Day 43 Proctor > Ashland – Wisconson

Monday > We had an extra cyclist today – Bill joined us for the first couple of miles along the water front. He made some excuse about not having a helmet – then the gears were not perfect and then his ass hurt so maybe next year Bill! We had lots of fun but we had to be on our way so said our farewells! Minutes latter we met up with our first long distance cyclist Lynn travelling 1500km to visit her friend to celebrate the summer solstice in Ohio we shared lots of stories and she said goodbye “beware of glass, bears and bad people” cyclists apparently say this to each other! The road ahead was closed to cyclists so we had to make a considerable detour. Michele is almost completly recovered and was ready to give it a go until Lynn told us she had a $150.00 fine for doing it! We back tracked and found a route that took us deep into some forestry. Nervous we would never find our way we progressed using sence of direction rather than actual hard evidence and this time it paid off. Once back on the road the sun came out and became over powering in the next few hours. We stopped at a fuel station for icecream. The owner and several customers warned us that there wasa tornado heading our way and that we should haul up and wait for it to pass. We still had 20 km to go but Michele feeling on good form at last pursuaded me we could peddle like fury and make it to our next stop. Why I listerned I don’t know. Guess I wanted her to think I really wasn’t a control freak! Anyway it became apparent whist waiting for her to have a sh.t in the woods  we really weren’t going to make it. We peddled away and felt like we were being sucked back into the storm. I looked back and Michele was surrounded by lightening and hail.  Averaging over 30km we couldn’t keep in front we spotted a visitor center and although it was closed it had a porch perfect to shelter in. We crouched down and watched an incredible tornado pass over. We had just 2km to town and finally made it to our hotel at 8pm. Tired and still shaking from a truly scary experience. Charlotte and Jim flew in to Toronto and experienced another tornado on route to meet us.

Weather – tornado!

Wind W

Road kill 3 x deer 1 x skunk