Biking to Ash Island 2005

Karen and I were invited to spend the weekend at my uncle's island on the St. Lawrence river. An ordinary couple would probably take a leisurely drive there. We, on the other hand, decided it would be more adventurous to bike there.

After work we both raced over to Karen's house where she had some salmon sandwiches awaiting us. Since my bike had the only carrier, we stuffed everything we needed into them (about 40 lbs). This was the first time I had used my bike bags on my new bike so there were some problems in attaching them. Neither of us had night lights so we were pressed for time as it gets dark about 8:00.

Finally, at 6:10 we were ready. We set ourselves a good pace and kept it up all the way from Henderson Place in Kingston to Williams Marina on #2 highway about 7 miles east of Gananoque. We made good time (luckily) and arrived at 8:05 just as it was getting dark. According to our odometers, it was 33 miles or 57 km.

We called my uncle, Bill Browning who motored over with his summer helper, Greg, to pick us up. We loaded our road bikes into his boat and were whisked away to Lyndock Island. Bill has his own cabin, 3 guest cabins, a cookhouse and a separate tower room. There is also a large 4 bedroom farmhouse which we had to ourselves for the entire weekend. We chose the executive bedroom overlooking the St. Lawrence River. Very nice.

Karen and I joined Bill and Greg in the Tower Room which overlooks the St. Lawrence and is located below the farmhouse. We watched a movie before retiring for the night.

Woke up late and joined Bill and Greg for the breakfast that they had already prepared. Hmmm! Getting up late has its virtues. Bill and Greg took the boat in to town so Karen and I swam and tanned all morning. Later our hosts took us on a tour of the Thousand Islands including treating us to Foxy's for supper. Mine was the only good meal. The other's were only okay. From there we skimmed over to RumRunners at Alexandria Bay for a couple of drinks. Bill navigated us through "the rift" which is a narrow area between the islands with some very strong currents. Very scenic.

Back at the island we watched "First Daughter" then hit the sack. Karen said my stomach looked like a turkey's calling me "turkey belly." I wrestled with her until she took it back.

We actually got up this morning and beat Bill and Greg to the kitchen. It was our turn to cook so we made a scad of scrambled eggs and bacon. Then we began our rigorous day of tanning, swimming and sipping vodka and tomato juice. Neither of us wanted to leave but by 3:30 we thought we'd better head out as we were taking the long route back through the United States. We had to walk the two international bridges (in our biking shoes) as they won't allow you to bike over the spans. That was about 3 km of hiking on the narrow bridge sidewalks. There are bolts sticking out here and there so we both ended up getting a few gouges on our knees and hips. Our trip also included a 45 minute wait in the customs line-up Once we got back on our bikes the wind was against us all the way and very strong. We were a little worried as we didn't know when the last ferry ran from Cape Vincent.

"That's the beauty of my plan - we're only about 40 minutes from work," I beamed.

My ideas are not always greeted with the enthusiasm they deserve. Fortunately the Cape Vincent ferry was still running when we arrived at 7:45 pm. We were exhausted biking to the Wolfe Island ferry dock and arrived at 8:30 just as it got dark. By 9:30 we had arrived back at Karen's after driving home in the dark. A total of 73 km today. Our grand weekend total was 127 km or 80 miles. We were both done in from battling the wind all day. Karen fell asleep standing up while getting eggs out of the refrigerator. I had never seen that happen before. I woke her up and we had egg sandwiches then went right to sleep.

Since this was a fairly short article, I thought I'd add in a little program that I found and doctored for fun...

Ben Joffe's Story Generator Please enter your name and select your sex to have a random story about you generated. There are over 1 billion different possible stories so have fun! This was created by Benjamin M. Joffe.
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