What is that law of inertia? Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, bodies at rest tend to stay at rest? It’s something like that anyway. I can tell from experience that this body at rest had no desire to get back into motion. But you do what you have to do…..
After breakfast Les (Geri went to work again) took us back to Ottawa, stopping briefly in Merrickville at Mrs McGarrigles, one of the many little shops in the area. Merrickville is not one of those places you want to rush into and back out again. No, it’s really cute, full of shops selling anything and everything: coffee shops, restaurants, ice cream parlours, kitchen stores, dress shops, toy shops, gadget stores, flower shops……. It’s the kind of place to go to with a girlfriend or two and explore. Take your time. Stop for coffee. Linger over lunch…. Mrs Mcgarrigles had red pepper jelly and some fancy mustards among many other things. That was what Les was after. It was a teaser, but I can’t carry anything on my bike anyway. Some other time, and some other place……
After saying our goodbyes to Les and expressing our heartfelt appreciation for their hospitality and my joy at having seen them again after all these years, we turned our attention to our summer quest. Good news at the bike shop! They did tuneups and changes our chains and that was it. Bought some Butt Butter and groceries and off we went.
The road wasn’t too bad but there was another option open to us and that was to take the Prescott-Russel bike paths. The surface was mostly pea gravel and we averaged a booming 12.5 km an hour, which is ridiculously slow, but we were ready to be away from the traffic. The path , mostly flat, led us through the deep, dark, forbidding woods, through farmers fields edged with wildflowers and by numerous waterways. 
We listened to the deep croaks of frogs and the various singing birds. There are flocks of vibrant yellow finches darting about, plus robins and many others I can’t identify. The wind was against us but it was often broken by all the trees and bushes. How blessed we are to have this opportunity to see Canada from this perspective.
We turned in to a little town with the promising claim to being the gingerbread capital of Canada. Anyone who really knows me, knows that gingerbread holds equal appeal to me as strawberry-rhubarb. Maybe more. Anyway, to my disappointment, Vankleek Hill’s gingerbread claims to fame were all about the lacy wooden cut-out adornments on the outsides of many of the houses. 
It was getting late in the day. We stopped at a grocery store, bought a BBQ chicken and a few other things and googled campgrounds in the area. Nothing close by. By then it was dark. We rode up the way a bit and set up our tent up behind a monument at a high school on the Main Street. Hidden in plain view. Slept peacefully all night. 
Wendingourway:Across Canada by Bike 2017 
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