T2 Day 46 (Claire)

 St. Thomas to Cayuga, ON

We woke up a little later than normal this morning -- 7:30, what a treat. We planned on getting a later start in order to get to a bike shop when it opened at 11am, which was 10 miles in the direction we were headed. We cruised those first 10 miles out of the populated city of St. Thomas and found ourselves back in the rural farmlands of Ontario before long. We were on route 3 for the first bit of the day which I must say, I did not like at all. Very busy, almost no shoulder. However it was made up for by the fact that nearly every car in Canada was entirely courteous and moved over across the yellow line to give us space. We rolled up to the bike shop, and saw the words we really did not want to see, "closed". No!! Google lied to us! Audrey was out of spare tubes and had 4 flats in the last 10 days. Quickly we tried to think of an alternative. I remembered my dad had mentioned  that Walmart carries tubes that have sealant already in them.. a bell rung in my head. Walmarts had been strangely popular in Ontario so far, there had to be one on the way. Sure enough there was! We routed towards it and were on our way. We arrived in the town of Tillonsburg and stopped right as our gps said "you have arrived". We looked to our right, looked to our left, no Walmart to be found. After what felt like some unnecessary exploration, we found the Walmart inside of a shopping mall. That was a first. After a stolen bike in Minneapolis we were not too keen to leave our bikes outside so we brought them in, only to be told that we could not have them in there. Audrey waited in the mall with the bikes while I ran into Walmart. After searching high and low, I came to the tough realization that our gamble had not paid off. They did not have the tubes we needed. Frustrated, we walked outside of the mall to decide on a plan. First step in the plan, acquire some Tim Hortons. Second step in the plan rely on Claire's extra tube and Mauras extra tire until we get to a bike shop closer to Niagara and hope for the best. The roads from there on our were amazing. Quiet county roads lined with fresh veggie and flower stands. It did start to rain a little while after we left tillsonburg, but it didn't last too long and right as it really started to come down, a brewery that selled snacks and chocolate, had bathrooms and had pavilions where we could shelter with our bikes popped up out of absolutely nowhere. We took a little rest there and stocked up on chocolate. For the next hour after we left, Maura and I tried to come up with cocktails that were bicycle/coast2coast themed. Some of our winners include; the lemon drop-bar, the rest-day-rita, an advil-tini and a twisted Teva. Please reply with your favorite one. We continued along beautiful country roads until we got to Cayuga, where we stocked up on some veggies and made our way to camp, which ended up being a beautiful spot right next to the river. As the sun set, the mosquitos rose so we made quick work of our dinner and settled in for the night.