Port Huron

I got around at a decent time this morning, well before my host. I found that he had left me a shirt that he'd gotten from the event he'd gone to at the depot last night. Normally I don't do souvenirs, but a shirt is a practical item, and I'll make use of it. I left him a note, thinking I was going to leave before he got up, but then he surprised me at the door right as I was packing out and I was able to tell him goodbye.

I biked through a moderate headwind that increased as the day progressed, and heat that likewise worsened as the day went on. I kind of miss the beginning of this tour when the big concern was the cold... It wasn't a particularly eventful day. I got asked for the umpteenth time by a tourist how to find something despite clearly being a tourist myself. I had a guy traveling by TV (apparently an avid cyclist himself) chat me up about my tour at a grocery store after his wife had been impatient to get into the bathroom while I was in it. I saw some nice roadside parks but nothing too stunning. I passed through a lot of small towns with their own charm. But generally, it was just another day in the life of a touring cyclist.

Coming into Port Huron was unpleasant. The shoulder on the highway vanished, spewing me out onto the street amidst busy, impatient traffic. A "bike path" appeared for awhile, that was really just an oversized sidewalk, bumpy, and likely more dangerous than the road as it passed drives into businesses and streets where turning cars weren't looking for cyclists. I appreciate the effort, but that sort of thing is a terrible solution to the problem. Frankly, when highways enter cities, their shoulders need to not disappear but become bike lanes (which they rarely do), and anything less I consider a disregard to cyclists' safety. The best part was that the so called "bike path" abruptly disappeared and spewed you back onto the street anyways. But I made it alive.

My host is cool. She's an older lady born and raised in this region who has all kinds of great touring experiences on her Brampton, later adapted into an E-Brampton, through the US, Europe, New Zealand, all over. And she's still at it, with plans to bike through Texas and back up here to Michigan. She has a nice apartment for touring cyclists, segmented off from the main part of the house. She made an incredible vegetarian chili with macaroni for dinner, some of the most satisfying food I've eaten all trip. After showering and getting set up, she drove me to the river and we took a walk along the boardwalk on the incredibly beautiful, incredibly blue water. It moves frightening fast and is extremely deep, dangerous, but lovely. Old money (we're talking Edison, Atchison, Ford) is responsible for a lot of the cool public projects in the city. The boardwalk was once all industries, industries that died out, and in a fight between condo development and public access to the water, public access won. Though funny enough, there can be no trees in the park, as not to block the view from the nearby condos. We walked until sundown, then headed back so I can now be getting to bed.

It'a back into Ontario tomorrow, but for a much shorter stretch through far more populated area. Niagara is coming up soon. The trip is nearing its climax.