Oh Canada!

We made it back to the states, surviving the expense of Canada! It took us four days of riding to get thru to Fort Erie, Ontario. Now we are relaxing at our friend Scott's and our new friend Donna's house near Buffalo, NY trying to figure out the route to NJ. Done with the Adventure Cycling maps John will put his skills to the test and start the route selection. I have complete confidence in him but I'm sure he wishes, at times, that his wife was a little more like Sacajawea and not Lucille Ball. Oh well, I is who I is whether I know which way is east.
Scott showed us a great time being our personal guide and bike security thru Fort Erie and Niagara Falls. We get a little twichy in the more populated areas about the safety of our gear and with his experience in touring Scott was very accommodating to our needs. We learned a good lesson in one of campgrounds in Michigan about leaving stuff unattended, which did work out in the end, but gave us a shake to start paying more attention. The bad weather held off with only Scott getting soggy on his bike ride over to meet us. We continued to luck out and only got a spritz. Niagara Falls was beautiful and a pretty ride down the river. Clifton Hill, on the Canadian side of Niagara, was a total zoo feeling like a really crazy carnival. Tons of people wandering up and down the road bumping into each other too busy gawking at the wax museum figures in the windows to be looking around. It was great people watching and felt invigorating to be in a diverse mix of people (even if there was too many of them). I'm sure we added our own element to the crowd with the bright colored Lycra ( I hope we took our rearview mirrors off of our sun glasses). We have felt many times in many places that we were a freak show.
Canada was a little change for us, great in some ways but some challenges on the roads. The roads were so narrow there wasn't even room for the white line that we try to stay to the right of. The first day or two it caused huge road stress for me because it seemed no matter how secondary the roads were huge trucks were barreling down on us. I'm not sure if my nerves were fried after 3 months but I ditched my bike into the gravel shoulder quite a few times. My trust of the Canadian truck drivers just wasn't there causing anger mixed with tears at times. Thankfully the roads got way smaller hugging Lake Erie's coast thru some nice quiet neighborhoods and we could relax and enjoy the area. So all ended well north of the border and now we are on to the final leg of the trip. The final leg, never thought I'd say that! 500-600 miles maybe and no matter how much I don't want it to end I can't wait for it to end. A little screwy huh?! The plane tickets for home are booked and Belmar is looking good and close. Hopefully the next couple of weeks go as smoothly as the past few months. Have we suffered enough on the trip? Probably not but we will take our good luck and good decision making and continue down the road. See you all sooner or later. Kate