Before I update on the days since my last blog, I need to go back in time on my trip and mention a very interesting person, Jari Chevalier and a great opportunity that she gave me.  When I was riding through North Dakota, I met Jari at a 50’s-style lunch counter in a small town. While we were eating the two of us talked for about 1/2 hour.  When we finished, Jari mentioned that, in addition to her artwork, she has a project called Living Hero where she interviews interesting or inspiring people and posts those interviews as podcasts on her website. Jari went on to offer to allow me to talk about Mikyla-Cure as a part of her project. As a result, she interviewed me and posted that interview a few weeks later. Jari did a great job of turning our conversation into a well-crafted interview; if you’re interested you can hear the end result at: http://jari.podbean.com/2008/08/01/interview-with-scott-parsons/.  Thanks for your help Jari!

Yesterday, I returned to the Detroit area to resume my ride. My friend Jim and his wife Nancy went out of their way to help me with travel logistics and even let me join them for Nancy’s birthday dinner last night!  As I mentioned in an earlier update, Jim is a cyclist so this morning he joined me, along with our friend Joanie (another GP former coworker) for the ride into downtown Detroit to the Canadian border. Along the way we met another friend and former coworker of mine, Terry, who rode along with us for part of the trip while he pulled his kids, Elliott and Scarlet in a Burley Trailer (Elliott and Scarlet were the smart ones… they wanted their Dad to let them out of the trailer at a park where they could play so Terry wasn’t with us for too long).

It was a great ride to Detroit and it was fun to catch up with some friends from  GP.  When we arrived at the Detroit river something unusual happened… I rode my bike and trailer down some stairs in order to get on the river trail (that wasn’t the unusual thing… it wasn’t nearly as attention grabbing as my trip down the stairs and into the Rose Garden in Portland); and in the process I managed to attract the attention of a couple of photographers… Then, with the help of my new “Publicists”, Joanie and Jim a horde of about 15-20 professional-type photogs (who just happened to be at the waterfront this morning) began taking pictures while Jim and Joanie helped me by promoting Mikyla-Cure while I explained my trip!  I’m sure it was the most pictures I’ve ever had taken at one time!

From there we loaded our bikes into Jim’s car (you can’t bike across the border in Detroit so we dropped the car downtown earlier in the morning) and proceeded to drive UNDER the border (and the Detroit river as well) through a tinnel into Canada. Each time I’ve visited Canada, I’ve been impressed by how friendly the people are and how clean and quiet the cities and towns are and today was no exception. As a culture, Canadians are some of the friendliest people I’ve met!

Jim and Joanie joined me for about 15 more miles of riding “North” (or in the case of Detroit/Windsor, South) of the border before turning around in Tecumseh and heading for home. While we rode together we paralled the Detroit river and Lake St. Clair, both of which are beautiful. Once I was on my own, the scenery changed to rural farming communities, all of which were picture perfect in much the same way as the areas I’ve recently ridden through in IA and WI.  There was one upgrade however… there were absolutely no hills!  Which, after a couple of weeks of not much riding was a welcomed way to ease back into my trip!

I’ll spend about 3 days crossing through Ontario. Although my trip is drawing to a close (hard to believe, but I only have about 9 days of riding left) I have a lot to look forward to. First, I’ll visit Niagra Falls as I re-enter the USA.  Then I’ll meet my Dad in Cooperstown to visit the baseball hall of fame.  Finally, I’ll get to spend some time at the beach north of Boston with some of my best friends, Mich and Robyn.

As usual, I’m like a little boy; so excited about what’s coming that I can hardly sleep!  I can’t wait to send you pictures and describe my trip over the next few days!

Back in the Saddle (again)!

Scott

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 at 7:58 pm and is filed under Ride Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.