DON'T Look Down 27.6.09

It's an absolutely perfect morning. I leave the hotel by 0930 and jump on the expressway for the short trip into Toronto.

It takes a couple of minutes to find somewhere to park Myrtle and a short walk away from this.....by now I really, really don't want to go up.

I pay my 23 bucks and wait in line with the rest of the suckers for the elevator. It takes about 30 seconds to reach the viewing platform and that goddam awful glass floor. I have to admit the views of the city from the platform are pretty cool if ever so slightly terrifying...

Shaky hands I'm afraid. They'll calm down later.

From the outer viewing platform you enter the torture chamber inside the dome where lies the glass floor. A portion of the concrete floor replaced by some super duper reinforced glass stuff. I really do not like heights.....at all. Standing on the roof at home is about my limit. I don't really care that the glass can carry the weight of thirteen elephants per square inch. How the hell do they test that theory anyway?

I think it's about 550 metres down.

There's always one smart arse...

To my brain it may as well be mad of cling film. I dance around it for about ten minutes before I'm dragged on kicking and screaming by a bunch of kids. Why do they have no concept of fear? Do they want mine? Strangely enough its not that bad. Once I was on it I was ok. You can catch an elevator to the next deck up but I'm too tight to pay and I've had enough superhero stuff for one day.

Trust me you have no idea what it took for me to stand on this. If my legs look long its because they are trying desperately to reach the ground.

I get stuck in traffic this time getting out of Toronto but after a while it eases and I make some headway. Its pretty mundane on the expressway but it serves a purpose and I get a few miles under my belt. Past Port Hope, Belville, Trenton and finally up to Kingston where the skies start to darken. I have to get to Cornwall so I hope to make it dry.

5 miles from Cornwall the heavens open...and I mean open. I get off the bike at the nearest exit and grab the camera which is on the mount and put it away. I crawl into Cornwall where the water is at one stage to the soles of my feet. Unfortunately for me the town is holding a Jehovas convention so the first hotel I try is solid.

Outside another bedraggled biker, Rick, is looking for digs too so we venture next door. Only a double roomed corporate suite at megabucks is available but after a tag team charm offensive we get it for $80 piece which is pretty good here.

Beer and Pizza are the order of the day. Bumping into Rick is a stroke of luck. He lives in Nova Scotia and is on his way back with a new bike so there will be some company for the rest of the journey to Moncton.

Mileage today 300

More later....