It stayed pretty chilly once the rain stopped. I had figured that I would either need my rain jacket, or once it stopped raining, it would be warm enough for just a jersey and arm warmers. So, I had not packed my vest, but this afternoon, I was wishing I had it.

I rode with Colleen all the way in from lunch. I was in a mood where I just wanted to put my head down, pedal hard, and get the miles out of the way today, so I kept up a pace between 18 and 21 mph, and Colleen just stayed tucked in behind me the whole way. At mile 80, we stopped at a pie shop that Keith had found when he mapped the route. The pie was excellent; I got Oreo Creme and Colleen got blueberry. We were a little disappointed that it was mainly just a take-out bakery, though; we were hoping for a nice place to sit and warm up with a cup of coffee.

As soon as we got to Richmond, we stopped at Hamilton’s Bicycles. They were very excited to see us; they said that they look forward to the Cycle America tour passing through every year. It was one of the best bike shops we have seen on the tour. I went a little crazy and ended up buying a jersey (the Tour de France polka-dotted climber’s jersey), a pair of Canadian flag socks, a headlamp, another mirror, and a bar-end mirror for Robert, as he has been looking for one. Then I took a ride to the other end of town looking for a grocery store, and ended up finding only a K-Mart. I bought some Dawn and a small brush to clean my drive train. I spent some time doing this after dinner, as many other people had to do, after the wet and sloppy conditions we had today. Then I took a walk up the street to a local gallery and shop with Bruce and Patti, and I bought a pair of earrings for my mom.

After dinner in the school cafeteria, Meg, Bruce, Robert, and I wanted to have a quick beer. I suggested walking to the east side of town, towards where the K-Mart was, because I thought I had seen a few establishments on my way earlier today. There turned out to be no place there to go for a drink, so we flagged down a nice local, who gave us a lift in the back of his pickup to a bar back on the east end of town, right across the street from the bike shop. We didn’t stay long, just had our one beer, then walked back to the school and went to bed.

Filed under: Coast to Coast 2004 |