Written by Dave

Day 65 – August 1 – 81 Miles, 630 feet climbing (Port Huron KOA to Blenheim, ON CA)

AccuWeather Forecast – 1/August/2024:  Blenheim, Ontario

Warm and muggy; a morning thunderstorm in spots, then a heavy t-storm; storms can bring flooding downpours, hail, damaging wind gusts, and an isolated tornado

Yup, you read that correct. Last night while we were having dinner in Port Huron, AccuWeather was calling for hail, flooding downpours and an isolated tornado in Blenheim. We planned on camping just outside of town but didn’t think our little 3 season backpacking tents would stand up tornados, isolated or not. We spent the time after dinner frantically trying to find indoor housing options for our first night in Canada. Eventually Nancy found a reasonably priced two bedroom apartment in Blenheim.

When we got up this morning – the forecast called for hot and humid conditions, all the dramatic weather had disappeared.

I don’t know how one lives in tornado country. If you get a forecast for “an isolated tornado”, do you look at the forecast and change all your plans? Do you hide in a root cellar all day (if you have root cellar)? Do you look up the county emergency shelter hours and pack the kids in the car? Or do you just ignore it all and wait to see if you hear sirens? It seems like it would be so stressful to regularly see forecasts for tornados. They seem so random. They’d either put you on edge or you’d have to just tune things out.

Anyway, we didn’t tune things out. We just splashed out on apartment we didn’t really need. Oh well, it’s about 90 degrees F outside and the humidity is probably pushing 90% also. We don’t mind being comfortable. I keep telling Chris “It’s not a survival test, after all…”

Back to today. After an okay night, with the airconditioner working hard in the cabin to try to keep it cooled down, we checked out of the KOA early, before any campers were stirring and well before the office opened. They promised to credit me the $5 for our cabin key if I left it in the drop box. We always leave the key whenever we stay anywhere. Only at KOA do they make you pay a $5 deposit. KOAs are such strange campgrounds.

We had bit of cycle trail to ride right outside of the KOA, and then took back roads down to where Port Huron meets the St Clare River. This part of town is pretty gritty with a large oil refinery just across the river in Canada giving a real dingy feeling to everything. So much for Canada being the land of forests and outdoor spaces.

Not long after turning south at the river we started seeing nicer properties and some very fancy homes. The towns of St Clair, Marine City and South Marysville had some proper mansions, some new and some “wow – how often and how much does it cost to paint that” old Victorian homes from days gone by. We barely stopped all the way to the ferry at Algonac where we planned to cross over into Canada. The ferry was on the far side and we needed something to eat. The area in Algonac where the ferry is has a lot of closed shops and not much to eat so we rode past the ferry to a McDonalds. We rarely eat there but honestly, there was nothing else on offer. Egg McMuffins and large waters were in order – it was getting hot already.

When we got back to the ferry, it was just docking. Coming over from Canada it was full, with 9 cars onboard. We had to wait for each car to be cleared by a very thorough USA border agent. They then let us board the ferry first with our bikes. There were only 3 cars going our direction. It was about a 10 minute ride across the river where being in the front, we were the first three through Canadian customs. Clearing customs was a breeze – I’m happy to report that Chris’s Passport Card worked – he did not have his passport with him.

Once out on Walpole Island, we were greeted by most roads signs being in the First Nations language of Ojibway. Apparently, the tribes living on Walpole and surrounding islands never ceded their lands to the US or British governments. This didn’t stop the two governments from dividing up the territories as they saw fit but it’s also left a bit of a mess today over sovereignty. I may have missed it but there didn’t seem to be a Welcome to Canada sign. The other odd thing we noticed was an amazing proliferation of cannabis-selling establishments until we left the island. Later I discovered that cannabis is legal in Ontario so I don’t get why there are so many shops on the island, tax sovereignty perhaps.

It was 40 miles from the ferry to our apartment in Blenheim. We stopped early on to get some Canadian money and check that our mobile phones were indeed working. After a busy morning, we could have used a tailwind to push us home but we had no such luck. We rode into an increasing head/side wind and the afternoon became a bit of a slog. Before checking into our apartment we decided to ride to the center of town and get something to drink. Luckily, Blenheim has a Tim Horton’s where we were able to get something to eat and a cold drink. Cooled and refreshed we head for the apartment.

Those of you who are wondering how we can go to Tim Horton’s with a smile and smirk when we mention McDonalds, well, you’d be making a good point. I think that it’s perhaps we never see Tim Horton’s and McDonalds are around us all the time. There’s no way you can eat Tim Horton’s donuts, much less a Tim Horton’s poutine donut, and claim the moral high ground when it comes to cuisine (Senior editor’s note – just FYI, we did not in fact have a poutine donut).

 We’ll only be in Canada for a few days – tomorrow we head northeast up the northern shore of Lake Erie. We have two nights camping coming up with near-zero bail out options. It’s supposed to be a little cooler but there are some thunderstorms in the forecast as well. We’re crossing our fingers that we don’t hear any tornado sirens.

USA Map

Canada Map