Bike Ride: Spitting on the Bluffs
September 4th was Jen's last morning in Toronto before flying back to Vancouver to continue her studies at UBC. After dropping her off at the airport and taking the bus back home, I decided to use the rest of the day for a long bike ride.
My bike ride took me down to the lake where I stumbled across the huge crowds gathered for the air show. It was interesting seeing the jets fly so quickly (and LOUDLY!), but it sure was a pain getting through the crowds of spectators along the pathways. I gave up and hopped on Lakeshore Rd., where the traffic was less chaotic. :-)
The first destination was Tommy Thompson Park, or the "Leslie St. Spit". I've been to this rubble-dump-turned-urban-oasis before, but this time I decided to explore it off of the main "roads" that go through it. Wow, this place is truly fantastic. I didn't realize there were quiet little beaches tucked away behind the trees, and beavers to chomp on those trees too. The number of birds on the spit is amazing, and I spent quite a bit of time just gazing at them flying around. I wish I knew more about birds so that I could tell you what they were. Even the freshly-dumped-rubble areas of the spit are interesting. It's like walking on top of Toronto's past. People have also taken pieces of rubble to construct temporary figures of various shapes and sizes.
When I left the spit at around 6:00, I decided to keep riding east, heading for the Scarborough Bluffs because I had never been there before. Once I got past the end of Queen St., the riding went from interesting city roads to the ugly suburbia of Kingston Rd., which seemed to go on further than I expected (plus it was uphill!). I didn't realize the Scarborough Bluffs park was on the bottom of the bluffs, so the steep downhill road was a real blast to ride down! I paid for that on the way back up... Well, it was already starting to get a bit dark by the time I got there, so I spent some time looking around and taking pictures, but I'll have to come back some other day to really take it all in and explore it some more.
One thing I love about Toronto is that I was able to take the lazy way home: I just rode up to Kennedy station and took my bike on the subway all the way back to Etobicoke. I was tired, it was dark, and I had a leaky rear tire (it's always good to have excuses for wimping out of a long ride home).