Day33 - The Weather Report

It had rained last night, and when I awoke the skies were somewhat dark and foreboding.  As I packed up my stuff, thunder pealed loudly - it's boom signaling the weather's intent for the day.  A few moments later the rain was CHUCKING down.  Fantastic.  By the time I was ready to roll however, the rain had stopped. 

It was hot and very humid.  Not ideal weather for me, but not atypical for Ontario.  S & I rolled out of town, stopping at Timmy's for a quick breakfast and hitting the road proper by 10:00.  There was very little wind; perhaps even a slight tail - but the road was pretty rolly.  It started out just "wavy", and then got properly hilly.  After about 1:30 we made a quick fuel stop and continued on - the weather still very warm and humid, but sunny. 

The highlight of my day came while working up a moderate climb.  Sebastian was just behind me, and I was looking at the road.  "Moose"  "What's that?"  "Moose - down and to the right"  I looked down into the marsh/forest and lo and behold, a moose was standing there!  I've seen deer, mule deer, marmot, hundreds if not thousands of prairie dogs, coyotes, a bear, more birds than I can imagine, and all sorts of other wildlife on this trip - but I had yet to see a moose.  Antonella had told me that when she and Vanessa had driven across the country she wanted to see a moose but hadn't - so I've been looking.  I wasn't quick enough to get a decent shot, but Seb - ever the pro, was.  He's carrying an SLR and is actually a good photographer - so his pics are way better anyway.  :P

We had been told that there was "a big hill - about 2 miles" somewhere along the route, so we were on the lookout.  We found it.  It started out fairly simply - a 3 step hill with the last being a little guy.  Then it turned the corner and went up again.  Then up again.  Then down a bit, and up again.  Seb was getting pissed off, and I was laughing every time we discovered that it kept going up.  I think that it went up about seven steps in total, and I'm not convinced that it's any smaller than Montreal River Hill - supposedly the largest hill in ON.  Luckily the weather had cooled off so I was pretty comfortable while climbing, and for some reason every turn and "next stage" in the hill widened my grin.  I can't explain why I thought it was so funny - it just was.  We'd been climbing all day through rolling terrain, and it was just kind of ridiculous, I guess.  It's not that I'm a "climber", that's for sure. 

We kept rolling and noticed that it had cooled off.  The humidity was no longer oppressive.  Looking back, the skies were dark and threatening.  Hoping to outrun the storm to the next town, we picked up the pace.  It started to rain.  Lightly at first, then a little more.  We passed a sign for a campground that advertised a cafe, and made a run for the turnoff.  It was down a steep, dirt & gravel road that was quickly turning into a rocky mudslide.  Not gonna happen.  We had just past the townline sign for a small town, so we figured that we'd try there instead.  With the delay we missed our window to find shelter before the hardest part of the storm hit, and were getting soaked by crazy hard rain.  Within 5 seconds I was so completely and thoroughly soaked that I might as well have jumped in a pool.  "Town" turned out to be 2 abandoned stores, across the street from one another.  One had a 6x6 awning, so we took shelter under that to wait out the worst of the storm.  We were getting cold, so we pulled on rain gear even though we were already soaked and under shelter.  After maybe 15min, the worst of it had subsided - so we headed out. 

Soon it was warm and sunny again.  Rain gear off.  Still nowhere to stop for fuel, and the counter was running ~2:30 since our last stop.  I like to refuel every 2hrs, give or take.  Looking at the map, it was still quite a ways to the next "town".  We were both carrying fuel, but were still holding out hope for a nice cafe or something.  We still had fuel in the tank, so we kept rolling through the hills toward the next town.  Seb said "look back" and as I did, noted that the sky was once again black.  Looks like round 2 was on it's way.  Round two struck faster than the first, and we attempted to take shelter under some trees at the top of a hill.  Rain gear back on, we stood in the downpour taking on what fuel we had.  It had been 3hrs since our last fuel stop, and we needed to get the tanks filled.  I'm really gla that I had company today.  I was in a pretty jovial mood despite the weather, but had I been solo I think I'd have been A LOT less entertained by all of this.  It was windy and cold.  This time the rain wasn't quite as hard, but it looked like it was going to rain for a lot longer.  I was getting cold, and worried about siezing up.  We talked it over and decided to ride on - at least the effort would provide some warmth.  All lights flashing, we remounted and hit the road once more.  We rode through the downpour for another 45min or so, and then pulled into a gas station to replenish our supplies.  Originally we had discussed trying to make Pembroke, but given the harsh conditions we'd had, the hilliness of the terrain, and the current time, we figured that Deep River would be it.  Not bad, considering...  Back on the road it finally it cleared up again so we made one last stop to ditch the rain gear - then it was the final push to Deep River.


Stats:

Total Elapsed Time: 10:30 hrs
Actual Ride Time: 8:20 hrs
Total Distance: 174.96 km
Avg Speed: 20.9 kph
Max Speed: 64.5 kph


Cool shot from a "real photographer"

Rain - pt I

Moose!