First of all, we miss Eric and will be nicer when we reunite! Bonnie
and Ken decided they needed another night in the great outdoors the
evening of June 14 and Martin reluctantly followed...much to his
regret. We found a beautiful wooded campsite in the Fanshawe Park in
the city of London on the Thames. Tents went up quickly as a
thunderstorm threatened. We dashed for our tents, dinner in hand, as
the deluge struck lasting only about 10 minutes but long enough to
get some of our supplies soaked. We had a two hour reprieve then
rain most of the night. Martin, our former National Park Ranger,
awoke to find a discriminating raccoon had explored his pannier
holdings. Our little friend first tasted Martin's passport, toilet
paper, oatmeal and cell phone before settling down to finish off a
Power Bar leaving a footprint signature on Martin's clean towel. An
incident like this would upset anyone but particularly someone of
Martin's fastidious nature. He didn't brighten until a generous
jeweler gave him a new battery for his cellphone later in the day.
And, no, we are not picking on Martin...he has a great ability to
laugh at himself and actually helped write this.

After sadly parting with Eric the five of us cycled on to the town of
Branford where we barely dodged another downpour by stuffing
ourselves into a very small bus stop shelter for about 5 minutes. We
decided to take a country road to our destination and cycled some of
the most beautiful rolling country hills of our trip, enjoying the
tailwind all the way. We took a break in what looked like
the "Julian" of the area, Carlock, for rhubarb pastries and fudge.

Ken has decided that people are now viewing us as "celebrities" as
our goal is almost reached and most people react in awe when we
explain what we are doing. That bubble got burst when we, dodging
another shower, pulled into a huge truck garage where the owner
remarked, "How long are you going to be here? I've got a business to
run." as we took up about 1/1000th of his work space. That's the
only time I can remember receiving a negative reaction so will take
it with a grain of salt.

We cycled 80 miles today and without Eric's fancy odometer blissfully
have no idea what the elevation gain was!