Millgrove (Sightseeing). DAY: 36.94km. ODO: 3,859km. AVS: 21.2km/h. MXS: 51.5km/h. ATM: 1:44:49.

I decided to ride into Hamilton, as it is less than 20km away, and take a look around, see if Shelia Copps is screaming at anyone. What I didn’t know is that I am camping not very far from the edge of the Niagara Escarpment, and Hamilton is at the bottom. But first, I passed through Dundas, where I looked for an internet place so that I could get my mail and update this log. As I could not see any, I stopped at a small computer store to ask if they knew of any. The owner said he didn’t know of any such places, but offered to let me connect to his, at $10 for 30 minutes. We settled on $5 for 45 minutes, and I sat as the reception desk at the front of the store. I was able to retrieve my 400 e-mails (nine of which were not spam) and update these pages, but for some reason my outgoing mailserver wasn’t working, so I could not send any e-mail. Therefore, if you are waiting for a message from me, you’ll be waiting until I get to Toronto, probably.

I had a small, over-priced and horribly over-packaged lunch at the Student Services building at the campus of MacMaster University, and then cycled back to the campground. The Floridian dropped by to say that he was having trouble with the modem in his computer (camping isn’t all canvas and bug spray anymore), and invited me for dinner, asking me to take a look at it. After dinner, he took me to the computer, which was in his bedroom. Though I had seen them in television sit-coms in the 70’s, I had never seen an actual circular bed before – especially not one that was surrounded on three sides by smoked glass mirrors, another of which was mounted on the ceiling above.

I ignored this without comment and sat down at the computer to try to fix the modem and get the hell out. As I tinkered with that, he removed his shoes and sprayed them with some sort of air-freshener. The modem worked fine when I tested it from Windows, but I was unable to get his AOL software to use it, though I did get it to recognise it. I suggested that he call AOL, which is always the culprit in any problem, including plugged toilets and the heartbreak of psoriasis. Why anyone uses it I don’t know.

Then he asked me if I wanted to have a Jacuzzi. He pointed to a tub in the corner of the room that I had not previously noticed. It was actually heart-shaped! I declined and returned to the outdoor patio. Soon after, I managed to make a polite escape, but not before I was welcomed to drop by later to “heat one up and have a soak, dude”, which I took to mean smoke a joint and share a “heart” of hot water.

The good thing about the cabin is the door that locks. I returned to it and did so.