Blog

The day after we stayed at the hotel in Winnipeg we were staying with Brian and Barb Ardern.  Brian and Barb were great hosts and it was a relaxing rest day.  The weather was not great so we did not venture out to any Canada Day celebrations.  The sun did make an appearance after dinner and I was feeling optimistic about riding the next day.  Thanks to Brian and Barb for allowing us to rest, eat, watch sports on their TV and sleep at their place.  It was great to meet you.  And thanks to Heather Garton (Our Saskatoon host) for connecting us with Brian and Barb.  Barb also took us out for a tour of their part of Winnipeg.  We saw the area where they have made a waterway to divert any potential floods and checked out the new Blue Bombers football stadium.  Both of these things were very impressive.  Barb also made us a great breakfast of oatmeal with all kinds of good stuff in it.  It was very good and we have made it the last two days since leaving Winnipeg. We woke up July 2 to sunshine and warm temperatures and headed out to Prawda.  Prawda is only about 100 km from Winnipeg so when we go there we continued on to Falcon Lake MB.  Falcon Lake was a beautiful little place in the provincial park just close to the border of Manitoba and Ontario.  We stayed in a little cabin there that was paid for by our Brandon hosts, Peter and Kathy.  Again thanks so much for them and all of the people who have helped us as we trek across the country, the help we have received is just amazing.  I ended up biking about 140 km into Falcon Lake.  We attempted to have a campfire, our first of the trip, and we did get a decent fire going but with the mosquitos being the size of small birds we only lasted a few minutes until we bailed on that.  The next day was the day I've been looking forward to for a while, the day we enter my home province.  We were on the road early and reached the border in about 15 km.  I was glad to be back in Ontario despite the fact that we are still a few weeks from home.  There are not to many places I've been to that are more spectacular than Northern Ontario.  The hills, lakes and trees make for some beautiful scenery and just a great atmosphere to bike in.  The fact that there was not a cloud in the sky the whole day was icing on the cake for this ride.  We were supposed to go to Kenora but we arrived there at 10:30 am and decided to continue on to Vermillion Bay.  We found a nice campground right on a lake and camped for the night.  The total km for the day were about 160.  We also had a chance to visit the lake of the woods brewery when in Kenora so that was a nice break in the day.  When in Vermillion Bay we ate at a great BBQ place, that had been featured on the food network show "You gotta eat here".  They were out of pork  but had a great pulled beef sandwich.  Its great how you can justify eating anything when you are burning 5000-7000 calories everyday.  I spent the night relaxing by the lake until the mosquitos came back out.  It was a great day all around especially because we were back in Ontario.  Oh, I almost forgot to mention that we met a guy walking across Canada, he has been walking since Feb 2013.  He took the winter off and was helping with Alberta flood relief for a few months but his plan was to go all the way to PEI eventually.  I asked him what he will do when he gets to PEI and he said he was going to walk back.....um what?  Wow, good luck Boyd.  People have been so generous to us along the way so we gave Boyd a 20.00 and hope that will help him get some food or a place to stay.  Today we are in Dryden which was only a short ride from Vermillion Bay, around 50 km but we are staying here tonight with a friend of mine from college who is a pastor up here.  Its great to be able to see Adam Hall and his family and thanks for allowing us to stay with you guys.  Adam is out right now trying to catch us fish for dinner.  Here's hoping he is successful.  Also thanks to Adam for the tour around town.  Dryden is also the home town of Chris Pronger.  When we got into town here we met a couple at Tim Horton's who had seen us biking when we were in Moosomin Saskatchewan.  They were just returning from a week in Thunder Bay.  Thanks to them for their encouraging words.  I was able to speak to a reporter today from the Record in Kitchener, and hopefully they will cover the ride with a story.  The media coverage has been great and a big part of helping us create awareness for PKU.  Tomorrow we head to Ignace, and its calling for rain again but its been a great couple of days riding and I am looking forward to continuing on tomorrow.  Only 2 weeks until I'll be with the family and I cant wait.  Although I'm trying not to think to much about that and just trying enjoy every day.  We will be camping for a few days so may not have a chance to update the blog until Thunder Bay.  Until then...