Day 20, Friday, July 21/06

Woke up at 4 having had a good sleep. Dozed off and on and finally got up at 5:15. Quietly packed up and out to kitchen, waiting. Gloria had made a "strata" for us for breakfast and Justin was supposed to get up and put it in the oven for us. I am assuming that he overslept because it wasn't cooked and we couldn't wait. He drove us back to the church and we were on the bikes and hit the road at 6:30.

Beautiful suuny day with little or no westerly winds. The roads in Manitoba are flat, flatter than in Ssskatchewan. We stopped at the longitudinal halfway marker of Canada for a photo before going on to our first break at Richer. I found the van with my daybag so was able to find a phone to send yesterday's blog. From Richer it was on the road....and man what ugly roads! No shoulder and extremely rough. NASTY. I had been having an issue with my shorts today, just not comfortable. Well they were deeply implanted by the time we finished the 25 km of rough section for our lunch break in Prawda. People of that community had a big sign out to welcome us! Fun. The road improved and we got in a pack of 8 and pacelined at 32 km an hour for the next 1 1/2 hours!! I have an odometer on my bike which also tracks average speed from mile 0. This includes our 7 days in BC through the mountains as well and we are at 27.25 km for the trip. Mind you the wonderful west winds have permitted that!! It will drop significantly as we encounter bad weather and hills. We saw the scenery change from flat and farmland as more and trees come into view. By the time we stop for our final break the terrain is much like home in NB. We leave West Hawk Lake where we had a rest stop catered by a church. I had homemade gingerbread cookies and a cold can of rootbeer...which Bob advised against as he figured I would get a short sugar rush and then bonk. Not so, I took off like a bullet and was able to fly. We were able to don our safety vests which were required while cycling in Manitoba.

We hit the Ontario welcome sign and stopped for photos. Yes, ONTARIO!! I still have a hard time realizing that I am actually cycling across this wonderful country and have completed 4 provinces!! Mind you my derriere feels it!! We are in cottage country now and the traffic extremely heavy as it is Friday afternoon and people heading to their cottages. We are anxious to hit Kenora.

I had been commenting to Bob how perfect the weather was for cycling. As we near Kenora, one of our roadies is diverting us to highway 1A... and we see thick storm clouds ahead. We turn in to a terrble head wind and the the temperature dropped, quickly. Then the heavy rain began. I was cold...and we pedalled for what seemed like forever before we hit the turnoff for Kenora...still lots of cycling until we hit Lakeside Baptit Church, cold, wet but thankful to have arrived safely, 216.45 km covered. We changed into warm clothing and had a great meal, so were warm and pleasantly sufficed. As ths was the end of leg 3, we will say goodbye to Craig, who was so livey and bubbly, Val and Sue - mother and daughter and extremely strong riders, Francine, Patricia, Dennis and Joan who rode the tandem. There was a service and then we were assigned to our billets. I will tell you how amazing this is in my next blog!! A great place for our rest day!!