On Cycling the Shore

Seems as if much of the excitement in my life revolves around Lake Erie these days.  (Bad thing? Too much work? Good thing? Work provides adventure? Who knows?)

This past week I cycled a stretch of Lake Erie’s shoreline on the Great Waterfront Trail Adventure.  From Port Stanley to Fort Erie, I clocked over 260km in the saddle! TWO HUNDRED SIXTY KILOMETERS. I have one very sore ass and sick tan-lines to prove it. And some pretty pictures.

I don’t think I have done anything quite so physically demanding in my entire life.  And mentally demanding.  I was very anxious about the entire event & my role in it (cycling 260km AND representing my workplace). The last time I had ridden 75km in one day, I had been positively beat… and somehow I was supposed to travel even further (95km on day one), and then wake up and do it all again (100km on day two) and again (73km on day three).

 

But honestly the opportunity was too good to pass up. With a discounted registration and my work encouraging me to participate, it really was a once in a lifetime opportunity. (Though I fully intend to do it again next year!)  And I need activities like this — events I cannot back out of — to kick my lazy ass in gear.  And I have no regrets… except over not bringing a warm enough sleeping bag. (Nights in August should not get below 10 degrees Celsius!!)

Our “south coast” is gorgeous. The lake, Carolinian forest, fields of corn, tobacco & asparagus, Monarch butterflies and dragonflies, prairies and savanna’s with wildflowers in yellow & purple, crickets & cicadas, and fish & chips (mmm, Lake Erie Perch).

Through it all I cycled.  TWO HUNDRED SIXTY KILOMETERS. Boo Yeah.

Fun facts:

• Carolinian Canada is the most biodiverse region of Canada, with over 2000 plant species, 70 types of trees, 400 species of birds and 50 types of reptiles and amphibians.  Many of these species and their habitats are found no where else in Canada!
• Carolinian Canada makes up less than 1% of Canada’s landmass.
• The north shore of Lake Erie is 592 km long.
• Lake Erie is the 4th largest Great Lake according to surface area, though the smallest by volume and by far the shallowest of the Great Lakes.
• Lake Erie’s average depth is 19m and has a maximum depth of 64m. This contrasts quite remarkably with Lake Superiors average depth of 147m and maximum depth of 406m.
• Lake Erie supports on of the largest freshwater fisheries in the world, which isn’t all that surprising when you consider that it is the 11th largest lake in the world (according to surface area) and is the most biologically diverse of all the Great Lakes.
• Lake Erie’s watershed is home to over 11 million people! (The lake is bound by Ontario, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan.)
• Lake Erie has it’s very own legendary lake monster, very cleverly (NOT) named Bessie!
• #nerdrant

Oh, and here are the tan-lines I have to prove it. #bikeshortsftw

An actual tweet from the trail: Drinking a St. Thomas beer called Dead Elephant, a nod to the dear departed Jumbo. Yum!

Stripes, Polka Dots & True Blue

Oy! This post has been sitting in my draft folder all week long… and my life is just not interesting enough!  Pen to page, nonetheless.  Not much has changed. I spent much of the week sipping on lemonade, iced coffee, water garnished with mint and lime juice, plain ol’ water… anything cool (it has been warm in this neck of the woods!) and banging my head against my keyboard. (Oh, work!)

Last week I went stand-up paddleboarding for the first time. I wish I had snapped a picture of me doing this, because I probably looked (and definitely felt) about as elegant as a fish out of water. Balance is not really my thing. On a good day. On solid ground.

I’ll be participating in a 25 kilometer long stand-up paddleboarding trip in July… (Which might be rather tough. Basically it involves standing on a surf board and paddling with an extra long canoe oar).  So perhaps some photographic hilarity will show up on this blog in late July. (I need to get my hands on a GoPro!  That would be so marvellous!)

I also may have just signed myself up to ride the entire north shore of Lake Erie in August? End to end? Well over 600 kilometers of cycling in 7 days?  For a self described couch potato, I’m signing up for a lot of exercise-y things.

Things I Like:

washing machines & clean clothes  |  summer dresses  |  stripes, polka dots & true blue  |  iced coffee |  sourdough bread  |  on Netflix: The Hour  |  Sesame Snaps & PC’s decadent chocolate chip cookies  |  Lego Harry Potter (for Xbox)  |  ART  |  storage solutions  |  Dominion (the board game)  |  Canada  |  rainy nights

Oh, check out the size of these flying squirrels! (No, that was not a euphemism!) ;)

Ciao darlings!

To autumn colours

I live a short distance from my flower picking job, and therefore cycle to work. Lately this trip has been made quite gorgeously meditative with beautiful sights!  Autumn is visiting the Niagara Region in full force at the moment, and with the escarpment* to the south on my left, and Lake Ontario to the north on my right, the road I travel is gorgeous.

The road

Looking north (toward Lake Ontario, though it’s not visible here)

Looking south (toward the Niagara Escarpment)

These photos were taken on my phone, so they’re not grand, but I couldn’t help but stop to snap a few pictures.  There was an especially beautiful, derelict little orchard along the way.   The picture (below) doesn’t do it any justice. It was magically eerie. Had I a blanket, a good book and an afternoon to read in the cool sunlight, I might have been visited by faeries.

The purple flowers contrast the greens, yellows, oranges, reds, and whites of autumn very well.

Some sort of purple aster. Unfortunately I’m not great at wildflower taxonomy (or any taxonomy for that matter).

I think I’ll have to start carrying my actual camera (an ancient Nikon Coolpix) more often. It doesn’t take grand photographs, but it’s more serviceable than my camera phone (Samsung Galaxy Ace).  Though my phone takes better macro photos than my camera. For some reason I can’t get the macro to focus… *sigh*.

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving and are enjoying the beautiful fall weather!  (And if you aren’t Canadian and don’t live in a part of the world with four season, I wish you fantastic and beautiful days all the same!)  Stop and take a photograph. Stop, daydream, and breathe the wild air!

*”An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that occurs from erosion or faulting and separates two relatively level areas of differing elevations” (Wikipedia, 2012a).  “The Niagara Escarpment is a long escarpment in the United States and Canada that runs predominantly east/west from New York state, through Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois” (Wikipedia, 2012b).  The Niagara Escarpment was designated a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1990, which, while it doesn’t mean ALL that much, is pretty exciting because it signifies that the area of land is ecologically unique and important within a global context.  There are 580 biosphere reserves in 114 countries. There are 12 in Canada.