I had a grueling 190 KM day ahead of me to get to Matthew's apartment in Toronto, so I was once again up and ready to go very early. Shawn's mom had made me a nice packaged lunch, and Shawn and her had gotten up to see me off. I was a little sad to say goodbye again so soon, but I will definitely see them again someday.
Following Mrs. Macnamara's advice, I took a series of back country roads most of the way to Toronto. I started off climbing some rather large and steep hills, and I was frustrated thinking the whole 190 KM would be this slow and difficult, but I soon reached a plateau called the Grey Highlands. It was more stable after that, but there were still plenty of smaller hills. I progressed my way through many KM of countryside, thinking about everything but how far I had to go. I have found that if I take a mindset where I expect to be biking until past supper time, and dont count the KM or worry about how far Ive gone/ have left to go, I am able to mentally disassociate from the task into a more relaxed state where the day just slips by, and before I know it I am almost there. Today I did just that, only caring whrere the next turn was, and despite it being a long, hot, and tiring day, I made it into Toronto no problem.
At one point I stopped at a gas station for a lunch break, and a clerk started talking to me about the trip. He was very excited and impressed by it, and gave me two cold bottles of water to take with me. It was rather hot out, so I was pretty grateful for the kindness.
The Greater Toronto Area is absolutely massive, and I found myself biking through endless stretches of industrial park and strip malls for a couple hours before finally finding my way into the heart of the city. It was exceptionally hot and busy, but the drivers were a lot more polite and accomodating than I expected, so I had no problems traversing the city.
I soon found my way into a nice trail system along the shores of Lake Ontario that skirts the edges of the downtown area. It strolls past parks, pools, boats, some pretty cool buildings, and a windmill; all along the waterfront. I followed this for quite a while, but the numerous branches were becoming confusing, so I simplified by switching back to the road and heading straight to Matthew's. The problem was, Matthew was coming to meet me on his bike, and my change of plans caused us to miss eachother, so he had to backtrack a little bit. Oops. We finished up the remaining 6 KM together, arriving at his basement apartment in a quiet, forested neighbourhood not long later.
I was exhausted and shakey from my long day in the sun, so I was extremely happy to be able to relax.
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