Oh, say can you see ?

Jul 4 - Turkey point ON to Port Stanley ON:  56 miles

Sunset at port Stanley - great view of fireworks from here

Strangely enough, our destination today is the furthest south that we will be since we left Massachusetts, and the furthest south for the rest of the trip (thanks to my friend BW for that trivia).

It was really hard to leave our adopted family in the morning. We chatted for a while, played some soccer with the young boy. Then it turned out H did have a flat, so we had to fix that.

Net out - we have the latest start so far on the trip. It was past 11am before we left.

Most of the day is spent on long flat straight roads in the glaring sun, and by early afternoon the wind had picked up significantly and it was blowing straight in our faces.  There's traffic going by in both directions, and there's the occasional nervous moment when oncoming cars choose to overtake and are coming straight at me. 

My knees are pretty sore. I've been chasing the right cleat position from the time that I acquired this bike, when I switched to SPDs rather than the Look system on my other (non touring) bike.  this process had been completely reset on the epic day in MA where we hiked Bates Road in the Berkshires. There I managed to completed loosen both cleats when mistakenly increased the tension on my pedals to where I couldn't get my feet out.... 

So today I'm keeping in a low gear and spinning as fast as I can go, as that hurts the least. I'm not in real pain, I just know that I have to invest some time in getting the cleats right or I won't make it to Oregon.

But not today. The one priority besides somewhere to stay is to try to catch part of the women's World Cup 3rd place matchup between England and Germany. I'm on deadline to get into a town with a bar and a TV.

The road ahead

We are going through lots of farmland, with enormous windmills visible everywhere, as well as lots of signs indicating that the windmills were not favored by everyone.

A few of the MANY windmills along our route

One of the many protest signs... 

At Port burwell, there's a biker meetup happening and the town is swarmed with motorcycles coming and going, parked row on row throughout the town, with live music and lots of partying.  I spend a little time here at a small park overlooking the port to fuel up with fresh fruit and yogurt that I had been carrying, and to chat with folks.

Leaving port burrough, back in the long straight hot highway, there are huge groups of bikers passing by. One bike is carrying a woman with clouds of white dress whipping in the wind, but mostly it's black shirts and leather and laced up vests. The occasional hang 10 or peace sign appears, and there's plenty of fist pumping. 

There are no campgrounds at port Stanley, our target destination, so we're winging it a bit. I call some 'Warm showers' connections snd find no one that can host us tonight, but  get some advice and I think we're pretty much set. 

Of course the last several miles into our destination are hilly. We're seeing a trend here.

Port Stanley turns out to be adorable. It's got it's own little lift bridge in the middle of town with ice cream and coffe shops and restaurants. The first coffee shop I hit scored me a huge chunk of banana bread plus iced coffee and a recommendation on where to watch the game. I wolf this all down as the kickoff has already happened and in missing action right now.

Barnacles is showing the game on the big screen when I walk in, a great sign. I come right in with my bike and stash it in a corner and settle in at the bar to eat (perch, being the local specialty), watch some superb soccer, and wait for heather.  England makes up for losing to Japan on an own goal and takes third!  Great game.

Windburned, sunburned, tired... Battled headwinds all the way to Port Stanley, now sitting down for dinner cooked by someone else at The Barnacles Beerhouse

Bikes hanging out at ice cream shop

We can't resist ice cream right in town. It's a hot day after all.

So we're in Canada, and it's Fourth of July. I have delusions of seeing fireworks all along the opposite shore of the lake, kind of like when I once took an arirplane on the fourth and could look down on multiple displays below me.  Well, Lake Erie is bigger than that.

Instead we are treated to multiple shows from the main beach and little beach where we camped for the night. I think they were leftovers from Canada day, but we don't care. 

Thanks port Stanley.