FLCC> FLCC Cape Vincent Tour: Day 1- Wolfe Island and Kingston, Ontario

[Brenda Smith]

Let me just start off by thanking Steve Powell and Andrejs Ozolins for
organizing this fantastic trip, and to Marcie Robinson for organizing
the meals and buying a monster load of supplies for communal use.  I
don't think there were any "rough" spots whatsoever, despite around 2
dozen or so people coming together for meals in a kitchen that was
only approximately 15' x 20' or so.  It was wonderful how people
worked together, cooperated, and were just generally "good" toward
each other.  It was an amazing show of camaraderie.

Photos here:  http://picasaweb.google.com/brenda.smith/FLCCCapeVincentTour

Most people arrived at the Tibbett's Point Hostel between 5pm and 9pm
or so on Friday night.  Those of us staying at the hostel included
Steve, Jill, Bonnie and Claire Powell, Andrejs and Diana Ozolins,
Steve Grossman (aka Steve from Syracuse), Jim Landis, Laurie Shaver,
Jason van Staveren and Isabel Bazaldua, Lauren Stefanelli, Cindy
Lindemann, Shelley Mulvaney, Scott Donnelly, Cliff Hood, Trudy
Pantalia, Marcie and Eli Robinson, and myself.  Among those staying in
town were Mary Bouchard, Mary Mulvanerton Sara Strickland, Doug and
his family, and Richie and his family.  Hopefully I have not left
anyone out, but if I have, don't take it personally.  We had a half
hour or so meeting beginning around 9pm to discuss the possible routes
we could take on Saturday.  By the end of the meeting, everyone had
agreed that we were going to head over to Wolfe Island via the 9am
ferry and go our separate ways from there.

Saturday morning, I awoke after a very fitful night of sleep, or
not-sleep, at about 5:50am and made my way out to the kitchen, where
Marcie was already peeling and cutting up apples for the morning's
breakfast, which was pancakes, and probably some other stuff, but all
I remember are the pancakes.  We got off to a rough start, after
learning the hard way that pancake griddles apparently suck up a ton
of electricity and blew the cottage's circuit breaker three times in a
row.  We shuffled things around and soon had a pancake griddle set up
in the small living area off the kitchen along with the coffee-maker,
and finally breakfast began to run smoothly.  After everyone was fed
and the kitchen cleaned up, we all headed into the bustling metropolis
of Cape Vincent to catch our 9am ferry.  There was some speculation
that we would actually make it for the 9am ferry the night before, but
we really did!!

After a short ferry ride over to Wolfe Island, we began a fairly
leisurely 7 mile trek across the island.  The island is relatively
flat, and as of yet, the wind had not really picked up.  We stopped at
the Wolfe Island Bakery for some truly decadent chocolate
croissant-type pastries that put the Ithaca Bakery's to shame.  At
this point, about half of the group decided to stay on Wolfe Island
and explore, and the other half of us hopped on the 10am ferry and
headed on over to Kingston, Ontario, to cycle the Canadian
countryside.  Among those of us continuing were the 2 Steves, Isabel
and Jason, Scott, Shelley, Cindy, Eli and Marcie, Jim, Mary B.,
Andrejs, Doug, Sara, Cliff, and Richie and me.  Again, if I forget
anyone, I apologize.

As we headed out of Kingston, we missed our second turn onto hwy 15.
Luckily, Eli, part of a break-away group that was pedaling off into
the distance, came back to see why the rest of us were not following,
and then sprinted back out to the break-away group to let them know
we'd missed a turn.  Soon enough, we were back on track and heading
out of town (this time in the right direction).

At this time of year, there is only one word to describe Kingston:
Lilacs.  There were walls of lilac bushes, monstrous-sized lilac
bushes, lining the roads, and their pervasive floral scent hung in the
air.  I'd love to gush on about the beautiful countryside, but
honestly, the landscape seemed fairly benign.  The land up there is
flat, although we had a strong prevailing headwind that changed
direction whenever we did (I swear, ask any of us!) to make up for the
lack of elevation change.  The ride was very pleasant, the sun shined
and it was not too hot nor too cold, and of course, we had great
company and conversation with each other.

One thing that sticks out in my mind is that the only roadkill we saw
was a humongous porcupine that had been recently hit by a car.  I
wondered to myself if porcupine quills can pierce a car tire?  Maybe I
shouldn't have wondered about that....    After we pedaled by it, and
I thought for a few minutes, it occurred to me that this was the only
roadkill we'd seen in 30+ miles of cycling.  I began theorizing aloud
to Andrejs that:
1.  The animals are smarter up in Canada, and stay out of the road;
2.  The road clean-up crews work harder.
Andrejs had his own theory:
3.  The animals are simply still in hibernation;
Steve P. added a fourth theory:
4.  The Canadians have already killed all the other animals.

We had been riding fairly leisurely the entire day, but after a third
pit stop at a gas station about 10 miles from Kingston, we decided we
needed to pick up the pace dramatically in order to make the 4:00
ferry back to Wolfe Island, and then the 4:45 ferry from the Island
back to Cape Vincent to make dinner.  Unfortunately, as we were
climbing one of the few hills about 2 miles out of downtown Kingston,
Eli noticed that I had lost a great deal of air out of my back tire.
Most of the group kept on going, but with the assistance of Steve P.
and Jim, I think we made the fastest tube change in the history of the
FLCC.  It turned out that a big chunk of glass had pierced through my
tire and tube.

With my new tube in place, we began sprinting back into Kingston.
Steve noticed at ferry coming into the docks and told us as much.  We
put our heads down and pedaled, pedaled, pedaled, down to the docks,
and looked and looked at each other in confusion as we realized that
it was not the ferry back to Wolfe Island!!!!  What the....  ???!!!
After frantically questioning a couple of locals, we figured out that
the right ferry was a few more blocks down the street, so we raced off
again.  As we came down the hill into the correct dock, this time, we
saw the rest of the group waiting for us.  And it turned out we still
had 5 minutes to spare, as the ferry was running 10 minutes late.

When we finally got back to Wolfe Island, we were off and sprinting
again, trying to consume 7 miles in less than 15 minutes.  Most of us
didn't think it would be possible, but we tried anyway.  Unfortunately
we had another mishap, but this one involved a car and Eli.  He ran
into/was hit by a woman turning right, as he had come up on her
passenger side without her noticing.  I'm not going to get into the
gory details here, but Eli was shaken up, his fingers were cut up
pretty badly as his hand had smashed into the mirror and shattered it,
but he was mostly okay.  And most importantly, his bike was okay.
Just kidding.  :)  Luckily, Diana Ozolins had taken their car across
on the ferry and was able to transport Eli and his bike back to Cape
Vincent.

Once it appeared that the situation was under control, most of us
resumed our sprint across Wolfe Island back to the ferry.  At this
time, we didn't feel quite so pressured, as it was about 4:45 and we
assumed we'd already missed the ferry and would have to wait another
hour for the next trip.  I was one of the last ones to leave the
scene, but after a mile or two, I caught up to Doug and Scott and rode
the rest of the way across the Island with them.  Amazingly enough,
when we arrived at the ferry dock, the ferry was just coming in, as
it, too, was running late!!

We made it back in time for a delicious dinner of Mexican Lasagna, and
all was good.

Total:  65 miles at 13.5 mph average.

Day 2 will come either later this afternoon or tonight....  or
sometime this week.  :)

Cheers,
~Brenda