LUUUCY,, I'M HOOOOooooooome!

We've had a fantastic couple of days.. exausting and very difficult, but very rewarding and fulfilling.
Yesterday I was dieing to update our blog and talk about how gorgeous Ontario is but we didnt have internet access.
We altered our route slightly when we got off of the ferry from South Baymouth to shave of some extra Kilometers and speed up the trip a little bit. So instead of following the edge of the lake, we headded more or less in a straight line for Toronto.We pased through so many great l'ill towns! Some of the buildings and old houses are like they were cut out from books. Over the last couple of days, we've seen beautiful little brick homes, graceful rolling hills and terrific people.
Yesterday morning we woke up at 5 am, and started out from Little Current, where we stayed the night. Our departure time was 7 am for the ferry from South Baymouth and we biked 60K's from Little Current and made great time. We had some great luck with weather the last few days, it's been sunny and,,, well,,, WARM. In fact.. I think I've been in rooms full of fire that were cooler. (I'm not kidding!)
The sun beamed down on us as we struggled with those headwinds comming off the ferry all the way to where we finally stopped for the night - in a town called Flesherton. Flesherton looks like a fantastic little town and I'm looking forward to visiting it on the way back! I couldnt believe the mosquitos though! The bugs ate us alive as we paused for the odd break and to refill our water bottles. We got to Flesherton completely exausted and dehydrated so we went to a local restaurant to have some appetizers and sing some karaoke! (Stole the show)

OUR LAST DAY...
Wow... one of the shortest rides for distance in the last week or so. We ended up biking something like 170 Kilometers through more gorgeous countryside. As soon as we got to the Durham region, we were met by some of Jamie's friends and had a Police escort from where we stopped for lunch right to our finish line in Ajax. (That is where the headquarters for the Childrens Wish Foundation is located.) We were very happy to see the officers as they personified the end of a very long and hard journey. They were fantastic! Two Officers on motorcycles led the way,, it was quite the boost. To top it all off, that furious headwind that was fighting us the whole way since Regina turned around and pushed us towards our destination! WE HAD A TAIL WIND!!! For the first time in something like 20 days!!!! lol.
We reached speeds of over 60Kmph on the way to Ajax. WE ALL HAD HUGE SMILES ON OUR FACES - shouting and cheering could be heard from our group and we raced through the city where we were met by members of our families and people from the Childrens Wish Foundation. It was an amazing experience getting off of our bikes, knowing that we had completed the ride. We slayed the dragon.. It's done.
It is also a great feeling knowing that someone besides us will benefit from this. We struggled and overcame our obstacles, pain and discomfort. Hopefully through this maybe someone else will overcome their pain and discomfort. Bringing some happiness to someone else who is suffering will make it all worthwhile. We are all so happy that it worked so well and that all of us are safe and healthy. We would like to thank everyone for their help and encouragement during our ride. Like we've mentioned, Randy would give us updates on who had left messages and words of encouragement for us, and that was HUGE for us. It was always so great to hear that someone believed in us and was cheering us on. Thank you.

Auntie Emm!!! It's a twister!!

Monday was the longest ride that we've done yet.. it was about 240K's. We saw another majestic Canadian Moose! Man those things are ugly! And they have this silly prance when they walk. It really is something to see. A few days ago we saw bullwinkle prance accross the road infront of us, it was a young bull. On monday we saw his girlfriend! Ms. Bullwinkle was standing by the road and pranced off into the forest we we rode by. Shortly after we spotted Ms. Bullwinkle, Douggie pointed out a fox that scurried off towards the tree line as we approached - pausing for a while to curiously watch us ride by. We were shooting for a little town that didnt really exist the other day. When we got there we were forced to ride on another 40 K's, bringing us to a little flea-bag motel that apparently experienced a toilet paper famine. Yes... It's true. lol. No toilet paper.


I feel bad because it seems like most of the entries in this blog have become centered around how bad the weather has been and not much else is said about the day. It is true, we have had terrible luck with the weather, but the trip is going well. I was thinking today as we were riding.. "holy smokes.. it's like mother nature hates us and heard we were comming." We had some nice sunshine, but I would probably say that today was probably the worst for winds. (Clark looks like a lobster! Let this be a lesson to you kids,, wear sunblock!)
We're all excited because we only really have a few days before we reach Toronto. Friday is when we we figure that we will get there. AND SOME GOOD NEWS!! Randy was telling us over dinner tonight that it's possible that we may have great weather right on in 'till friday! AND the winds may shift tomorrow giving us a good tail wind for the remainder of our trip.
We stopped tonight in a town called Iron Bridge. The winds were vicious today and it was a head wind the whole way from where we started. It is still very hilly - big rolling hills. We can usually reach some pretty crazy speeds on the downhills, sometimes breaking 60 Kmph. That speed on the downhill is fantastic for giving us a little extra push, helping us charge up a new hill. The momentum can carry you a LONG way up some hills. However, when you're going downhill and you're thinking that you should be going maybe 50 - 60 and your speedometer reads 25... Thats a STROOOOOONG head wind.
SO... we had a nice big dinner (we worked up a heck of an appetite) and we are all settling in to bed. One more down three to go.

Good to see the sun again!

We started off bright and early in Terrace Bay with the sun shining. The freezing rain was gone - staying in Terrace Bay yesterday was a smart move. There is no way we would have made it safely from Schreiber to Marathon, and there is no way we would have made it to White River at all.. The weather was nice today but with the terrain and those constant head-winds it was one of our roughest rides so far. We did 171 Kilometers over some pretty rough hills. We would like to thank the Norwood Motel in Terrace Bay again for the kindness they showed us when we were wet, shaken and delerious from the cold.