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September 9 Friday Bicycle touring from Vasser Michigan to Port Huron Michigan to Sault St Marie Ontario to Mooretown Ontario We got up at 7 AM. We could hear the morning traffic going off to work. We found a phone booth to call home to check about the house offer. We want to talk to Sharon's dad to hear what he thinks. The housing market in Edmonton is slow right now. It has the most houses on the market ever. The real estate agent said that because of our house's small size and old age most buyers would either be investors buying it for rental property or developers who would knock it down and build a big new house. We decide we may as well accept the offer since even if we hang onto it for a couple more years probably wouldn't improve the market or price that much. We learn that the people buying it are planning on living in it for awhile. They are living in an apartment now. We feel better about selling it to them because we think it is a good solid house and it would be a shame for it to just be knocked down. We park our loaded touring bikes beside a pay phone and dial. We can hardly hear since the phone is out in the open and there is a lot of commuter traffic. We tell them to go ahead with accepting the offer. We will call tomorrow to see how things turned out. It shouldn't be a problem since the couple who are buying it have cash. We feel the sooner the better -- that way Faye won't have to deal with the greasy wiener, which is what she is calling our real estate agent now, much longer. Or have to worry about watering the plants and mowing the lawn, or heaven forbid, shoveling the walks in the winter. It turned out that the offer deadline is the tenth, so it was lucky we were at the State Park campground or else we probably wouldn't have called home in time. We took some beautiful backroads through the countryside. I saw enough corn crops to last me a life time. "Build it and they will come," kept playing though my head. In some places the corn had grown higher than we were on our bicycles and we could only see cornstalks on either side of us. The wind makes the stalks rustle together; it sounds like they are whispering conspirationally. It is very flat country to be bicycle touring in. (One day, after a whole morning of cycling, we had climbed zero feet according to my Avocet altimeter.) We overshot a road that we wanted to take south towards Port Huron and ended up on the busy lake drive road. Most of the traffic is coming towards us, but it is still terrible to be cycle touring with so much traffic. We cycled a paved road back to the west, rather than stay on the loop tour. There were so many cottages that the lake was practically impossible to glimpse anyway. Besides, I was too busy to gawk as I weaved my bicycle around the many potholes. The country road we found was great for bicycle touring. There were hardly any cars and it was smooth. We found another small road south and cycled on it until Kewahdin, which took us into Port Huron. We stopped at a mall to mail postcards, but I couldn't find a mail box. We ate at Taco Bell in the mall's food court. Sharon is as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof from all of the hub-bub in the mall. We were seated next to a musical carousel ride. And the number of people! We haven't seen that many people in a couple of months total. We met a fellow, Bob, from Sarnia. We tell him we are bicycle touring for a couple of years. He asks where we are going next. Sharon says "Toronto." I reply "Point Pelee." He makes an incongruent face and indicates both destinations are in different directions. He says going to Point Pelee will take us a hundred miles out of our way. He had asked us how far we go in a day and we told him about 80 to 100 miles. So that means it would take us one day out of two years to go to Point Pelee. "Besides," Bob says, "if you're going to Point Pelee, it would be shorter to cross at Windsor." We agree, Bob, but wouldn't that mean we have to get through Detroit? On bicycles? Detroit is not exactly known as one of America's friendlier cities, bike or no bike. Isn't that the one they call Murder capital? Anyway, Bob, maybe if you were driving a car and took the Interstate, it would be shorter, but gandering at my map I notice how the road jogs around the bay. I don't think it would be much shorter by bicycle. Bob gives us directions to Toronto via Hwy 7. He says, "I've never been on it, but it used to be four lanes and now it's two, so it should have a wide shoulder for safe cycling." Sure. Thanks Bob. "I could give you directions past Toronto, but I better stay in my area." Then he gets a flash that we must have cycled all the way here somehow and concludes, "Besides, you've made it this far by yourselves." He doesn't say anything about getting to Point Pelee and we don't ask. Hey, it's a hundred miles out of our way. Who would ever want to go there even though it has great scenery, is a National Park, and is the most southerly point of Canada's mainland? Bob says he rides a bike twenty-five miles a couple of times a week. But he's never toured and he has that straight line gotta get there as fast as I can direct point A to point B mind set. We locate a mailbox just before we turn to exit the US at the immigration building. A pickup truck hauls our bikes over the Blue Water Bridge for no toll charge. At Canada Customs the guard asks where we've been. Sharon waves her hand vaguely, and with a blank look at the guard, says "Over there." Amazingly enough, with this bland statement, he lets us back into the country. Arnie's movie springs to mind where he is trying to clear immigration on Mars and his disguise malfunctions: "Two weeks. Two weeks. Two weeks." Sharon must have a way with words. When I asked her later why she said that to the officer, she replied "I forgot where we were." I reminded her, "Duluth, Wisconsin, Upper Peninsula, Mackinaw Bridge to Port Huron." The guard asked us "Buy anything?" "Just food and a tire," I say. "Anything from the Duty Free shop?" "No," I tell him, "too heavy." "Go ahead," he says. See? I can play this game too. Sarnia has lots of flowers and is picturesque, built beside the St Clair River. There are lots of heavy industry, so the factories spend a bunch of money trying to cover up the huge smoke stacks and chemical plants. It looks clean as long as one only looks skin-deep. Even the river is a beautiful turquoise and azure. Probably the chemicals being dumped into it make it that colour. I noticed Lake Huron was blue in places too. We bought groceries in Corunna. There is only about an hour of light left. It gets dark around 8 PM now. A fellow told us there is a campground about five kilometres away in Mooretown. When we get there, they want too much for a hunk of grass. I tell them we are on our honeymoon. They say "In that case, you can stay on the grass right beside our trailer." Pat, a woman who is easily 300 pounds, doesn't move from her lawn chair the entire time we are there. Her husband, Claus, does all the running. He fixes us tea, two burgers each, and then make us hot chocolate. Pat says, "It takes 31 years to train 'em. Start early." She is funnier that Roseanne Arnold and keeps us laughing the whole time with her rude, crude, and obnoxious behavior. Pat has a sister, Judy, who is even bigger that Pat. Judy has a tiny husband from Malta who they have nicknamed Speedy. He barely says anything all evening -- not that he gets much of a chance with Pat there. She tells us, "Claus is German and Ukrainian, so I call him my little Geranium." Pat tells us about her dad. She says he is 80 and is waiting to die. She'll ask him, "Do you want to go to a birthday party, Dad?" "Probably be dead by then," he says. "Well, if you're not dead do you want to go? "Okay." "Want to go to an anniversary, Dad?" "I'll probably be dead by then. Don't make any plans around me." "Okay, Dad." Pat says he is so stooped over he reminds her of the letter n. She says it looks like his suspenders are way too tight and they are pulling him over. "Hey, Dad, your suspenders are too tight!" "Whaaaat?" "Never mind." When she goes to see him he greets her with "Hi, Fat Pat." "Hi, Dad." "Anything new?" "No." "Thought so." Her dad falls asleep all the time. Playing cards. Reading the paper. Watching TV. Just waiting to die. Because I told them we are on our honeymoon, they think we are newlyweds. And I didn't bother to correct them in case they changed their minds about their free camping offer. Pat has plenty of advice for Sharon. "Can't use the headache excuse anymore," she says, "because some dumb doctor now says sex reduces stress and actually helps your headache go away. So now I've had to change my tactic to "Rub my back," until he falls asleep. Some drunk guy drives in and proceeds to try and run over the flower garden. The guy is sure that is where the road goes. They're telling him to turn around, you're running over our flowers. He insists that that is where the road goes. Cripes, he practically ran over our bicycles. Bicycle touring isn't safe even when you're in camp these days. Their grandson, Corey lives with them. The other day he asked Claus, "What's a condom, Grandpa?" "An apartment building," Claus replied. Pat then told him it was a raincoat for a penis. "Don"t want the kid getting no wrong ideas," she says. Pat and Claus have a son, Jake, who sounds as though he has taken after Pat to the nth degree. He often tries to embarrass Corey at the school bus stop. He goes outside and plays football by himself -- in his underwear -- just as the bus is stopping to pick up Corey. Corey is ten and still embarrasses easily. One day Jake had on only his underwear and a huge Mexican sombrero. That morning Jake tried to get on the bus to go to school. Corey took one look at his crazy uncle, turned around, and started walking back home. There was no way he was going to get involved in this. We head off to the shower. "Hey, you're holding hands!" Pat calls after us, "Newlyweds!" "You can shower together if you like. The one on the end is for handicapped, so it is nice and roomy!" Judy calls out. I'd have to say, that's the most helpful advice I've heard all night. |
