Chapter 2: "Little Old Ladies"

Chapter 2: "Little Old Ladies"

April 10-18: A week of difficult weather, spent crossing the sparsely populated woods of southern Ontario, a week book-ended by the kindness of “Little Old Ladies.” Sorry, not many pictures because… difficult weather and sparsely populated woods!

 

This photo actually belongs at the end of this post, but I'm putting it here so it will be the link thumbnail.

April 10, Thursday: 6 miles (402.6)

I spent the day in Ogdensburg, writing letters, calling friends and family, and searching in vain for a dentist to fix a filling that broke 2 days ago. (Even Ed and Smitty at the post office couldn’t find a dentist who could help me.) I splurged on staying 2 nights at Mrs. Murphy’s house for $7 a night. Lest you get the wrong idea about Mrs. Murphy’s, in one of my letters home I wrote “It’s a very proper place: No Girls Upstairs is the rule. (Much to my chagrin, of course!)”
“This evening I cut my hair, with some help in the back from wonderful old Mrs. Murphy. I hung out with her a bit today, and she does love to talk. I think she got a charge out of helping me cut my hair.”

 

April 11 Friday: 62.5 miles (465.1)
From my journal: “I’m in Canada! Packed up this morning, and when I went to say goodbye to Mrs. Murphy, she offered to give me some toast. Pretty soon it was a whole breakfast, and she was talking my ear off. I liked it though. She’s a wonderful, trusting old woman. We’ve gotten to be real pals in just the short time since I arrived. It was even a little sad to say goodbye, especially for her, I think.”

“I made pretty good time on Rte. 16, [with the wind at my side or sometimes even behind me, but] when I turned west on 43, I kissed any tailwind goodbye. It was a 3rd gear pumping [standing on pedals] headwind, and the air was cool too. Cool enough that when I stopped to eat and dress up, my hands were almost completely non-functional. I must have spent half an hour trying to button the cuffs on my wool shirt, and even then only got one of them.”

April 12 Saturday: 37.2 miles (502.3 T)
“Raining when I woke up, rained all day. Rode anyway, but decided I would stop early. (I did enjoy some of the riding - it’s kind of a neat different feeling, riding in the rain, with all my fancy rain gear on, and the countryside looks and feels different.)”

I camped at a (closed) provincial park, and wrote “It was a nice feeling to get inside my tent, even though everything is sticky wet and humid, and the tent drips here and there. I just felt that I was finally out of the elements - my tent feels like home.”
I should note here that this was a tent that I sewed together myself from a Frostline kit, for a previous bike trip partway across the US - Connecticut to Colorado.

April 13, Sunday: 40.8 (543.1 T)
A little sun but mostly gray, and “What a headwind! First gear on flat ground.” I also got my first flat tire today, but it was an easy fix. And then…
“This evening I passed a man walking along the road. He asked how I was doing and I said ‘Pretty well’ and asked if he knew a place I could camp. He pointed to a private campground right down the hill. ‘How much are they charging?’ I asked. [I had a budget of $5 a day for everything including food!] He said ‘For you I won’t charge anything - I own the place!’ So here I am!”

April 14, Monday: 43.1 miles (586.3)
“Gray as dishwater and threatened rain all day… even snowed a few flakes this morning.” I marvelled in my journal about a newfangled type of maple sugaring operation I had not seen before: “They actually had plastic pipe strung up in all directions in the woods, collecting the sap and running it down to the sugarhouse!”

At around 3:00 I could tell it was about to rain for real, and scrambled to find a place to dive into the woods to camp. I set up my tent and “I got inside, cooked up a couple of cheeseburgers, and am happy as a clam.” That didn’t last long.

“Well, things went a bit sour after I wrote the above. I wasn’t quite as happy as a clam [when I was] chasing the water in all 4 corners of the tent, and dripping in the middle of the roof, and waiting for the rain to let up even just a little so I could go out and pee. Finally it let up a speck, and while I was out I adjusted things and the water’s not coming in quite as fast. I felt a little silly dashing from one corner to the other sopping up water, and at the same time at the front of the tent trying to collect water in the fry-pan to cook with. ‘A million gallons to sleep in, but not a drop to drink!”

April 15, Tuesday: 0 miles
With a hint of sun in the morning, I had packed up everything but the tent, and then it started raining again! I decided to reinforce the tire that had gotten a flat while I still had the tent up, hoping the rain would pass, but by the time I was done, the rain was even heavier and was mixing with sleet and snow! I hunkered down for the day, wrote letters, ate a lot, and hoped for a better tomorrow.

April 16, Wednesday: 46.4 miles (632.8)
“I woke up this morning, looked outside my tent, and was horrified by what I saw.

I checked the thermometer: 24 degrees *inside the tent.* And still there was no hint the weather would break. Damn! My mind raced now. How much food did I have left? Thank goodness I had saved that last hamburger patty, instead of eating it last night; at least I’d have one good solid warm meal. I’ve got some oatmeal, but no water to cook it with. No problem, I can collect snow from the roof of the tent and melt it down. OK. And I’ve got some peanut butter, gorp, beef jerky, dried fruit, dry milk, and protein powder. Boy it’s lucky I just happened to stock up the day before yesterday. But what about this weather? It’s just been getting worse and worse, and it’s still snowing now. For all I know it could turn into a blizzard. I’d better be a lot more conservative with my food, and not just eat because I’m bored, like I did yesterday.”
“It occurred to me that I’m in a potentially risky situation - I’m probably 35 km from Bancroft, and nearly that from Denbigh. I suppose I could ride there if I got truly desperate, but I would very likely get frostbitten toes. Or I could hitchhike, but how long would I have to stand beside this old back road, with so little traffic?

Well, as usual when everything is going against me and all hope is lost, the tables suddenly turned. As I was eating my tent-fly-snow oatmeal breakfast, the sun came through the clouds. I didn’t get too excited, because it’s done that before, only to disappear again, but the clouds broke up more and more, until the whole sky was blue. I was happy of course, but it was still very cold, probably too cold to ride. I waited a little while, and packed up, and by then it was a little warmer. I started riding about 12:15. It never got much above freezing, I’m sure, because not all the snow melted, and I had a hard time keeping my extremities warm, including one particular extremity that rarely gets cold except when I’m riding. I took to stuffing a wool sock down my shorts, and that helped some.”

April 17, Thursday: 52.6 miles (685.7)
“A cold night - 24 degrees again, but the sun warmed things just enough that I could ride without my leggings. But the mares' tails say it will rain tomorrow… the weather sure didn’t let up for long. I’m 10 or 12 km from the western edge of Algonquin Park, so 40 miles to Huntsville tomorrow.”
“My butt has been really sore the last 2 days… not sure if the [leather] seat got wet and changed shape or what, but I’m feeling really raw.”
“Oh sh*t! It’s not going to rain, it’s going to snow! A flake just fell on the page, and I see others around now too. Damn! No rest for the weary.”

April 18, Friday: 48.8 miles (734.6)
Huntsville Ontario was the next place I had listed to get mail via General Delivery, so I was eager to get there and got up early. I was camped near a trailhead parking lot in Algonquin Park, and awoke to this:

After I took this photo, two calves also appeared and the three of them crossed the road.

 Aside from my desire to get mail, I also got an earlier start than usual (7:00)  because “ When … I saw how beautiful everything was in the early morning faint mist and rising sun, I wanted very much to be traveling through it, even though it was quite chilly.The beauty of the park and the world just completely overwhelmed me… the incredible stillness of the mirror-smooth lakes - I had even beaten the wind out of bed.”

In Huntsville, I did get some letters from home, including a lovely one from the woman responsible for my broken heart. When I say she was “responsible for my broken heart” it might sound like I’m blaming her, but I’m actually forever in debt to her for doing the right thing - doing what needed to be done when it wasn’t easy. We had a great relationship, but I was significantly younger, and at 21 still had much growing  to do. We had gone as far as we could go together; marriage was not in the cards. The healthy thing to do was to go our separate ways, but she was my first real love, and I didn’t have the wisdom or strength to do it, so it fell to her. Obviously, the task was made all the more difficult for her by my dashing good looks and considerable charm!

While I was sitting in front of the post office, a woman of perhaps my mother’s age struck up a conversation, and asked if there was anything she could do to help me. Since I still had a broken filling, I asked about a dentist. “She scurried off to a payphone, and by the time I caught up with her she had an appointment for me at 4:15, if I wanted to wait that long. (It was not quite noon.) I said that I did. She then asked what I would do until then. I hemmed a little, and she said ‘Why don’t you come out to my place?’” She fed me lunch, and I wrote letters in her living room. The dentist charged me $32, which I’m sure was his “Wayward Orphan” discount, but still represented 6 days of my budget and sent me into a bit of a tizzy about needing to be more frugal!

“On the way back from the dentist, I met a bunch of kids on bikes, hanging out at a little grocery store, and the young woman Ingrid who was minding the store. I enjoyed the interest the kids showed in my trip, and it was also nice to be around a woman my own age who would respond to my presence rather than ignoring me out of shyness.”

Mrs. Thomas fed me again and put me up for the night… the kindness of strangers.

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