Day 65: Kingston to Brockville, ON (96.93km)

Brockville redux. Last August, Alex and I had planned to cycle from Kingston to Quebec City (we had limited holiday time so we opted to take the train to start beyond the Toronto area in order to spend more time in Quebec). We started our trip with friends, Sean and Steph, before starting a gorgeous ride out of Kingston. All day we raved about the light traffic and the bike trail heading out of Gananoque. About 88km into our ride we were still feeling strong but I was brought down by a string. The tie on my front pannier flicked back and was just long enough to catch and lock my pedal. It cranked the wheel to one side and rocketed me to the road on the other. I ended up breaking my collarbone and two ribs, which led to surgery a few weeks later and a lot of painful recovery.

Needless to say, our trip was cancelled, but the people of Brockville stepped up to turn a devastating experience into a beautiful one. My accident happened in front of the house of Francis, who happened to be a retired nurse. She took us in and helped keep me out of shock until the ambulance arrived and then kept the bikes as we went to the hospital. Once we reached Emergency, Alex worked on contacting Sean's fabulous parents, Gail and Rick, who live in Brockville and offered to take us in for the night. His phone call was overheard and another Brockville resident offered to take him back to Francis' for the bikes. While he was gone, two more people offered their homes and assistance. After my diagnosis, a nurse saw us (well, me) struggling to walk and offered to drive us to Gail and Rick. The two took amazing care of us and helped to make the whole ordeal as comfortable as possible.

While today's ride to Brockville was fully under our own power and did not involve any close encounters with the pavement, the most wonderful part was still the people we met along the way. On our way out of Kingston this morning we heard someone call out, "good luck with your trip Alex!"We turned around and met a woman who had been at the TRI event on Thursday and recognized the bikes. It was great to see her again 250km from Toronto!

Then in Gananoque, I think we met our future selves in the form of Erlene and Gunther. The pair cycled from Kingston to St. John's in 2001 and were out for a day ride. They were fun to chat with and they pointed us toward the best brownies in the country. We just wish we had met them a day earlier to have been able to visit at their home in Kingston. Later on, we stopped in to see and thank Francis for all of the help last year, we are still so appreciative!

Other than our chance encounters, and the fact that we finished today's ride in one piece, it was not quite so enjoyable as last year. The humidity is really suffocating so it's hard to push through the heat. We're hoping  it will either break soon or that we will simply ride out of the worst of it as we move further east. In any case we try to stay hydrated and wouldn't trade the opportunity to do this trip regardless of weather conditions.