Erie Shores - Day Four

I slept very well last night - yeah!  It's all that fresh air and the wind!

It was a short day - I was up at the same time and left at the same time and I was at the hotel before noon!  The distance was 83K although my distance was a wee bit shorter since I took a short cut!

The directions have been very easy to follow although there was one turn this morning that wasn't marked. Our map was marked, but the road was not and that resulted in a slight detour, but no big deal. There was a lot of wind.  Which fortunately for us was a tail wind. And there weren't really a lot of places to stop and take pictures so I sailed along at a great speed.

In a couple of places we turned direction and had to face a cross wind - a strong cross wind, but I was still sailing along at a good clip. I remember when we did the cross Canada trip - my riding buddy was a sailor and we talked about how we could hook up a sail to the bike to enjoy those winds!

There is a lot of tomato farming in this area. We've seen the fields of tomatoes and yesterday I saw them being harvested and in one field there were huge carts - a lot of carts that were ready to take the tomatoes to the factory for processing.  I did see a plant in Leamington so I'm not sure if the tomatoes are taken right from the field to the plant?  I would suspect so as they are relatively fragile even if they are destined to be made into sauce and ketchup. When I was in Leamington I did see a tractor pulling two carts of tomatoes to the plant.

The odd tomato falls off the cart and was laying by the side of the road and more often than not, the crows or ravens have picked the inside clean.

As I got closer to Leamington, the wind was quite strong and I noticed on the map that we had to take a trip down to the lake past the Point Pelee National Park. Then it meant turning around and coming back into the wind to the hotel. I had also seen a sign that the road was closed??  Not one for taking chances - I headed straight into town and missed that last part.

The room wasn't ready yet so I headed across the street to this little restaurant. It's like a bunch of kitchen tables in one spot! I had breakfast for lunch and I was good to go for the afternoon.  I decided to walk to the quilt store which was 3 K away.  Straight up the road, past the tomato factory which used to be Heinz (the name was incorporated into the bricks of the chimney), but is now owned by another company that also starts with H, but is not Hunts. I don't remember those kinds of details.

I had never been to A Stitch in Time but very familiar with the store as I see them at the Creative Festival all the time.  A big store with all kinds of stuff in it. Lots of sewing notions and other fabrics. It must have been a sewing store (home dec and clothing) at one point. Anyway, I managed to do some damage at the store and had to walk my purchases back another 3 K to the hotel. Let's just say that I'm getting some exercise on this vacation!

I could have ridden my bike, but since I had forgotten to bring a lock, I wasn't going to be comfortable leaving the bike unattended in downtown. It's not like I was pressed for time and the walk was nice.

We are very close to one of the ferry docks for Pelee Island.  It would be fun to take a trip over there one day, but this dock is closed for the season.  All ferries are out of the next town - Kingsville.

I took my book down to the water to read for a bit but I must confess that I was falling asleep and must have looked like a derelict along the water with my hair blowing everywhere and probably drooling at the mouth!

Back to the hotel where I had arranged for a massage. Ah - that felt good but let's just say that there are a few tight muscles. Must get in some stretching!

After the massage, I went back to the water front to read. It was glorious just sitting by the water's edge with nothing to do!

This is the first trip where I've stayed in hotels which means that we are in a town. Which means that if you want, you can do a bit of browsing or whatever.  When your end of the day is a camp ground there are fewer options unless you want to get back on your bike and ride into town.  While I miss the camping, this is pretty civilized! So civilized, I might be spoiled for camping in the future.

We had dinner at the pub downstairs and then it was back to the room where I confess I tried reading my book again and my eyes would not stay open.

I confused the heck out of myself this morning. I heard an alarm go off and shut if off without looking at it. My alarm is set for 5 AM.  I know - it doesn't have to be that early - too lazy to change it. When I looked at the clock and the clock said 4:30 AM.  What???  How could that be?  Was there a time change and no one told me?  Ah  -  no it appeared that I had set an early alarm for last Friday and I forgot to cancel it!  DUH!!!!

Wow - the sun is getting up later and later.  It's 6:35 and looking pretty dark outside still!

We didn't have rain yesterday although it was cloudy and looked like it might.

On that note - I might have a quick 20-minute nap before breakfast as I pretty much packed everything up last night.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!