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Sarnia Bob "The smaller the mind the greater
the conceit." The mortgage company approved the offer on our house. "I guess that makes it official," Sharon said. "No excuses now why we can't continue." We jettisoned any waffling concerns we had been harbouring and committed ourselves to our dream. After all, touring cyclists' have a rule: Never turn back. Following backroads through miles of farmland provided us with enough corn crops to last a lifetime. "Build it and they will come," kept repeating in my head. Cornstalks towered over and around us. Wind rustled the papery dry leaves, sounding like whispering conspirators. Was it murmuring about our plans to ride around the world? It had big ears and probably knew all about our intentions. It must be impossible for farmers to keep secrets. Before crossing back in to Canada at Sarnia, we stopped at a mall in Port Huron to mail postcards. My Avocet altimeter registered exactly zero feet climbed all morning. "That part of Michigan was flatter than the prairies!" We entered the mall and discovered a food court. Eating there was an all-round bad experience. All those clean people! Spending their time (and money) buying useless stuff we no longer needed. We hadn't been on the road more than two months and already we felt removed from our previous lives. Compared with nature's peaceful burbles, the mall's constant hubbub made us as jumpy as two cats on a hot tin roof. After the past weeks in mostly tiny villages, the crowd was a culture shock. And seated next to a blaring musical carousel ride - filled with screaming kids - did nothing to calm us. People gawked at us. What was it? What made them think we were different - something to be stared at? I knew I had changed on the inside, but had I changed on the outside, as well? If being stared at wasn't bad enough, once outside the mall, we met Bob. He was from Sarnia, and had brought his wife to the States for a day's shopping expedition. He noticed our loaded bikes and hastened over with a few questions. "How long are you out for?" I took the plunge. After all, it looked as if we had sold our house. "Two year round the world trip." The words squeaked out, mewling like a newborn kitten, uncertain of coming into the light of day. Around the world? Unbelievable. I gulped as the words clawed their way out. Ringing in my ears, their harshness jolted me with reality. But I needn't have worried. Sarnia Bob paid no special mind to my reply. He may not have even heard. "I bike 20 miles a couple of times a week," he bragged. "How many miles a day do you do?" "As many as we can," I answered. "No, really," he pressed. "How many?" "Oh, eighty to a hundred or more," I answered. Unlike when we quoted those figures to curious Americans, Sarnia Bob didn't bat an eye (I could tell he was a Canadian from a mile off). Not the slightest trace of attention in his voice, he asked, "Where are you off to next?" "Toronto," Sharon answered. "Via Point Pelee," I added. Sarnia Bob finally blinked. He made an incongruent face and stuttered that those destinations lay in completely different directions. His mentality was of a racer, straight line, point A to point B, as fast as possible. No time to look up. No time to smell the roses. No time for detours. He didn't fathom the essence of bicycle touring. It's the journey, not the destination. Sharon pulled out a map with our highlighted route to Point Pelee. "You don't want to go there," Sarnia Bob stated flatly, scrutinizing the proposed route: first south, then west, then back east along Lake Erie's shore, then north to Toronto. "That's a long way out of your way...," he mumbled. "I'd say you'd have at least a hundred extra miles!" A hundred miles? This was the same fellow who hadn't batted an eye when I told him we were riding a hundred miles a day? "Who wants to see Point Pelee, anyway?" he muttered. (Not only is it one of the country's most visited parks - well known for its remarkable birding and Monarch butterflies - it's also Canada's most southern point of mainland.) When Sarnia Bob realized we weren't about to change our minds he revised his tact. "Well," he said haughtily, "if you're determined to go to Point Pelee, it'd be a shorter distance if you crossed back into Canada at Windsor." Windsor!? Good one, Bub! Wouldn't that entail cycling through Detroit? Detroit! Now there's one of America's friendlier cities. Talk about adventures in cycling! Maybe it missed grabbing the American nation's "Murder City" title this year, but usually it's bobbing around in the top four. Detroit, population about 925,051, has in the neighbourhood - not a very good neighbourhood, apparently - between 395 and 615 murders per year. (Canada, with a population of over 30 million - and roughly 90% of that population living within 100 miles of the US border - usually registers around 550 murders per year.) I studied the map. Interstate 94 may have been shorter, and even if we had been allowed on it, we wouldn't have wanted to anyway. So, if we had been insane enough to cycle to Detroit, our route would have been south along the Saint Clair River, skirt Anchor Bay, then follow the shoreline of Lake Saint Clair. That route didn't appear shorter to me. And, we had no hankering to visit Detroit, nicknamed Motor City, historic heart of the American automotive industry, home of Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors, on bicycles. Sheesh. When we politely declined Sarnia Bob's Detroit route suggestion, he felt compelled to supply us with directions to Toronto by way of Highway 7 (a good deal north of our intended Point Pelee route). After several minutes of explanation, he concluded his route spiel with: "I've never been on it personally, but it used to be four lanes. Now it's two, so it ought to have a wide shoulder." We thanked Sarnia Bob, eager to see him on his way. "I could give you directions past Toronto," he blathered on, oblivious to Sharon's growing restlessness (perhaps he wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box), "but I better stay in my own area." He paused. A sour look crossed his face - the exact one, I suspect, someone'd get if a wet mackerel slapped him upside the head. "Besides," he said, smacking his lips, "you've made it this far by yourselves." Sharon swung a leg over her bike. We bid Sarnia Bob a final goodbye. Out of Sarnia Bob's earshot, Sharon asked, "Have you ever noticed that a whole lot of people seem to have gotten short-changed when it comes to having common sense?" "I'm sure he was just trying to be helpful." Sharon wasn't so sure. I think she had the distinct feeling that touring bikes were like squirrels: they attracted nuts. Or something like that. We rode straight to the US-Canada Blue Water Bridge crossing before Sarnia Bob could hunt us down and assail us with more good advice. At the border, a chipper-looking guard made the mistake of asking a still-flustered Sharon, "Where have you been?" She waved her hand vaguely toward the southwest. "Over there." One might say her answer took him slightly off-guard. His left eyebrow jutted skyward, but without another question, he waved us through. "What a wonderful sense of geography you have," I kidded her as we pedalled away. Sharon glared at me. "That Bob guy still had me rattled." |
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