Show me road in Ontario with paved shoulders that are decent for cycling...

...and I'll show you that you are holding the map upside-down, and that road is actually in New York.

Friday, 5 SEPTEMBER: I chatted with a maintainence guy on my way out of the park, and he said not to worry about paying. This sort of thing happens late in the season when they cut down on staff hours. Whew.

I went to the bridge at Ogdensburg, where the toll booth people informed me that bicycles were not allowed on the bridge, and that I should go over to the administration building and ask for a ride. This was accomplished surprisingly quickly, and a very strong man who was able to lift my nearly fully loaded bike into his truck shuttled me across and dropped me off at customs. The first Canadian official I encountered was (understandably, I suppose) suspicious of a person with no job and bear mace who wanted to come into his country just for the weekend. The guy asked specifically whether I had mace, so I couldn't lie, but I did avoid mentioning my ASP. I'm still not sure if it would have mattered. He conducted a very haphazard search of a few of my belongings, and asked me multiple times if I had rolling papers. Then he wanted to know why I had matches in my backpack, and was, for some reason, surprised that I had a cookstove with me. What a nut! He turned me over to a woman with the statement "she has bear mace!" to which the woman responded "bear mace is allowed!" in a somewhat surprised manner. She questioned me for a while then let me go.

I rode onward to Ottawa on bumpy streets with no shoulders. The drivers wanted to kill me. I hadn't ridden in wind that strong since North Dakota. It was a bit gusty, but was mostly kinda blowing in the general direction in which I was headed. The road turned a lot, though, so sometimes the wind blew me off the road. It was so hot and windy, I ran out of water early in the afternoon. I knocked on someone's door and asked for water. The gave me ice water and lemon iced tea, and chatted with me about biking in the area while I drank it. So nice! Shortly after that, I got more frequent shoulders and the wind was more focused at my back, so I pretty much blew the last 20km or so to my friend's house. Navigating the city was not so fun, as drivers were still trying to kill me. Tons of people ride their bicycles for transportation in this city, including my friend, so I applaud their courage and their take-no-guff attitude. A couple of beers, some food and an ice cream cone later, I felt much better about the day.

Saturday, 6 September: It was rainy today, so we spent the morning lazing around-- well, I was lazing, my friend was working. In the afternoon the rain let up a bit, so we walked around the city, and I got to see the Parliament building and other really beautiful buildings nearby. I forgot my camera, though. We went to the market for some produce and some delicious Quebecois cheese. It was a pretty nice tour of the city, then we went and gorged ourselves-- well I gorged, anyway-- on pasta, salad, cheese, and chocolate. Mmm, mmm, good.

Sunday, 7 September: While my friend stayed in and worked, I rode along the canal trail to the Ottawa River trail. It was quite lovely, and went past a rock sculpture garden that an artist rebuilds every year in the shallow water at the edge of the river. All of the sculptures are made by balancing natural rocks, and are generally destroyed every winter by the elements. Most of the sculptures are approachable, and I am impressed that they are all intact. I continued on to Mountain Equipment Co-op, which is like a Canadian REI, but cheaper, and picked up a few things.

When I returned to my friend's place, she had noticed that there was some kind of fest happening in the park near her house, so we went down to check it out. It turned out to be a raw food festival, so we checked out the hippies and sampled the yucky raw food while walking in the mud under a gray sky with some sprinkles of rain. We joked that it felt like Seattle.

Later we made delicious cooked food.

Monday, 8 September: I rode out of Ottawa today, and the sometime-shoulder disappeared completely outside of the city. It was sunny, and the wind was trying to blow me in front of the cars. I made it to the St. Lawrence River, then headed east toward a bridge back to the US. The road I was on had a fantastic, smooth bike lane, and the tailwind was pushing me along at terrific speeds. I had fantasies of travelling the 42 km to the bridge in record time. This didn't last long. The bike lane was part of the Riverfront Trail, which headed off through some parks. I figured a bit of meandering was preferable to the shoulderless road, so I attempted to follow the trail. This was difficult because it went onto random park roads and paths, which branched often and weren't always marked. After wasting a lot of time and energy and my precious tailwind backtracking and wandering back and forth, the trail left the parks and turned into that gravel crap. I was pretty irritated by the lack of progress at this point, and now I was on this lame trail travelling at less than two-thirds the speed I was moving at on the pavement. After a while it became paved, but it was still wasting my time and tailwind with its meandering. The dearth of shoulder and Canadian drivers' penchant for letting me know what they think of me riding my bicycle on their road made returning to the road an undesirable choice, but I ended up doing just that when the trail was about to seriously deviate and add some unnecessary kilometers to the trip. When the trail returned to the road, I gave it another shot, but now it had gotten hilly-- hillier than the road! Lame. I went back to the road and stayed there, impatient Candian drivers be hanged.

Shortly before I reached the bridge, the sky let loose with a torrential downpour. It slowed up before I got to the bridge, though, and the wind abated, so it wasn't too dangerous crossing. Except for the expansion seams. Those were no fun at all. At least cyclists don't have to pay the toll to cross, that was nice.

The US border patrol people were duly impressed by my journey, and didn't ask a single question about what I was bringing across the border. They just asked about the trip, and gave me directions to the state park I was planning to camp in. This may be the first time in my life that it was easier to come back in to the US than it was to leave it.

I had to backtrack a bit to reach the park, but there wasn't really anything in the direction I wanted to go, so this seemed like the best option. It was also a bit further than it looked on the map, but the other options were pricier, and I'm stubborn and cheap. I made it to the campground just before dark, picked the spot closest to the bathroom, and did my best to set up my tent on the freaking grass-covered solid rock that you are expected to pound your tent stakes into. I dug out some dry clothes and headed for the locked bathroom. What the?! The sign on the office had told me to pick a site, it didn't say anything about locked bathrooms! It's been such a long, frustrating day that the denial of expected shower hit me hard, and I sobbed bitterly while having a handiwipe bath in the tent. So lame. At least I know there is no one around, so I can spread my clothes out to dry in the covered picnic table area.

Attempting to look on the bright side: today's backtracking led to a new record: 87.8 miles.