Today was the last riding day of our Blueberry tour. It started out dreary, but ended up being a nice day.

We had breakfast from the stash of food we accumulated over the trip – a couple bagels, some with cream cheese, some leftover soda, granola bars, and the like. Ruth was unenthused with the food on offer. This is more than just about mood, with the tandems everybody needs to fuel up.

We wanted to leave early so we could get to the hotel before the office closed, since we needed to get our cases back to start packing up the bikes. We didn’t quite achieve our goal, but still managed to get rolling at 7:30, which is pretty good.

The morning started out overcast, which turned to a bit more than a drizzle. I was secretly a little happy. We went to considerable trouble to pack and remount fenders. I’m glad we got some use out of them.

We had already planned to top off breakfast at a convenience store at about mile ten. Everybody was in better spirits after some more food. Marna and Tom rolled by while we were there. They hung out for a bit before moving on.

We continued on, with a mix of highway frontage trail, riding on the highway itself, and trail running away from the roads. We got lunch from a small grocery store, which had a sign about holding the Guinness world record for the largest tourtiere (meat pie). We ate under a picnic shelter nearby.

My cleats had started acting worn out, where it was getting difficult to clip in. We carry a spare in our tool kit, so while Max and Anne picked out lunch, Ruth helped me replace them. Later my voice randomly cracked. We’ve been joking about what an old man I am when I’m worn out and moving slowly in the evenings. Now, with the voice crack, I declared I looped around and was a teenager. Ruth decided that my age must be related to my cleat condition. Sure, why not?

At one point, when the trail exited out onto a neighborhood street, a dog started chasing us. I think he was happy to just be pacing us and chasing us off his territory, but he kept going for at least a block.

I could hear Anne and Max continuing to develop as a team. They decided somehow that when extra effort was needed for a hill, they would “make hot dogs” – chanting “hot, dog, hot, dog” with every stroke. This of course evolved into involving ketchup and relish, though I was unable to understand what that meant. Ruth and I are way more boring. I mostly just call “power” or “ease” to direct the effort.

Near the end of the ride we came to a dam which was followed by an segment closed for construction. Tom, who went through before us, warned us about the closure. They were running a van shuttle service with a bike trailer. They weren’t exactly set up for tandems. I was freaking out about it and couldn’t look as they set up bungies and clamped down the front wheel over the fenders. But it all went fine.

We ended up missing the hotel office after all. Despite checking with the staff when we were here a few days ago, they closed at 4 instead of the promised 5. Marna got in before us and was able to claim our cases for us. When we pulled in Marna and Tom were there to cheer us in.

Tom took me to pick up the car, then Anne and I went to get frozen pizza and Cheerios for dinner. We also got “2 litres de pur plaisir” (“2 liters of pure pleasure”), aka a tub of ice cream.

That just left packing everything up, getting as much done before bedtime as possible. We got both bikes disassembled, and one with all the bike pieces tetrised into its cases. That leaves tetrising the other bike, filling it to the brim with miscellaneous gear, and packing up the rest of the bags for tomorrow. No problem.

The tour was pretty great overall. Flying with the bikes is a lot of work, and the time and space dealing with them at the endpoints is definitely a negative. On the other hand, there’s no way we would have been able to come this far from home without it. And it’s a wild experience doing the tandems with the kids.

But I am very tired. I was barely able to climb the stairs to the loft bedroom in our hotel. I guess I’m still an old man, despite my new cleats.