Day 5, Hamilton, Ontario

First, a little leftover information from yesterday that I didn't get a chance to post...

On Wednesday night, Suzie and I were "billeted" (a weird word meaning we were taken to someone's house overnight) to the home of George and Effie Holthof, a wonderfully sweet older couple. A few teenage boys stayed there too. She helped with our laundry, and her kitchen was completely taken up by two huge drying racks filled with cycling clothes. When I came down at 5:15 in the morning, she had everything all folded in piles on her kitchen table, separated by "boys" and "girls", at least as best as she could.

I was on sweep duty in the morning, meaning I had to be at camp around 5:30 to help with breakfast, which goes from 6 to 7:30. After cleaning that up, we have to wait until everyone has packed away their stuff on the gear truck shelves, then all of the (very heavy) large tent/army/hockey bags get loaded into the center of the truck. A few people have to volunteer to ride as the last riders, making sure everyone gets to the next spot safely.

Since I was going to be long, Suzie left ahead of me, which led to an interesting day for me. When I finally "escaped", I was riding on my own for awhile, until a group of 3 of the young kids came up from behind. I "tucked in" behind them and drafted off them for quite a while...we were flying, doing close to 20 mph. Eventually another group of kids came, and there about 10 of us in 2 columns of 5 each just ripping down the road...it was pretty cool! I lost them at one of the SAG stops; guess I was taking too long putting on sunscreen, so I rode on alone again. This time I caught up with a group of older men and rode with them until we got to a church that served us a wonderful lunch. I spent the afternoon riding with a Marge Seirtesma and and her brother Peter.

I am writing this now from Redeemer College in Hamilton, Ontario. It took close to 80 miles to get here today, but the winds were much better than yesterday, and it was actually overcast and not too hot up until about noon. Suzie had sweep duty this morning, so I ditched her like she did me yesterday. :) (love ya, Suz!) I rode most of the morning with Renee Brunsting from Fort Collins, Colorado. She started in Grand Rapids, also, and was supposed to be joining her dad, who was riding from Denver to Jersey City. Unfortunately, he was injured in a fall before reaching Grand Rapids, so she decided to come on her own anyway. Suzie caught up eventually late morning, and we rode together the rest of the day. We were inundated with food and roadside well-wishers all day again today; it's really something. I think I ingested an entire watermelon over the course of the day. The scenery has really been beautiful; miles of farms, fields, and some beautiful old farmhouses.

We chose to be billeted again tonight; the best part is showing up at camp in the morning and not having put away the tent and everything...Not to mention that the host people are so excited to have someone staying with them and being a part of this in their own way.

Tomorrow we have a very easy ride to St. Catharine's/Niagara Falls. I'm looking forward to seeing Michael there. :)

Hope you enjoyed this post; I passed up getting a free pedicure to do this instead.