Day 53 - Kingston, ON to Brockville, ON

Daily Stats:
Time: 2h51m090s
Distance: 84.26km
Avg Spd: 29.5km/hr
Climbing: 520m

Not a bad day today.  The ride was short.  The weather was gorgeous.  The roads were fresh, new pavement.  And Brockville is a neat little town that we arrived at early enough to spend a few hours exploring.

At 50km, there was the opportunity to go on a 1 hour boat tour of the 1000 Islands.  We got there, and the lineup was crazy long (including four busloads of tourists!) so the guys and I decided not to go.  We hung around the parking lot for a while, and got a few shots of Ryan #eleveloing in the lineup and in the fountain.

While the majority of the riders were out on the ride, all their bikes and helmets were left behind.  Someone had the brilliant idea to play a little joke and move all the helmets to the picnic table, and interconnect the helmet straps and clamps...

We checked in at camp around 11:30am and were greeted by a handful of folks from the local CRC (First CRC?).  There was fresh baking, and candy and chips from the Brockville Tourism representative.  As the gear truck had yet to arrive, we ventured off into town to see the sights.

Our first stop in a new town is always the bike shop, so we stopped in at Cranks, and had a peek around.  Karel needed a bolt for his stem, and a few other guys had some minor things to pick up.  The owner was super helpful and friendly, an everyone got what they were after.

Other stops included the used DVD trade-in store, the army surplus store, the Salvation Army Thrift Shop and the "Everything Store."  Tomorrow Ryan is trying to organize a time trial event, and was looking for some cheap trophies.  It's looking like the event might be delayed 'til next week as a church is possibly setting up a SAG stop right in the middle of the stretch we were planning on using...  we'll see if we can recoordinate something else in the morning.

The other awesome stop in town was at the Book Trader - a huge, cluttered collection, which the owner claimed contained 70,000 titles. There were two full shelves of Louis L'Amour that I had to snap pictures of for my friend Ed, who loves this western author.

Mark, Ryan and I then got some pizza from a local pizzeria, and rolled back to camp around 3:30.  We're staying at St Lawrence Park on the west side of Brockville, and it's right on the St Lawrence River.  We swam in the water, then set up our tents on the grass-covered concrete reservoir right beside the water treatment plant. The view from my tent door is pretty awesome.

The same people who greeted us on arrival into camp also provided dinner for us tonight.  And it was as Dutch as dinners get: Borecole (boiled potatoes and kale), sausages, homemade apple sauce, ceasar salad, buns, and a huge selection of dessert.  Awesome!