Odyssey 2000 Reports

By Larry and Joan Dolinski

NORTH AMERICA

We are sitting here along the boardwalk high on a hill overlooking the St. Lawrence River with the impressive Chateau Frontenac looming overhead No doubt you have surmised that we are inside the old walled city of Quebec. It's a lovely, sunny, crispy (October-like) day and all the world seems right. Tomorrow we will be flying to Paris, where a long (3 month) period in Northern Europe will begin.

Since flying to Washington, DC from Lisbon during the 2nd week in May, we have enjoyed the North American leg of our trek in a somewhat modified venue. This portion of our journey involved more deliberate dedication to bicycle mileage (very little desire to sight see) and a number of warm personal interactions with friends & family. We flew back to Boston for a brief four-day visit while many of our bicycling comrades were sightseeing in the Nation's Capital.

It was good to get home for those few days but the visit was frantic among appointments, errands, and visits to family. Everyone wanted a slice of our time but there was not enough time to go around. It was particularly heart rending to see Sam (Larry's Dad) at the nursing home, looking so fit as he approaches his 89th birthday. At the other end of the spectrum we got to spend some quality time with our 8-month old grandson, Andrew. He is generally a very happy little guy, but didn't quite know what to make of Grampy Larry whom he did not remember (a stranger with a beard). Larry has some real work to do when he gets home to make friends with him. And then (somewhere in the middle of the spectrum) we had the honor of attending the wedding of our dear friend Irma to Warren. And on Mother's day we enjoyed a gathering of most of our family. Things got so backed up that we even missed our scheduled flight back to Washington due to a traffic jam and were able to take a later flight.

Our trip resumed from Washington and involved many long bicycle days. Between Washington & NYC we plodded through several days of rain and cold. We had the pleasure of encountering some friends and family along the way. Our friends, Jack & Marie Hegarty (Jack is a Bentley colleague of Larry) met us in Lancaster, PA on their way to Gettysburg. Joan's brother John met us in NJ (Our camp site that day was a few minutes drive from his home). We stayed overnight with him and he drove us into NYC the next day saving us from having to bicycle that busy 40 mile stretch. In NYC we got to see Larry's sister Jane, her friend Rick, Joan's niece Amanda, and our friend Carole Congram (an ex Bentley colleague of Larry's). We concluded our brief visit to NYC by attending a performance of The Lion King...an absolutely wonderful entertainment. Our seats were terrific, thanks to the efforts of Larry's sister, Jane. Then in upstate NY we were joined for a day of cycling by Larry Meile (our friend who forwards our Odyssey updates). He drove out to share in the flavor of our adventure. He had a great time as did we.

Then it was farewell to the USA for some time to come as we pedaled on across the Canadian border to Ottawa, followed by Montreal, and finally into Quebec City. The bicycling between Ottawa & Quebec City, along the St. Lawrence River, has been a stretch of the most comfortable bicycling we have enjoyed here-to-fore; flat, steady tail wind to push us along and comfortably cool temperatures. The distances have been on the long side. Larry did a couple of centuries (100 mile days) during that stretch.

Continued on Update #21