this day began as did each of them, with the promise of heavy weather later in the day. the beginning and middle were generally in the range of clear skies to cloudy but not precipitating or exchanging ions between earth and sky as was the case towards the end of each day. so off i went.
i decided to stick with hwy. 2 through trenton and then on as far as brighton and then i would retrace my route south through colborne and alongside the lake, turning north back up to hwy. 2 just outside cobourg and then along king street / hwy. 2 through downtown cobourg and over to my parent’s home.
here’s a picture from highway 2 about twenty kilometres outside belleville . . .
as you can see it was a beautiful day. traffic was fairly heavy in places. i raced through trenton up and over the impossibly steep-sided bridge and then past a historical plaque drawing attention to trenton's storied past as a film making centre. trenton was once an important film production centre. in 1917, a film studio was built in the town and a number of productions were filmed there. in 1923, the trenton film plant was purchased by the ontario government to house the studio and laboratory of the ontario motion picture bureau. the advent of talkies and 16mm film made the equipment at the film plant obsolete and the facility closed in 1934.after blowing through trenton, i stopped at this bridge for a snack . . .
but i didn’t want to eat too much because i was really looking forward to splendid lunch back at lola’s coffee house in brighton. thoughts of tasty sandwiches, fresh baked tasty desserts, and yummy coffee made my legs spin a little faster and so it was with some degree of excitement that i wheeled through the outskirts of brighton and made the left turn onto brighton’s main street. i pedalled along to the driveway that leads into lola’s and this is what i saw . . .
the horror! the horror!now for those of you with short memories, i will also share the “before picture” taken just three days prior to this newer image . . .
there were three men working on whatever was happening to lola’s but none of them spoke english enough to understand my simple exasperated, dumbfounded, bewildered questioning. what happened? well, through the magic of the internet i am able to share what happened right here.
so with that crushing disappointment under my belt i decided to move on and left brighton along a relatively quiet road that eventually led me to the colborne turnoff. here are some pictures i took just after colborne . . .
you can tell i was feeling especially sorry to be leaving all this simple beauty. here i am in the middle of somewhere . . .
the road passed by the lake once more and i stopped to listen to the leaves blowing in the wind and the waves washing ashore. then the rain came. of course it did! what made this rain unique was that it was actually a cold rain . . . not quite the cold rain of late autumn but cold enough to make me work harder if only to stay warm. i never used my jacket or my rainpants on this trip. i biked the entire time in shorts and a short-sleeved bike shirt.
the road finally came back out to highway 2 at which point i turned left and headed for downtown cobourg.
the rain had chilled me a fair bit so i decided to stop at “the human bean” coffee shop. this is a lovely place with great coffee and fresh-baked goods and filled with lovely people. i had a nice chat with a fellow cyclist and his playful children who recommended all sorts of tasties that i could purchase there, even offering me samples of their own purchases!i wandered around the downtown area as the rain dropped icy cold until i couldn’t stand it any more and raced over to my parent’s home where a hot shower, a mug of soup and a change of clothes later, i felt more like myself again. a special dinner was prepared which we shared with my aunt margaret. i watched some of the olympics with my mum and then went to bed and promptly drifted off. today - just over 74 kilometres.
tomorrow - back home across the hills to peterborough.
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