Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Last day on the road. The sky in Maine was as clear and blue - no sign of a cloud until Houlton - as I've ever seen a sky. Glorious. The temperature was 7ish - the same as the day before but I couldn't seem to get comfortable. I figure it was psychological, knowing I was so close to home and would be warm then.

Orono is about 10 miles from Bangor and has a nice little bike shop, 'Friend & Friend', that Mark wanted to check out. The photo is of me trying on a Stars & Stripes doo rag. ps - does this jacket make me look FAT?! Probably, it's the 5 layers I had on under it.

Arrived home around 3:30 with 6286.6 kms on the odo; 3906.4 miles for the non-canadian speaking readers. Speaking of which, I had intended to mention the bilingual signage in Maine. Coming into Maine from NH, some of the mileage signs are in miles AND kilometers! That's right neighbourly of you Maine-iacs ;-)

Thanks for riding along with us. It's too bad about the sketchy internet access. "Do you have WiFi?" was always the second question after "How much?" when we checked into motels. And I spent a fair amount of time at the Roxboro Public Library.

Regarding photos, I have them on my computer. Just have to do some editing for quality and quantity (started with around 500 photos) and get them to Smugmug. They'll be here: North Carolina by the weekend, I hope. This is a pretty full week for me.

Boiled peanuts: the missing link

Well, folks. Here's the missing post from last Sunday which was the end, really, of the NC riding.

So, I got my boiled peanuts on our way out of Cherokee..... yuck! They're mushy *lol*. Of course, they would be since they're boiled. Duh. Per Mark's night-before declaration, we did get a fairly early start - 0835h by the time we gassed up and got on the road, and, luckily, the cauldron was set up on Rte 441 on our way to the Parkway. We ordered up our peanuts and I was presented with this bag of piping hot peanuts that the nice man dipped out of the cauldron. I looked at the steaming peanuts, looked at Nancy & Mark and said “what am I going to do with these on the bike?!” At this point, the vendor clued in that I was a boiled-peanut noob so he asked “have you had boiled peanuts before?” . “No” I tell him. “Well, you’d better try them first - before you buy them.” Good idea. In the meantime, a guy - a regular customer - came up behind us and bought “my” bag. Apparently, I hadn’t given them much of a chance. Mark ate several of them and developed a bit of a taste for them.

Back on the road again. We hit the Parkway and rode almost 400 kilometres - in and out of fog, drizzle and sun. When we the hit the Parkway around 0900h, I thought “wow, this is great. The cagers are still in bed!” No cars. Mark let me go ahead so he and Nancy could just mosey along. I hadn't gone very far when I came up on an SUV which, very thoughtfully - and unlike a lot of 4-wheelers - pulled into the next lookout to let me go by. I was fortunate to go another 45 minutes before I came up behind another vehicle :-) (or any I had to follow for any length of time, if I recall correctly)

It was such a perfect morning - mist coming off the valley and sun shining through the mist and the trees. The light was wonderful. Leaves were dropping and wafting down over the road which was slightly damp from the previous night's rain or fog. I was watchful and there weren’t enough wet leaves on the road lanes to create a hazard. It’s hard to believe that there would a difference in colours over a few days but I think there was. And, oddly, it was patchy - lots of colour in some places, more muted colours in others; many trees without leaves in some places and still greenish in others. Elevation didn’t seem to make a difference. And elevation didn’t seem to make a difference to the fog either. There was no rhyme nor reason - not that I observed, anyway. We approached a tunnel at one point (there were lots of those, by the way!) - the mountain ridges were bathed in sun and colour; came out the other end of the tunnel and I couldn’t see a anything for fog!

What to tell you about Sunday’s ride? Or our 3 days of riding. Earlier in the day, we had stopped at a Visitor / Folk Art & Craft Centre for a rest room break. A woman, slightly older than I maybe, was painting tiny dolls at a table near the washrooms and I asked her if I could leave my jacket, helmet and tankbag on the floor behind her while I went to the washroom. Yes, of course I could. When I came back out and was thanking her, she never missed a beat - kept right on painting and told me, smiling, “there’s no better way to see the world than from a motorcycle.” Holy smokes! Hadn’t I said that very thing the day before?. She’d had a motorcycle for years and got rid of it when her children became old enough to express interest. Of course, I encouraged her to get back into it since, from the look on her face, she clearly had very fond memories of it.

For 3 days, I’ve wondered how to describe the vistas. Mountain ranges and ridges with barely a rock face showing and bathed in colour; some of it vibrant, some of it muted. Some of it very colourful, some of it already reduced to shades of ochre. Recall the multicolour shag carpet from the seventies and picture it like mounds of ....I don’t know.... forest moss. That’s what the miles and miles of mountain range look like. Today, at around 1600 metres, I came around a turn and fog settled in around the peaks seemed to meet the clouds. Where one stopped and the other began seemed indistinguishable. It was like coming down along Lake Superior from Wawa in June at dusk. With the quality of the light from the setting sun, I couldn’t distinguish sky from water. For the most part, the Parkway hugs the mountain side and there are trees on the slope side of the road. Most of the turns are “winding”, not really sweepers, and a good number of them are descending radius turns. The speed limit on the Parkway is 45 mph except for curves that are 35 mph, 25 mph or less. S-turn after s-turn after s-turn.... up and around, then down and around and back up and around. VERY rhythmic and fun! And looking from one ridge to the next, you can see through the road snaking along the mountain and through the foliage. I wasn’t very successful in capturing that particular photo.

JUST when I thought we’d seen it all and it couldn’t get any better .... the last few miles of our ride today on the Parkway were THE most spectacular we’d seen, and the now-familiar lump returned to my throat. We had come upon a view of fall foliage and rock face - kind of rare (the rock face, that is). There were many cars pulled over in the lookout with people milling about taking photographs. Mark pulled over to take what was probably his third photograph so, of course, I followed. As it turned out, I refer to this particular photo op as a “sucker punch". The BEST shots were a couple of miles up the road and I didn’t have my camera around my neck where it had resided since Thursday. I’d neglected to charge the battery Saturday night and when the drizzle got particularly heavy on Sunday, I tucked the camera away. Too bad.

All of a sudden we came around a turn and there was everything we’d seen - in bits and pieces for 3 days - all laid out before us. Instead of having to glance off to the side to see the mountain ranges - kind of difficult and dangerous in the circumstances - this vista was right in front of us. Mountain ranges bathed in every colour of yellow, brown, orange, red, green; the roadway widened and we rode over a viaduct. Looking across to the next ridge, we could see the Parkway climbing through the trees and once across the viaduct, we could look back and see the viaducgct running along the side of the mountain. The area was plugged full of cars and people walking, setting up tripods for photographs or just standing admiring the veritable splendor of the panorama before them. It’s a good thing I didn’t have my camera out amidst all of that as it would have been a mishap begging to happen. Plus, as I’ve said before, my little pocket camera couldn’t have done it justice.

So.... there you have it. We’re back in Timberlake, kicking back for a couple of days before heading north, enjoying what will likely be our last ride for 6 months. Oddly enough, we’re not seeing that many bikes around here. The Parkway and the mountains had lots of riders over the weekend but when Mark was down here around this same time a few years ago, at a bike dealer in Durham, he commented on the dearth of bikes in the area. He was told that people stop riding “for the winter” . HUH?! It’s perfect riding weather here right now. They need to live where WE do. Pussies.

A few housekeeping notes. I was going to remark the other day on how you have to love the ‘mericuns for the way they observe and celebrate all special events - pagan and otherwise. Right now, the vast majority of commercial establishments (hotels, shops, even the little service station in the woods at the end of the Cherohala) are all decorated with sheaves of wheat, pumpkins, scarecrows, potted mums. Very beautiful. You also have to love the CHEAP gas! I think the most we’ve paid is $2.80-something for a couple of tanks of premium gas for mountain riding. The regular gas been been right around $2.30. Which, in a quickie conversion, is between $0.60 and $0.70 per liter. Nice.

What I don’t love about the ‘mericuns is the absence of daytime running lights on their damned cars. Man, there were times in fog and drizzle in the mountains that a car would be almost alongside me before I saw it. Or a car would be running with park (!) lights on. Jeepers. Mark and both have new LED lights on our bikes and there aren’t many around. Ours are two of probably fewer than two dozen FJRs (there ARE other bikes, eg., BMWs) that have them. They’re manufactured in California and I first found out about them at CFR. They’re highly visible so it was very easy to spot each other in our mirrors. Between those, bright double headlights and my 4-way flashers in the particularly soupy stuff, I felt pretty confident about my visibility to oncmoing traffic. It’s my hind end that needs work now - if you get my drift ;-)

Final post coming right up.....

I've turned into a weenie

645 measly kms today. And, although we started out in a 2-degree temperature, we DID hit a balmy high of 8 degrees in Maine! The really good news is: not one drop of precipitation and I actually rode some of the way with my sun visor down. To our credit, after yesterday's 9 hours of misery - consistent drizzle, rain, snow and/or fog - we weren't in a big, fat hurry to get on the road this morning, so we didn't leave Danbury until 1005h.

We had looked at distances and gave ourselves a time budget based on possible poor road AND weather conditions, anticipating we'd make it at least to Portland or Augusta. As it turned out, we made serious tracks - with yours truly in the lead since Mark likes riding the speed limit (not that there's anything - much - wrong with that!). We reached Newport (just south of Bangor) in a little over 6.5 hours and about 600 kms. Compared to the 602 kms yesterday (VERY well done, actually, considerng the conditions) in some 9 hours. We had dinner in Newport and discussed the feasibility of staying in Bangor versus riding the remaining 150 miles in pitch black with nothing - and I mean NOTHING - but deer and moose to keep us company. There's not even traffic north of Bangor! The POS Zumo WAS successful in getting us to the Econo Lodge in Bangor where we got the last 2 rooms. Gentleman that he is, Mark took the room with 2 beds that cost 10 bucks more ;-) And as I write this, I'm thinking I may put on my bathing suit - that made the trip to NC but didn't see the light of day - and go for a dip. Hmmmm.....

The ride today. Well, there was ONE photo and you're looking at it - taken at our first GPCB (gas pee coffee break) north of Hartford. No photos yesterday, for obvious reasons. Although the scenery yesterday would have been stunning - the foliage colours on the hillsides along the highway reduced to many shades of ochre mixed in with the evergreens As we rode along 81 N, we could look to our right and see the mountain range that we'd ridden days before. Even the frosting of snow on the trees was lovely - kind of.....

The fall foliage in CT and farther north is past its peak and the trees are losing leaves now. Coming toward Bangor after dinner the sky was gorgeous. It actually reminded me of the sky the night Jim and I rode into Sault Ste Marie from Wawa - our 1205km day. I was awestruck then by the colours and cloud shapes. I knew that neither (my) camera nor words would have done it justice. Same as tonight. The sky was all shades of lavender, lilac and blue - with some pink and coral tossed in. All of this was in stark contrast to the greens, browns, yellows and oranges of the foliage - and the red tail lights of the traffic ahead of us. Who made the "rules" about what colours go together? We just have to look to Mother Nature to see what "goes together". That, by the way, is the same rationale I use for my own garden and ITS organization - or lack thereof ;-)

As usual, I think of LOTS of blog material while riding but when it comes to actually talking about it....well, I guess I get blogger's block.

ps - I didn't make it to the pool.

Well, I. got my boiled peanuts.....

....but you'll have to wait to find out about them. I wrote my usual long post on Sunday evening when we got back to Nancy's, intending to 'copy and paste' it into the Blog on Monday when I made my jaunt to the Rosboro Library. No dice. I have a 'trial version' of MS Word on this wee 'puter and, apparently, I've used up all my "trysies". Consequently, I couldn't access any of the functions I HAD been accessing - up until Sunday that is. Because of my sketchy internet access, I'd been writing my blog in MS Word, instead of Notepad. So, I couldn't 'copy and paste' nor could I save it to a memory card and transfer it into the blog. So... very soon after I get home, I'll transcribe it from THIS computer onto my laptop at home. Thanks for being patient. In the MEANtime, I'll bring you up to date.

Monday and Tuesday, we kicked back at Nancy's. Monday morning, Nancy and Mark had to make a run to the hardware store for more painting supplies (Nancy had started a painting project - living room and hall walls - that Mark kindly finished that for her - NICE guy that he is!) and we dropped Mark's bike off at the Suzuki joint for an oil change. They dropped me at the library - to post my blog (aargh!) and they ran their errands, picking me up when they were finished. We had lunch at the Cook Out, which is takeout only and has, allegedly, The Best Shakes. There were at least 500 shake flavours from which to choose ;-) I kept it simple and had the Hersey Chocolate; Nancy had Blueberry Cheesecake and Mark had Banana three Berry. We each had a hotdog - my first, and only, one this year. Nancy had cheese on hers; Mark and I had chili, which was good 'cause it masked the flavour of the hotdog! And we ate in the truck in the parking lot. Fun! You'll recall I mentioned that area as having a lot of churches? Our milkshake cups had "Psalms 118:65" printed on them. The takeout paper bags had Galations-something on them and a different Psalms verse. Good grief! OK - I have to add here, the lengths that Mark will go in order to buy lunch for his girls. Nancy was driving her Ford F150, I was in the middle (the booster seat) and Mark was in the regular passenger seat. Here's the scenario - appropriately embellished for story-telling value. He stretched his taut, muscular frame across me, across Nancy - his biceps rippling as he reached toward the clerk to hand her his $50 bill. And he HELD that position for the longest time - stretched across Nancy and me - to get his change. He must have been afraid that Nancy and I would split it ;-) And 'no', we didn't look up those Bible passages as soon as we got home. I geared up and rode back to the Libray for a couple of hours - in the rain and spent a couple of hours there. The pain of addiction....

We had dinner that night at the Golden Corral. I've told you how much Mark "appreciates" his buffet. He'd told me about the Golden Corral LONG before we got down here. It IS impressive but I'm not a buffet fan.

Tuesday was a perfect day. Sunny and 77 degrees! We drove into Durham and: went for a little walk through the Sarah Duke Memorial Gardens, then onto Duke University campus and a tour of Duke Chapel; went to Triangle Cycles (Yamaha et al) to shop for a bike for Nancy and a helmet for me; we got a spare MC key cut for me (remember, I bent mine); had lunch at the Streets of Southpoint Mall (VERY nice mall; too bad I'm not a shopper); and Nancy finished the afternoon by taking us through Chapel Hill and seeing UNC where she works. When we got home, I raced off to the Library for half an hour - before the cranky librarians turned out the lights on me, early (ie, before the 1800h closing time). Stopped at the Food Lion on the way home to pick up the ingredients for Nancy's apple tart - 'in kind' remuneration for Mark's painting services.

Wednesday was D (departure) Day. Grey, overcast and around 11 degrees when we left Nancy's at 1030h. Nancy's friend & neighbour, Sonia, stopped by on her way home from work (she's an oncology nurse) with bagels for breakfast. She and Nancy led us out to the highway - which was very helpful as there must be 47 roads in and out of the quasi-rural community of Timberlake. What a confusing place to drive around! Today was such a miserable ride, I can scarcely remember yesterday's. Suffice to say, the temperature dropped to 5 degrees and we were wet so we stopped earlier than we wanted - after 502 kms - at the Econo Lodge in Winchester - same place we stayed on the way down last week. Same chap, Mark, was on the registration desk. He's a pleasant guy and was very appreciative of our return visit. The weather forecast for today was less than stellar for a nice ride day so we set out at 0750h, which at least let us beat the rain that was impending in Windchester......

Which brings up to today. Damn. What a freaking miserable day, starting with my less than 2 hours of sleep last night. When we left Winchester, the temperature was 5 degrees. At 200km and 2 hours on the road, we stopped at a 'travel plaza' for gas. Mark had breakfast and I had coffee and a bowl of soup. The first hassle of the day was the requirement for a bloody postal code when using a credit card at the gas pumps. And it wouldn't accept 90210 ;-) (hey! the NYC subway system did when I got a subway pass). It had rained or drizzled the whole time, so by this time we were pretty well soaked. My gear was holding up quite well except my feet were chilly and my neck scarf was damp. Mark's gloves were goners. I took my boots off during our break and was ok for awhile once we got back on the road.

When we went back out, the temperature had dropped to 4 degrees. According to the weather forecast, the snow-rain showers forecast for Scranton - our turnoff point to head east - had changed to light rain. Not so. We went about 30 km when the temp dropped to 3, 2, 1 .... zero and we had hit snow. What a drag. We slowed down and just as I was wondering if the Feej's thermometer registers negative values, I got the answer to my question. It does. Minus 1. To borrow John Bliss's term, I'm a bit of a 'nothenarian' in the religious department so I wasn't all that optimistic that my brief prayer to keep us 'tards safe was going to work. But, here we are, holed up in Danbury, Connecticut, telling you about it.

I think we went only about 130 km before the next break. And we thought we were soaked before! We spent quite a bit of time at the Rest Area. I wouldn't take my helmet off since I didn't want to rearrange my neck gear. I took my jacket off - it was laden with water; the wind/waterproof layer is inside so the outside gets soaked. Same with the pants. I took my boots off and held them under the hand-blowdryer to warm them up! (I did that at least 2 more times before we pulled off the road for the day). And every time I took my gloves off, I had to be really careful to have my hands dry before I put them back inside the gloves. Kind of hard to do since my jacket and cuffs were so wet. Struggling into the gloves and getting them tucked inside the sleeve and the sleeve cinched was a sight it inself. Because I have heated grips on my bike, I was thinking that my gloves were staying dry because my hands weren't cold. But at the last couple of stops when I had to take my gloves off, my fingers were WHITE and puckered - and feeling pretty tender. So not so dry after all, but not cold - until the very end.

Our gas stop in New Jersey was a little prolonged as we ministered to our wet and cold gear and body parts. I had to laugh when I 'clumped' out of the washroom after heating my boots under the hand blower and my gear was so wet. There was a young lad (20s I'd guess) at the cash; he watched me moving toward him and this big grin came over his face as he gave me a 'thumb up'. I chuckled and assured him this was NOT a fun ride :-). I say 'clumped' because I felt as though I was walking like Frankenstein. Or Ralphie in A Christmas Story - when he got dressed in his snowsuit and couldn't move his arms. I was wearing: my hundred-day shirt, my CFR (rally) shirt, a lightweight cotton sweater, a long-sleeved t-shirt and the fleece liner to my suit. Bottoms: Janet G's bicycle shorts (the padding really helped; recall the little problem I had with my saddle coming home from CfR!) and my jeans under my riding pants! And big wool socks in my boots. Note to self: "get a freaking heated vest!"!

Our objective was to get to Hartford, which is an hour from here. Couldn't do it. It had started to snow again and this time I couldn't keep it off my helmet shield. Previously, slush would build up on my windshield and every once in awhile, a piece of it would slide off and smack into my shield on the way by. But after our last stop, the snow kept building up on my helmet shield and the shield kept fogging up so I had to keep cracking it open which let in lots of cold air and snow/sleet. Wiping the snow every 30-45 seconds kept my hand off the grip and then I found out how wet and cold my hand was. LONG story short.... the temperature was back down to zero and 1 (the highest it had gotten was 2), and by the time we decided on the Super 8 motel in Danbury, my left hand was hardly working and the traffic was 'stop and go' - like first gear, creep along - in the cold and snow and with my left (clutch) hand barely working. I was in pretty pitiful shape. All that said, our ETA at home has been delayed to Saturday afternoon versus Friday evening.

for those of you who know me and may even love me ;-), a bit of a postscript about our rooms at the Super 8. At the visitors Center 4 kms back on the highway, I picked up one of those Tourist Coupon Books and Danbury-area hotels were on the first page. The Super 8 rate was $59.95 and it included wireless internet. Great! There were hardly any cars in the yard when we got here - no thanks to that POS Zumo which had us turn left when we should have turned right - yet the ESL (english second language) lad at the registration desk SEEMED to be telling me that "all those special-rate rooms were gone". I say "seemed" because I couldn't really make out what, exactly, he was saying between HIS language, MY earplugs and the sound of the waterfall coming off my gear. Now, you know I was not going to buy this. I hadn't noticed any such limitations on the coupon so I just stood there - looking at him - as I gathered my wits in anticipation of possibly needing to 'have a word' with him. Mark, the peacekeeper, was still outside so it was just "me and buddy" in the standoff . Luckily, he caved before I could open my mouth and we got the $59.95 rate, just as Mark came through the door.

So.... stay tuned for the last ride post that I'll transcribe maybe Sunday, when I get home from work (yup, I picked up a shift while I was away). And I'll also post the Smugmug gallery url when I get it set up.

Cheers for now!

I'm getting kind of tired .....

…. of breathtaking scenery and ridin’ the twisties. NOT!!!! Good grief! Is there no end to this craziness?! Quick post for today – Saturday. It’s after midnight now and Mark’s declared tomorrow an an early start. I, however, am not leaving Cherokee without scoring some boiled peanuts...

Our starts are getting later and later. It was a few minutes after 10 when we rolled out of the Princess parking lot this morning. We headed west and south for the Cherohala Skyway. Another fabulous route through the Appalachian Mountains – allegedly VERY beautiful (according to my ‘wing-riding friend from the Princess last night) but, for the most part, I had only his word for it ‘cause it was so stinking foggy! Or drizzly. Very damp anyway. There was no breakfast for our $50 at the Princess so we hit the road for Tellico Plains where we would have lunch and get onto the Cherohala Skyway. After, of course, some shopping at the Cherohala Skyway Visitor Centre where I got Dragon t-shirt (they were more tasteful than the ones at Deal’s Gap).

I’ve already mentioned the Cherohala. From the Cherohala, we went back up route 129 back to Deal’s Gap to ride route 28 South aka “Bucksaw” . I THINK that’s what my ‘wing/Princess friend called it. Every bit as nice as the Dragon – as were a couple of little routes we did. The thing is, the Dragon gets all the hype – perhaps because it’s “318 curves in 11 miles” but it’s technically no more challenging than a few roads we’ve been on. Route 28 , I’ve also mentioned – twisty route through forest and along a river. Well worth the ride if you’re in the area. A word about Deal’s Gap. There was LOTS of activity there today compared to after 5:30 or 6pm when we were there on Friday. While Mark shopped some more, I struck up conversation with some Harley doods (you’ll notice, I don’t call them Hardlys now after meeting all those nice HD guys on the BC ferries; they’re ok guys – just have poor taste in their choice of rides). These guys were neat: 2 were brothers – one had been riding for years and was on a Sportster he’d won in a golf tournament for getting a hole-in-one; his brother, a divorce attorney making a LOT of doh-ray-me, had very little experience and was quite nervous about the Dragon. I, a rider with relatively little experience (except I’ve put on a little over 21 000 kilometers so far this year!), gave him some pointers and assured him he’d be fine ;-). The third guy started riding only after he retired. The point of my story is…. when the lawyer found out I’m from Canada, he ripped open his jacket and said “check this out!” He was wearing a Tragically Hip t-shirt and was pleased as punch to be showing it off to a couple of Canucks. He said he was taking his 9-year old son to a Hip concert in Syracuse and his wife “is pissed about it” – grinning all the time he was telling us about it. In the meantime, Nancy had joined us and they talked about Hip and Great Big Sea concerts. “Bill” (we exchanged names for Facebook) handed his brother his cell phone and insisted he get a photo of us – his new Hip buddies – for his Facebook page. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’m not particularly a Hip fan ;-)

Fast forward because it’s 0045h ! We made it to Cherokee around 5:45 and attempted to cross Smoky Mountains National Park to Gatlinburg TN but …. there was a LOT of cage traffic, it got foggy and cool at the peak AND my bike was ‘chugging’ again on the climb up the mountain. Mark and I have been refueling at the same time and getting the same gas so I don’t know what the problem is. The ride was somewhat of a “been there, done that” so we turned back to Cherokee to find a room for the night. Regarding the boiled peanuts, Nancy told me I HAVE to try the boiled peanuts which are a specialty of this particular area. So, although Mark has declared an early start, we can’t go before Buddy gets his cauldron fired up. Hwy 441 enroute to the Smokey Mountains is a real ‘tourist strip’ with motel, craft and souvenir shops, restaurants and general kitsch. We had passed Buddy and his peanuts cauldron on this road. It’s also the access to the Blue Ridge Parkway - WHICH we’re riding AGAIN tomorrow on our way to Boone and then back to Nancy’s in Timberlake. Ho-hum. Er… I mean… yahoo!

Dragon Day! 443 kms

We got kind of a late start Friday from Lenoir. The sky was dark and threatening but there were slivers of light in the west – our destination. We left our rooms and headed for the lobby for our ‘continental breakfast’. JUST sat down and it started to POUR! Thankfully, it was shortlived and we were on the road a few minutes after 9. Our route was Hwy 64 – very picturesque until we hit Lake Lure, where “Dirty Dancing” was filmed and the scenery became unparalleled. I’ve said it before… it’s my story and I’m sticking to it. EVERY locale has its own unique beauty. Hell, even New Brunswick is wonderfully scenic if all you’re used to is mountains or ocean or interstate. Lake Lure is surrounded by mountains, there’s a lake and a lovely little beach with a boardwalk right in the town, and there’s the equivalent of maybe two city blocks of quaint little shops. Add a big spa hotel, romantic little cottages along the river or stream (not sure which!) and some B&Bs – and it’s definitely a place I could revisit.

It’s just past Lake Lure where we missed the turnoff that would have kept us on highway 64. Rather, we ended up on a short distance of wonderful twisties. Behind a big, freaking tour bus with Alaska plates! Damn. But that’s ok. We were, after all, headed for the Tail of the Dragon with its 318 curves in 11 miles. Plus, we rode another section of the Blue Ridge Parkway during our quest for the Dragon.

There were many pit stops Friday and they all involved checking the map and the Zumo and adjusting our route . Here’s an FYI (for your information) regarding the route to Deal’s Gap (which you likely won’t find on your GPS) …. find “Robbinsville” on your map and take EITHER route 28 (from 74 directly to Deal’s Gap ) or 129 North from Robbinsville. Route 28 is another twisty road through woods and part of it along a river. The Fontana Dam is on this route.

I’m writing this on Saturday night and I’m writing rather frantically. I had no internet connection last night at the Princess Motel in Maryville, Tennessee, and tonight – in Cherokee, NC – I have no internet connection in my room. Which means writing this in Word and going to the lobby to post it. But, again, I digress….
The rain yesterday morning stopped as suddenly as it started and it didn’t rain again. The temperature went from 16 to 26 (and back down to around 13 when we hit the peak of the Parkway in cold fog). It was a perfect day and, between the jigs and the reels, we finally arrived at Deal’s Gap around 5:30 or something to 6. We (I) got psyched, got something to drink, took some photos, Mark and I picked up some Dragon paraphernalia (most notably, a pin for my Yamaha ball cap which also sports ‘BC’ and ‘Katahdin’ pins) and we geared up. I was a little concerned as I hadn’t had much sleep the night before and I wanted to be on top of my game.
The road leading up to Deal’s Gap had its own twisties (switchbacks) and I did ok o those but I figured the Dragon was going to be 11 miles of the same. Not so. I was careful to choose my line and keep it for each curve and kept my speed down – to speed limit; sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. The key was to keep my speed adjusted so I didn’t have to brake a lot. Apparently, the Tail of the Dragon has a healthy representation of LEOs (law enforcement officers) but the only one WE saw during our run after 6pm was the one – along with the 2 ambulances – who respon ded to the crash that we came across about a half mile into the ride. Some kind of sport bike – the bike was lying on the side of the road, there were a couple of vehicles parked and people were peering over the embankment. I didn’t look too closely – kept my eyes on the road and, seeing people already there, I kept on going. Oddly, as I write this, I wonder now if I should have stopped since Nancy and I are both nurses. Hmmmm…. As a postscript to this particular story, we were back at Deal’s Gap this afternoon and I inquired about this accident. Apparently, a car – travelling the same direction as the MC, was veering left to pull over (to let the MC pass?) and the MC, attempting to pass the car, collided with it. Both at fault. The MCist was airlifted out and we don’t know the extent of the injuries. For some reason, the motel where we landed for the night had newspaper clippings about each death that occurred on the Dragon this year. Five of them to date – the last guy being a chap from Lenoir where we’d spent Thursday night.

We came off the Dragon at dusk along a gorgeous river or lake (I’ll have to check a map and get a better idea of the geography here) with a heavy mist or fog coming off it. It was spooky and beautiful at the same time. It got dark pretty fast and we had no notion of where we were going to spend the night. It’s a good thing it was dark (and I mean DARK in the country) because at dusk, I felt as though we might have been riding through the set of Deliverance. Trailers with lots of trash and broken down vehicles. Meanwhile, there’s a huge lightening show going on to the northwest of us – we were riding toward it. We finally stopped at a service station where I checked Zumo and Mark consulted with the locals ‘hangin’ out’ (men, women and a small child!) on chairs in the service station yard. He got directions to the Princess Motel which I found in Zumo and also got word of a tornado warning for Monro County – the next county over. Great.

We got to the Princess as directed - $50 taxes in; no internet and, well, the towels were kind of thin. But you can’t beat that price (which sure as hell trumps the $119.69 – cash, all discounts and taxes in – rate we’re paying tonight in Cherokee). Plus, we met some nice MCists from Florida and Maryland (I think). One of the guys had been carrying a Canadian penny around intending to spend it in Niagara but he didn’t get there so he wanted to return the penny to “its rightful owner” . Which, apparently, was me and he actually had to root around in his wallet to find it! My new lucky penny. The gal at the registration desk had told us we could put our bikes up on the ‘verandah’ (I think that’s what she called it; it was the sidewalk) under the eaves, in case of rain. As it turned out, it started to rain within minutes of our parking. We hadn’t originally put our bikes on the sidewalk but we quickly did. And the other guys got the hang of it some time later so that, finally, ALL the bikes were on the sidewalk! Which wasn’t a big deal since there weren’t a lot of other patrons there last night. The tornado, by the way, didn’t materialize nor did the rain that was forecast for today. We did hit a drizzle or heavy fog on the Cherohala Skyway but no rain. A final note about the Princess. The photo today ? I think I mentioned ‘bible belt’ one time this week. The bible on the table in Room 19 – MY room, which I chose because my birthday is January 19th - was open to Psalms 41-45.

To finish up Friday’s post….once again, I was overwhelmed on Friday by my good fortune to be healthy and fit, and to have the opportunity to see parts of the world that are, in my not-so-humble opinion, best seen from a motorcycle. As I ride these amazing mountain highways, I can’t imagine travelling the same routes in a car. There’s absolutely no feeling quite like rolling through the curves, looking out over miles of mountain ranges in all their fall glory, feeling the cool mountain air rushing in around my helmet visor , and riding through mountain tunnels and beneath canopies of foliage. It’s like watching a 3-D movie except better because I’m actually IN It. And experiencing all the senses that are missing from a movie. As I type this, it’s more obvious that my hands are a bit stiff from the grips; and the blisters on my throttle hand have turned to calluses. My hair’s a mess most of the time from my helmet especially since I’m growing my hair out (which is why I prefer my very short haircuts! But that’s why I keep my ball cap in my tankbag). And it’s hard to actually do ‘touristy’ things lugging a helmet and tankbag, and wearing MC clothes. But the bike gives a rush that just canNOT be had on four wheels.

Time to tell you about today’s ride…..(with my apology for any and all typographical errors you may have found within. It’s late and I’m tired of this ‘no internet’ business!)

Short ride today! 321 kms

Mark loves his buffet! As do most of the patrons in "AJ's". Problem is, they enjoy it TOO much. Good grief - some of them overflow the chairs. And that's all I'll say about that.

We had a late start today. I took a run into the library in Roxboro to make my blog post and Nancy had to go to Roxboro for doggy food. She then had to make arrangements for someone to look in on the dogs and horses. Between the jigs and the reels, we didn't get away until 1230h. Beautiful day - sunny and 22 degrees. Great riding weather. Too bad the scenery was so uninspiring! Hwy 64 all the way to Lenoir - except for the little bit when we zigged when we should have zagged.

I think the community on the way into Lenoir is called Oakhill. That's when the scenery changed to 2-lane highway, lush foliage, beautiful 'estate' properties and finally, a view of mountain ranges.

The weather forecsat is for rain beginning tomorrow evening so we're planning to get to Deal's Gap and the Tail of the Dragon tomorrow afternoon. Mark has ridden "the Dragon" twice already. His plan for me is: he and Nancy will wait in the parking lot while I ride it alone - it's only 11 miles long. And then we'll both / all ride it on our way to Tennessee. I don't know the rationale for me riding it alone once but there you have it!

Oh man, I didn’t realize how addicted I am…

…. to the internet. Until I didn’t have it. Which I don’t right now and am relying on the ‘free internet’ policy at the Roxboro Public Library, about 20 minutes from here. “Here” being Timberlake, Nancy’s home in North Carolina.

Day 3 of this, the 2nd instalment of Mary Ellen’s 2009 Most Excellent Adventure (the first being the CFR ride), consisted of riding Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia enroute to Timberlake, North Carolina. Day 4 was spent ….. relaxing and finding internet access!

Well, good thing Mark “allowed” me to sleep in on Tuesday morning as I didn’t go to sleep Monday until almost 0400h. It was The Blog that kept me up - writing, editing, rewriting – all made more of a nuisance because of this wee ‘puter. And, by way of explanation for no post last night…. Nancy has no internet (I love it! I’ve finally met someone who can live – quite nicely – without internet AND a tv!; well, she has a tv but it’s not digital so … there’s no tv). I’m writing this on Wednesday but it won’t actually be posted until Thursday when we’re back on the road again and in a motel with internet access.

Day 3: OMG! What fun and what a beautiful ride!! The entrance to Skyline Drive wasn’t very far at all from Winchester, where we’d spent the night. And, where, by the way, we spent $54.95 for a room – clean, with a fridge (that kept my Stella cold for packing the next day in the sidecases), AND free wireless internet. As opposed to the joint in Farmington CT that wanted us to buy a timeshare AND charge me $4.95 for internet access. And the EconoLodge’s breakfast at least had cinnamon raisin bagels vs big, fat white ones – and juice for the non-coffee drinking Mark. But I digress….

Back to the story…. of course, I missed the exit that would take us onto Skyline Drive, so we had to go an additional 12 km up the highway in order to double back but the secondary road that Zumo took us on was pretty picturesque. We entered Skyline Drive at “Front Royal” which is the north entrance to Shenandoah National Park; entrance fee $10 for motorcycles ($15 for cars). So, there we were on a perfect, sunny day – on great motorcycles, in Virginia – and I thought “aren’t I incredibly lucky?”. And, I have to tell you, tears welled up – what a feeling. And, I repeat what you read here in June - no matter the conditions (rain, snow, wind, cold) or the mood one is in – a day on 2 wheels is better than a day in a car. Anytime.

Skyline Drive is described as: “…a narrow mountain road with beautiful vistas and wildflowers along the shoulders. Take a leisurely drive and pull off at some of our 75 overlooks to see the views.” Add to this the fact that the fall colours added to the ‘beautiful vistas’ and there was very little (albeit, annoying) cage traffic and you have the makings for a great ride. There were very few cars and until we happened across the first one, it didn’t even occur to me that there WOULD be any at all. Duh! The speed limit on the Skyline is 35 mph – because of the many, many tight little turns and the wildlife. All we saw were squirrels and chipmunks (although there WAS a small deer on the side of the Blue Ridge Parkway), and, like the western gophers I told you about in June, not all the squirrels are so lucky in their road crossings. Back to the speed limit…. 35 mph is SLOW, especially on a bike which can take those turns easily at twice that speed. The first cars we fetched up on were 2 small ones travelling – aargh – the speed limit except when they came to a bit of a downhill grade and/ or a curve when the brake lights would flash and the speed would drop to 25. Dear heavens. There are very few (legal) passing opportunities on the Skyline but I took advantage of the first one and made quick work – as only the Feej (and, ok , a few other bikes) can do. Mark, on the other hand, law abiding and polite, stayed behind so I finally slowed down until he caught up with me. Why cars don’t pull over and let bikes – especially sport bikes – pass them is beyond me. With respect to the curves, Mark and I had a discussion about the nomenclature of biking and what, exactly constitutes a “twisty” or a “windy” as opposed to a “sweeper”. I guess we decided that we were riding twisties on the Skyline and they were such that we got into a kind of hypnotizing rhythm – rocking back and forth – up and down. This went on for a couple of hundred miles between the Skyline and Blue Ridge Parkway and it was actually tiring although it was at speeds generally less than 70 and 80 km/ h. Skyline Drive turns into Blue Ridge Parkway at Rockfish Gap (the southern entrance to the Park) and the scenery changed, in my opinion. The fall foliage seemed more vibrant or perhaps it was a different type of foliage, more conducive to a variety of colour. As well, the curves weren’t so “twisty” as “windy”. I found this ride to be even more beautiful for some reason – although by this time we were both getting a little tired. There was less traffic, it was faster moving and there were a few more bikes. The BRP IS a favorite with bikers and is frequently mentioned on the Forum I monitor as a ‘must do’ ride. I know why.

This ride, unlike CFR which was virtually trouble free, has had a few more ‘glitches’ – the bent key and the stupid tipovers (which have me so demoralized I can barely do a u-turn now without negative self-talk; I’ve lost 10 pounds since CFR and I’m thinking I’d better get them pounded back on.) Yesterday, on the Blue Ridge Parkway, my bike started ‘surging’ – having little bursts of speed with no throttle applied. That went on for a couple of kilometers as we climbed in altitude. Finally, it started losing power so I downshifted, which helped, and as I moved along, I’d shift back into 4th and 5th gear. Nope – the Feej wasn’t liking that. I thought at one point that it was a good thing I had CAA Plus (for motorcycles) since I was going to have to be rescued off that mountain – and what a racket THAT was going to be. I finally crippled her over onto a lookout and talked to Mark. The consensus was “to go as long as I could”. Thankfully, we were as high in altitude as were going to be – 1190 meters – and we started back down – with me in 2nd gear. I thought I might have had a little “altitude sickness” but we decided it may have been a speck of dirt in a fuel injector.
Lunchtime came and went while were on BRP so we consulted Zumo for lunch venues. Because there were very few access/ exit points on the Parkway, we took the first one we came across. As it turned out, we ended up at Wintergreen – a ‘closed community’ that, as it turns out, is a popular ski resort. And while it “looked” like a closed community, I didn’t realize it actually was until Mark told me later that I’d blown right by the sign that said “No Motorcycles” (aarh, aarh). We ended up getting gas and having sandwiches made at the adjoining Market. We wolfed down the sandwiches and saddled up again – before someone could actually escort us out .

The weather yesterday started out sunny but it never did get really warm until we got to NC. Maybe 17 degrees. We hit really thick fog on the parkway for a few kilometers and it drizzled lightly for a short time. But nothing to make costume changes for .

Getting to Timberlake, where Nancy lives (with her 2 beautiful Dobies and 2 Morgan horses on 10 acres) , was a bit of an ordeal and it was darker than a wh***’s heart when we finally arrived. She had given Mark a route but that was out the window when we decided to ride the Parkway down to Roanoke, VA. So we made our own route but what we ended up doing was following Zumo’s route. While I thought the latest upgrades to the Zumo firmware had made it a little more reliable, I found out … not so much. I just can’t figure out its madness – it doesn’t seem to show the shortest route nor is it the quickest route. It wants to take the weirdest twists and turns. At any rate, we finally cried “uncle” and called Nancy to come to the “Handy Andy’s” BP station to fetch us – after we’d driven about 10 km round trip into the bowels of rural NC and, even with directions from a couple of women at a Pentecostal church gathering, couldn’t find the right road. Partly because they gave us a church as a landmark, partly because it was darker than a “wh***’s heart and we couldn’t have seen it anyway and partly because there are a LOT of churches down here in the Bible Belt so having one as a landmark isn’t a particularly huge help ….

Nancy had company when we arrived. All three girls – Nancy, Dawn and Sonia – came in Nancy’s pickup truck to meet us. All 3 are nurses at UNC (University of North Carolina hospital) and Dawn and Sonia both know Mark. First things first when we got landed. Mark had a glass of juice and Dawn poured me a Pepsi, and I actually asked for rum. Uncharacteristic of me but what the hey! I’m on vacation and I’d had a long day. It WAS only 680 kms but they were labour intensive :-)

Nancy’s homemade spaghetti for dinner (yummy!) , a zopiclone which worked like a charm and I had a full 8 hours of sleep last night – first time in AGES. Even IF Nancy had internet, it was unlikely there’d have been a blog posting.

Day 4: Wednesday was sunny and 26 (!) degrees. I got up and padded around in my pj’s and motorcycle boots (yup, REAL cute), mucking with the Dobes (Tara and Alex) in their outdoor run and then going for a little stroll with Mark looking for the horses, Wren and Tea (Tay-a). My sister, Kate, has a horse and I admit to an ignorance about horses – more from disinterest than dislike. Plus, I was allergic to them as a young person so never really developed an appreciation for them – except to concede they’re beautiful and majestic animals. Kate would never believe that the horses and I were actually playing kissy-face but these horses don’t actually ‘smell’ like horses ; they actually have very little odour and they didn’t raise even a sniffle in me.

Toast and green tea for breakfast, a shower and we got ready to go for a ride into the next town, Roxboro. Objectives: Mark was hoping to get an oil change, lunch at Nancy’s favorite restaurant ‘La Cocina’ (authentic Mexican food, Mexican-family owned and operated) and I was going to find an internet connection. It was hot so Mark made major fun of me for wanting to wear my riding pants. Although my philosophy is “ a get-off is a get-off” and I should be wearing ATGATT, I relented and wore jeans. Today , it was a case of MTGATT (most of the gear all the time). No dice on Mark’s oil change (I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t accommodate a traveler for a bloody oil change) but the fajitas were delicious and I found free internet at the Library – once I found the Library with very little help from Zumo. Mark came back to the house and I had told him I wouldn’t be long. Yikes! By the time I had checked email, Facebook and the motorcycle Forum and had a little online chat, I had run out of my free minutes. Plus, I wanted to get back on the road well before dark so I didn’t get my blog post made. I was gone much longer than I had anticipated and when I pulled into the driveway, the look on Mark’s face made me think “oh, oh, now I’ve done it – and it’s gotta be bad to make Mark look like THAT”. Thankfully, he was – or seemed ! – more relieved than angry.
I played with the horses and we took the dogs for a walk. I finally settled down with a drink of rum and the wee ‘puter, while we waited for Nancy to get home from work. Takeout pizza for dinner and Mark & Nancy planned Thursday’s ride. We’re headed west into the mountains to ride the Tail of the Dragon at Deal’s Gap on Friday. For some reason, Mark plans to sit in the parking lot with Nancy while I run the Dragon alone once (I and about 500 other bikers) and then we’ll run it together on our way to Tennessee. That’s Plan A. Stay tuned.

Back by popular demand.....

OK. That may be a bit of stretch. 3 people asked me if I was going "to blog" this trip. I wasn't feeling very 'bloggy' but how could I deny my faithful following?! By way of background... Mark Colwell, friend and senior chief instructor of the NB Safety Council's Motorcycle training, announced months ago that he was doing this ride to North Carolina to visit his very good friend, Nancy, in Chapel Hill. Upon said announcement, I responded "Wow! I'll got with you!". This is normal procedure among bikers. We invite ourselves on rides. Mark's reply was "well and good" or something to that effect. A note about riding with other people and, more specifically, long distance riding with a partner or partners. It's pretty important that people riding together share a similar riding ability and philosophy of LD riding. I couldn't hold a candle to Mark in riding ability. He's been riding much longer and, therefore, has much more experience. For all intents and purposes for this ride,we're compatible in most respects. Except for, maybe... Mark likes to ride the speed limit. I like to ride fast ;-) (although I definitely don't want my insurance rates to rise because of a speeding ticket!). When we hit The Dragon with its 300 curves in 11 miles or whatever it is, true colours may shine then. As far as distance riding goes, Mark knows I can go the distance since I did CFR. Many weeks after I invited myself along on "Marks' Ride", I thought it appropriate to give him an 'out', ie, put the question to him "are you OK with me tagging along?" We had done one of our Wednesday night rides (John sails on Wednesday evenings so it's a good time for me to go out for a ride and Mark is often available) and we were doing our 'Tim Hortons coffee thing'. Since this was, if I recall correctly, fairly fresh on the heels of CFR (I don't THINK it was before CFR), I anticipated it might have been a bit of a hard sell to John. When I got back from CFR, I was pretty well hooked on long-distance riding. When, I asked John how many rides I could do per year, he told me "as many as you can pay for yourself". So...if you hear of me buying camping gear for the bike, don't be surprised. Fast forward, I cleared it with John one Saturday morning on the way to Market. Mark cleared it with his SO, Jenn. And here we are. In Winchester, in the Shanendoah Valley region of Virginia, as I write 2 days' worth of posts to catch up. In fact, until about an hour ago, I was undecided about doing a blog. We stopped early tonight (only 658 km today and we stopped before dark) and because we had a big lunch in Hazelton, Pennsylvania about mid-afternoon, we decided against going out for dinner. Rather, we scrambled across the highway to the convenience store/gas bar, which, like any civilized convenience store/gas bar, sells cold beer and wine. Mark loaded up with snacks. I got a bag of pretzels ('cuz they're less fattening than potato chips!) and a 6-pack of Stella Artois. OK - I'm on my 3rd Stella now so here we go .....

Day ONE: Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey....what a day. To summarize: 970 km ridden over 4 state boundaries (Maine, NH, Massachusetts and Connecticut), waterproof gear that got me wet, a great visit with a CFR buddy, my ignition key is bent to the point I can't use it so I'm using my spare key now, we paid 5 tolls - a second time on the Mass Pike since we anjoyed our first ride on it so much, NOT!, my hands were blistered from the wet gloves - and I had 2 tipovers.

Mark and I left his place - around the corner from me - at 0745h yesterday in the pouring rain. Within 5 km, my left Harley Davidson Gore-tex glove (remember those from CFR?!) was wet. Not only that, my left sleeve at the elbow was wet! And that has never happened with my BMW suit. By the time the rain stopped after 50 odd kilometers, my right hand was wet, too. We stopped in Woodstock at the EMT station to say 'good-bye' to Jenn who was on duty. I had already considered asking the Border crossing guy for a pair of those Barney-style purple gloves or the blue ones - the nonsterile, synthetic gloves we use in the hospital for when we touch people (tongue-in-cheek); I was going to put them over my leather gloves. I KNOW the border guards must have them for when THEY touch people! But then we stopped at the EMT place = even better. Jenn rigged me up with several pair so I was able to continue on with dry hands - and a wet sleeve. I should add that I had an 'incident' here that, as it turned out, was a bad omen of things to come. When I pulled up beside Mark, I stopped TOO close to his bike so that when he put his bike on the sidestand my bike was touching his (he pointed out the little, wee scuff I put in his sidecase) and was pushing my bike over to left. He was off his bike and hanging onto both bikes as, by this time, I was pushing his bike to the right. At least I think that's how the scenario went. Long story short, I almost lost my bike several times until I got it moved forward, out of the way. Remember this for later....

The foliage, by the way, was spectacular. Although it seems we're a little early to be at peak colour in NB, I can't imagine how it could be any better. And that was in the dull, grey, rainy light. Same in Maine. Riding through Maine, I just couldn't get comfortable. My arm was damp and, therefore, kind of cold. My lower back was hurting since I needed the first long day to get those muscles whipped into submission. The temperature hadn't risen much so I was just barely comfortable and, although the rain had let up, the drizzle continued on and off until well past Bangor.

Charlie McPhail, aka "Charlie Hoss" on the FJR Forum that I follow, lives in Turner just south of Augusta. I first met Charlie at CFR Cape Breton last September and we have stayed in touch. We had arranged to get together on this trip to have lunch and/or ride a little together. As agreed, I called Charlie from Augusta and we planned to meet at Central Maine Powersports in Lewiston. When Mark and I arrived, there was Charlie in the parking lot flagging us down. We - or at least I - roared in and came to a quick stop in front of Charlie - excited to see him - grabbed a handful of front brake (in combo with rear brake) and on just a WEE bit of a grade and my front tire at an angle..... down goes the Feej on her left side. My first leftsided drop. But her second drop in 2 days since John had backed into the driveway on Saturday, hit my bike and knocked it over on its right side. Charlie lifted it up, with not much help from me. And then I introduced myself to Arlene - after I gave Charlie a big hug "hello". Or perhaps I gave him the big hug before he picked up my bike. At any rate, it was great to see Charlie again and to meet Arlene. Off we went to Tim Hortons for lunch and the service was even worse than the service at the By-pass Tims where Janet, George, John and I go on Sundays for our weekly bicycle-ride-coffee break.

Mark's friend, Nancy, is from Fredericton but has lived in North Carolina for many years now. She has made the trip back and forth a number of times and gave Mark directions for the route that she uses. Mark gave me the route but I didn't input it into my GPS since it didn't make sense to me and I couldn't find my map that had New England on it so I couldn't compare the directions to a map. Plus, I didn't really trust my GPS anyway. Mark said he had a map for all the states we were going to hit - and I had put out my map for Southeastern US - so I thought we'd be ok. As it turned out, he thought I'd input the route into my GPS, I forgot SOMEhow to pack my single map and he didn't bring ANY of HIS maps.

By the time we hit Massachusetts, the sun had come out and the temperature had risen sufficiently that we could shed a layer of clothing. Onward we motored, following the prescribed route until we hit the Mass Pike. We got our ticket to enter the Pike. Mark was in the lead and stopped on the median asking "west" or "east" ? Our directions said "turn east on 90" and THIS was the part that hadn't made sense to me. I knew, knew, KNEW we should have gone west toward Springfield but we followed the 'east' instruction. I was in the lead now and the further we went, the more concerned I became. I pulled over, we talked about it and decided we'd go off at the next exit and make our way back. Turn on the bike, put it in gear, twist the throttle to move - stall. Again. And again. And again. What the hell?! It appeared to have been a vapour lock since the bike finally worked and it hasn't happened again. I think that by this time I was using my spare key as my original key was so bent I could no longer use IT. So, by now I had a failed key, a tipover and now my bike was stalling. Long story short, we got turned around and back on track -with the help of my ZUMO gps (remember the trouble I'd had with the ZUMO on the CFR trip?) and a tow-truck driver from whom we got additional directions.

Fast forward, we continued on through Connecticut to Farmington as we wanted to get past Hartford so we wouldn't be facing Monday morning traffic. It was dark and late by the time we found a hotel - again with ZUMO's help. The kid on the counter had NO authority to do any better on the $95 quoted rate. Which was too bad for him since I'd laid quite a beating on him. It was late, it had been a long day (970 km) and we were tired. I wanted an internet connection and when he said "yes, we have it - it's $4.95" I blew and said "that's it, I'm outta here - we're going somewhere else" (WHERE, I had no idea!). At that point, poor little "Prince" manned up and agreed to comp me the internet ;-). Mark and I dithered over dinner but decided finally to grab a pizza and agreed that we'd go directly from the lobby since if we stopped to unpack the bikes, we wouldn't want to go out. Mark got the directions to the pizza joint from Prince = "turn left", so away we go. We turned left and went through the intersection which, as it turned out, took us arouand a tight little turn (which was kind of fun considering we'd ridden hundreds of kms on the STRAIGHT interstate) and back onto the interstate! (As it turned out, we should have made 2 left turns but we found that out much too late) Mark zoomed by me - like he'd sat bare-a**ed on a hot barbecue and, instead of turning back into Farmington entrance, shot by IT and up the interstate to the next exit which took us into the next town. We pulled over to the side of the road (I'm laughing as I write this but .... not so much laughing last night at sometime around, I dunno, 13+ hours on the road?) and Mark hauled out the pizza joint flyer for the address. We found it in the Zumo and off we went. At the next intersection, I was in the lead and stopped at the red light. I .... started to lose the Feej; caught her but away she went,... freaking....down.... AGAIN! I forgot to point out the damage from the first drop. Thankfully, it was very minimal. The mirror folded up and got badly scuffed but not broken and there was a little scuff on the side case. When she fell the second time, it was dark so I couldn't see and I didn't look this morning. It doesn't matter so what the hell. Mark picked up the bike - with very little help from me. He got back on his bike, the light changed, he pulled around me and took off. I couldn't get my bike started. I checked everything... I had lights, the sidestand was up, but the engine wouldn't turn over. After a minute or so of this, I finally realized the kill switch had been killed. Mark had turned it off - per tipover / pickup protocal. I got the bike going and caught up to Mark who was pulled off hoping like hell I hadn't dropped it again. ZUMO got us to the pizza joint and by the time I got there, I had VERY little appetite left. We got a small pizza, wolfed down a few pieces and did a some circles getting back to the hotel. Neither of us slept really well and breakfast this morning consisted of bagels and coffee. Blah. Mark doesn't drink coffee and there wasn't even any juice. So, we geared up and rode about 50 km to Southbury. a very beautiful little town, where we had breakfast at a Friendlys and met the most delightful ladies.....

Day TWO: Sunny, 13 degrees when we started out, 658i km over 4 more state boundaries (NY, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia) and no tipovers! We went into Friendlys this morning and were seated in a booth behind 2 distinguished looking women who, as it turned out were 80 and 81 and barely looked to be out of their 60s. Before I sat down, as I was getting out of my gear, I asked them what town we were in and in the same breath, commented on how beautiful it was. We talked about being on the MCs from Canada and within minutes had a great conversation going. Very early in the conversation I said "crap" about something and Alberta flinched. At the word 'crap'! A little later she mentioned that her husband had died 5 months ago but "that was ok" (!?) - he had turned into a real jerk apparently in his final years when he'd become, in Alberta's words "high maintenance....non-compliant diabetic". Now Alberta, who had flinched at the word 'crap' asked me if I knew a bad word that starts with 'p' that men are called? I assured her that I know lots of bad words ;-) and that 'yes' I knew of such a 'p word' but surely she didn't want me to say it aloud?! No, she didn't (I'm laughing again). Alberta was absolutely delightful and within minutes of our starting to chat, she had reached over the booth to pull my face to her so she could kiss me. She actually did this a few times. Alberta, at age 81, is my feature photo today :-)

Our route today was very easy. Highway 84 West all the way through Connecticut through NY to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where we picked up 81 South. 84 is a beautiful highway. Too bad about the traffic and smell of exhaust. I'll post a few pictures tomorrow as it's too late to mess with those now. It's 0200h now and we want an early start tomorrow. Mark "let me sleep" this morning - which was generous of him since, apparently, he didn't sleep last night. He DID, however, keep an attentive eye on the bikes from his hotel window. And he watched a lot of tv. As it turned out, we left the hotel parking lot at 0900h on the dot.

We hit a bad stretch of construction in Pennsylvania. It was only a few miles but it took about 40 minutes to traverse. Thankfully, it was 17 degrees and not 27 degrees as we were in full ATGATT ("all the gear all the time") so neither we nor our bikes over heated. Very beautiful with foliage in colour but I'm not sure at what stage. Virginia and W Virginia roads are fabulous but absolutely plugged with transport trucks . They're tiring as they create huge turbulence and toss me around. The Feej makes quick work of them (ie, easy to pass) but there are so darned MANY of them, the cumulative effect is .... tiring.

Tomorrow's plan is to deviate from Nancy's route a little bit so we can ride Skyline Drive which hooks up the Blue Ridge Parkway - all through mountains of the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia. The Blue Ridge Parkway will take us into North Carolina. Giddy up!

Day 22 (925 km) - Home again, home again, jiggity jig

And how sweet it is.

Mary Ellen's Excellent Adventure has come to an end. And what an adventure it was. 13,241.6 km on the trip odometer and 22 days (I rode all of them except one which was the Spa Day). Been there - to Tofino and dipped my motorcycle-boot clad feet in the Pacific Ocean; done that - the Canadian FJR Owners Rally where I met up with old friends and met some of my 'internet friends' (and they aren't the 3-eyed monsters or convicts I'd been warned about *wink* ) - and got the t-shirt !!

The ride from Manotick was fast and, if you don't count the 2 monsoons we rode through in Maine, uneventful. I drank LOTS of water after Thursday's fiasco and we stopped every couple of hours for a stretch. Jan bagged up some ginger cookies for us so we munched those, had a coffee at our first break just past Montreal and drank water. We opted to pass on having lunch in favour of getting home a little earlier. Speaking of Montreal, I was going to make this last post short and sweet but I HAVE to tell you about one guy we passed on a cruiser (make and model shall remain nameless). Picture an obese pregnant woman, near term (and I'm not slamming pregnant women) with her t-shirt pulled up to expose her belly. THAT's the way Buddy was cruising along. OMG! I can't tell you what else he was wearing (other than a shorty brain bucket) because I couldn't take my eyes off his belly. It was like watching a train wreck.

The monsoons...Man, we found out what kind of water a thunderstorm can produce. Once we got almost through Quebec and were closing in on the US border at Woburn, the sky was crazy. Dark clouds in one part, blue sky with a huge white cumulus cloud with sun shining through it in another part. There's a long stretch of road right after La Patrie (I think that's the place). You head down one side of the road, into a valley and up the other side. Totally dry from our side and you could see the wet pavement a couple of kilometers away up the other side. It HAD rained, but had stopped by the time we got to that stretch. Little further on, sprinkle. We stopped to add our rain layer and sure enough, within a couple of kilometers, it started to pour. But we didn't hit the first monsoon until after Sugarloaf. There was NOwhere to pull over out of it so we carried on - at a much reduced speed and I turned on my 4-flashers. I ride with my high beams on anyway on 2-lane highways. Since we were going to get soaked, we continued to put on some miles. Once out of the heaviest rain we've seen in a LONG time (and certainly not on this trip), the road was dry and we rode by people mowing their lawns. Same scenario with the second heavy rain. We could actually feel individual raindrops through our riding gear, that's how heavy it was. My gloves soaked right away but I think the rain went down into my cuff again. The temp dropped about 5 degrees but went right back up once we were out of the rain.

At Lincoln, ME, I called John to say we'd be home in a couple of hours. When I arrived, there were John and my sister, Kate, with her camera ready and she shot off a LOT of photos! clicky here if you'd like to see them. It was wonderful! Kate says I'm her new hero; she needs to set her hero-bar a little higher. Yes, I buried my face in stinky Gracy's neck and cried - it was a quick cry and involuntary. It was all too overwhelming. Our good friend, George, just happened to be walking by and John called more good friends, Suzanne & Wayne, who live minutes away. We all stood in the driveway, chatting excitedly and toasting my safe return with sparkling wine while the 'skeeters gnawed on us. Our collective exuberance spilled into the public domain when they hauled a young lad off the sidewalk to tell him of my adventure ;-)

My closing notes:

* first, I have to thank everyone who emailed me/us and posted comments on the blog. I was going to name people in order of appearance but you know who you are. It was so fun to have you along! You'll never know how much I eagerly anticipated and enjoyed reading those notes every day. Jim did, as well. Thanks to Jim for giving me the confidence and courage to make this journey by agreeing to go with me. I was on my own from Calgary to the Pacific Ocean - about 1400 km - but that was ....a good thing, and I'm very glad to have had that opportunity. And when expressing appreciation, I can't overlook the superb on-the-road hospitality doled out by Jan & Dave in Manotick (going and coming!); Mary, Tom & Ellen in Calgary; and Melanie, Peter, Emma, Lauren & wee Malcolm in Golden. I especially thank John. I have a sense that not many husbands would have gone down without at least an argument over this scheme. His support was quiet (see About Me'' in the sidebar) but I did have it. I got more chat out of him in his 3 weeks of emails than I normally get in 3 months so that alone was worth the trip :-) I also suspect I may pay for this later on - like in February when he might take 2 weeks to play golf and I'll be shovelling snow ....

* I found out what I, my bike and my gear are capable of. And I'm 100% satisfied with the results. My bike is actually capable of much more than I demand of it but I'm old and slow and I "ride my own ride". No apologies. I know what a scalloped tire feels like and how many miles I can go with a plugged tire - at least if escapefjrtist, George, is the plugger (mine got me home from BC). The need for a custom saddle has become painfully obvious. That's a winter project.

* I learned firsthand the (potentially catastrophic) effects of dehydration and extreme heat. On hwy 17 to Wawa, there's a billboard that reads, simply: Daze, Doze, Dead. Two of those applied to me on Thursday. I figure I'm able to make this final post because I'm extremely lucky or I'm living with the grace of God. Or both. In Nakusp, Barb gave me a Motorcyle Angel pin that I wear on my jacket collar; that may have made a small contribution as well. I cannot overstate how incredibly stupid I was to ride in that condition and I'm embarrassed to admit it. (I feel like an alcoholic at a meeting: "Hi, I'm Mary Ellen and I'm a dumb ass"). It was a cardinal error and I trust I've learned a valuable lesson. I still shudder to think of it.

* Jim and I rode on all kinds of roads - from super highways to 2-lane country roads, in ALL states of repair and disrepair; around mega-cities (2 of those with construction projects going on) and through the tiniest of towns and villages, and everything in between. In BC, we rode on, from a motorcyclist's perspective, what are quite possibly the most beautiful and technically demanding roads on the continent. And, over the prairies, we rode on the most boring ones. Through all weather conditions: hot and sunny, cold and wet, even snow for a few kilometers - and everything in between. We saw lots of sights - not everything I set out to see (and some I did NOT expect to see, for example, Long Beach!) but we tried, and that's what I'll remember. It was all part of the adventure. I got into a few tricky situations where I needed help and I did LOTS of u-turns in parking lots, highways and little country roads, and I never dropped the Feej ONCE. Yahoo!

* am I a changed person because of this experience? Probably not in any tangible way. I know some of you will be disappointed by this ;-). I try to not take anything for granted and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity, good health and wherewithal to have undertaken this trip.

I have a sense there's more - I've been rehearsing this since Sault Ste Marie. But, as usual, it eludes me. I cleaned up my trusty steed this afternoon. There are still spots of bug-innards residue that may come off with the next cleaning and she could use a wax job to restore her beautiful metallic finish. But, considering she was rode hard and put away wet every day for 3 weeks, she looks pretty darned good.

I have a dolce vita.

I'll have a gallery of photos posted by next weekend. Bookmark this site if you'd like to view them.

Pay up, Milt.

Over and out.

Day 21 - Manotick ON (822 km): The good, the bad & the ugly

The good: we made it to Manotick and Jan had cold beer & homemade ginger cookies waiting. The bad: it was a hot, long and painful ride. The ugly: the photo, taken post-shower and within about an hour of arriving, says it all. I was in rough shape and wonder if it wasn't heat exhaustion. Not an auspicious ending to this journey. However, I've had a good dinner (Jan & Dave took us to their favorite chinese place) and am drinking lots of water tonight. Tomorrow's a new day for the homeward push.

We got away at 0730h under partly cloudy skies and about 16 degrees. The weather forecasters were pretty adamant about there being a front of severe thunder showers stretching from Toronto through Ottawa and on to Montreal. Our objective was to reach Manotick ahead of this front. The temperature climbed to 30 degrees and, at times, was higher than that. And the 'humdidity' (as Carol calls it) was horrible. The day had, in fact, all the ingredients for a humdinger of a storm but no sign of it - in this neck of the woods anyway.

LOTS of road construction (we'd actually turn the bikes off while we waited - it was SO hot) and the LEOs were thicker than deer today! We had at least 10 sightings although numbers 2, 3 & 4 - we think - were the same guy, driving up and down the same old strip. Hey! isn't that a Beach Boys song?! ;-) Saw 2 deer, too - in a ditch minding their own business.

We're down to the wire now and am looking forward to seeing everyone. One more post - probably Saturday.

I have to hit the hay for our 900+ km tomorrow ....

Day 20 - Sault Ste Marie ON (1205 ! km): Fredericton or bust!

What a day! We did get away a few minutes after 0700h, under sunny skies and 15 degrees. We had agreed to try to get 400+ km in by lunchtime and that we did. We grabbed a coffee and gas at Ignace, which is a blip on the radar and has the most striking monument announcing itself at the edge of town (village?) - huge blocks of granite or some stone propped in different directions. The scenery leaving Kenora is beautiful - lots of lush foliage, lakes, ponds and streams. Then it turns to a rural setting, like we're used to in NB, and we saw the requisite deer running along the edge of a lawn adjacent to the road.

Entering Thunder Bay District, the landscape turns to scrubby, skinny trees that don't thrive on rock 'shield' with no topsoil to speak of. But, as Jim reminded me, they're famous in Thompson paintings! It appears that there had been a fire along part of the highway in recent years. The forest does look more normal the closer you get to T Bay. We gassed up and went to Wendy's for lunch - and then hit the road. NO ONE can do a gas fill-up, have lunch and pee any faster than we can. Jim must have been missing BC's twisty roads since right outside the city, he turned off into the Terry Fox Memorial site (feature photo) which has a twisty road up to it. We grabbed our photos, I mauled a beautiful golden retriever and we were outta there!

Highway 17 has a sign, what seems to be every kilometer, with either a moose or a deer symbol on it and the note: 'night danger'. Leaving T Bay, we were cruising along and I saw yet another sign so here was the thought pattern: "we all know that the forest rats are out in the daytime, too (we saw 5 on Sunday, for example); case in point - the one we saw running after Kenora; and just as I thought to myself "oh, they be out and about for sure", in my peripheral vision there was a deer standing in a ditch - really, only head and shoulders visible, checking out my commander helmet! If he'd made a dash for it, it would have been ugly - just a messy collision that would end up with us both getting hurt but not necessarily dead. Here's a true story - close your eyes if you don't want to know how it ends. This was told to me by a woman at the Rally - from Calgary - who was riding pillion with her husband on an FJR and a friend was following. This scene was harder for the guy behind as he saw everything. The front bike was doing "highway speed" (ie about 120 km) when Sylvia "felt a bump". "Did we hit something?" Yup - they hit something all right. A deer crossed in front of them and her husband never saw it - just hit it and tore it in two. Back half went to the ditch; front half into the median. Grabbing a handful of brake could have been the worst thing to do since it causes the front of the bike to compress and become lower which could have scooped the deer up and over the bike. Thankf ully, in spite of all the warning signs (and we could never have said we weren't warned!) and the fact that we were still on the road after 2100h, we never saw another critter.

Jim wants me to note the number of Harleys on the road today. Which, according to him, is something you'd expect in the States (and they're in epidemic proportions there) but not so much here. I noticed a lot of bikes but didn't ID them as HDs. Most were friendly enough - for the most part, they waved back at us New Brunswickers :-) A lot of people do not return this courtesy - especially out west. We NBers wave at everyone. Except maybe the squidlys.

MY note is about all the trucks. What a blight on an otherwise beautiful landscape! There were a lot yesterday, too, across the Prairies except a lot of them there were hauling tandem loads - aargh! Talk about carbon footprint. Highway 17 is all 2-lane - curvy and hilly in spots. There are passing opportunities and they're marked (the 2-lane passing symbol and a distance noted eg., 2 km). Sometimes, there are 2 or 3 of these rigs travelling together. Fortunately, our bikes have giddy-up to spare so we have very little trouble getting around anything on the road. But cars? Another story. I was going to say I'd never drive on that highway in a car - for that reason. But there seems to be a difference in traffic 'before Wawa and after Wawa'. And the scenery after Wawa, going east, is spectacular. And that section of road also seemed to have less traffic - but I don't know what happened to it since there's no other highway to travel on. Must have been my imagination.

The temperature rose steadily today until it hovered around 27 degrees. HOT. For the first time since we left home, I got to remove my wind/rain layer. And I was too hot even at that.

As we approached the town of Terrace Bay on Lake Superior, we hit a bank of fog and the temperature plummeted to 11 ! And the fog was weirdly beautiful. Of course, we could see from a distance we were going to ride into it. We rode through a rock cut and the fog hovered over the road and we rode under it - like a canopy. We were quickly back into sunshine and the temp rose but we were still by the lake so the temp got to only 18 - 19ish. Stopped for gas, back on the road and hit construction. (There was construction this morning as well). By this time, I had my sheepskin folded so that it was 4 layers thick and, consequently, raised me ever so slightly in my seat but - combined with a full tank of gas - was enough to give me some grief when we had to stop for the construction. No harm, just a little 'pucker moment' ;-)

At Thunder Bay, the time changed to Eastern so we lost another hour today. But we made good time - travelling (don't tell mom) 25-30 kph over the speed limit of 90. (BTW, it was only 100 on the 4-lane highway in Manitoba; duh). We rode 1205 km in 13.5 hours. Our destination today had been Wawa, which is just under 1000 km from Kenora. This was going to make for a long day tomorrow (Thursday) to get to Jan & Dave's and a late arrival. As we approached Wawa, the temperature started to drop and by the time we got to the town, it was so socked in by fog we could hardly see. Apparently, it rolled in at 1400h and hung around. Coming into Wawa from the west, before you turn left up over a little knoll there's a big wooden goose sculpture soaring over the road - he's wonderful! Unfortunately, we could get the posted photo only from the back (ie, from the main street) and he blends into the foggy sky. Too much truck traffic to go back onto the road (plus we were in a hurry) in order to get a shot of him soaring over us. We rode what we figured was the length of town, checking out business and scoping out motels. Prima facie, there was nothing that matched our Comfort Inn standards so we had a quick chat and decided to press on. It was another 220 or so km to the Soo and it was 1900h. Jim figured there was another 3 hours of light but, quite frankly, it was so foggy (AND, I forgot to mention, COLD = 9 degrees! from the 22 - 25 it'd been on the highway - a change that occurred in only a few kilometers), I'd forgotten there'd be sunlight SOMEwhere. I had much trepidation about heading down the deer/moose trail at dusk and I wasn't sure my butt could take much more but poor old Wawa was so bleak looking, I had to try.

I'm so glad we did...
1. it makes for a much nicer and early-arrival-in-Manotick day for us tomorrow
2. the light was so wonderful at that time of the evening that all the colours of green, rock and lake were saturated
3. and, the scenery was nothing short of spectacular. The road's in good shape, it's interesting with hills and turns, there's dense forest, huge rock cuts (Carol, you would LOVE the rock along that road; all shades of pinks, greys, browns in different shapes and textures - I immediately thought of you, it's so beautiful) and unparalleled views of Lake Superior. For a little bit, I could almost imagine myself back in BC.

At one point, we rode up a hill and around a turn right into the sun - such that I could barely see in front of me. Over the crest of the hill, the road turned at the bottom and I actually had to slow down to stare at the sight in front of me. We had been riding in and out of fog (and temp up and down). If you look at a map, you'll see how hwy 17 hugs the lake. This view had the sun coming through clouds, the fog had settled on the lake so that IT looked like soft, thin clouds and the only way you could distinguish water beneath the fog was by the glistening swath the sun made over the water. I felt as though I was above clouds looking down and it was the effect of the fog on the water. I'm afraid I've botched this - I don't know how else to describe it. There was NO opportunity to pull over to photograph it, which is just as well since it would have been impossible to capture with our pocket jobbies. We did stop later on where there was a pull-over spot but we just couldn't get it right. Suffice to say, the rest of the ride along the lake and watching the sun start to set over the lake made my forget about my aching bum bones.

Coming into SSM, the sky was blue with white clouds in one part; pink, lilac and coral in another part (sun reflecting off clouds and fog?) and, for those of you who work with stained glass, part of the sky looked like cathedral glass - bluish and pinkish with swirls of white. My, I'm waxing poetic tonight. I was mesmerized by the sky so it was a good thing there were no deer or moose!

We're at the same Comfort Inn we were in on June 6th and tomorrow morning we'll start retracing our steps. Manotick tomorrow by around 1700h, and hopefully, Freddy Beach on Friday night. I've been asked "what's the hurry?". I feel as though I've been away for a lot longer than 3 weeks. I'm missing John & The Girls (badly) and my flowers as I look at roses, poppies, peonies, lupin, and lilac here; and I need a new pedicure - the polish is worn from the medial aspect of both great toes from the pressure in my boots!

As always, I SO enjoy your comments. I'd like to answer them individually but can't since I don't have your email addresses. We'll chat soon! Oh, and Dave - about the 'skeeters in Wawa... they're not so much big as they are numerous! We stopped to get a photo of The Goose and by the time I got back on my bike, they had swarmed the Feej. And it was only 9 freaking degrees. They're tough little suckers, too!

I still have people looking for stories when I get home. Not happening - it's all here! But I DO very much appreciate your interest ;-) (and I'm always for a Girl Partay)

Day 19 - Kenora ON (811 km):

After 9 hours of riding across the remainder of the Prairies, we agree the big news today was the dreadful wind coming at our hind quarter. And I'm voting for road construction as well.

We left Grace's at 0730h, which is her normal time to leave for the office. It was variably cloudy and 15 degrees. We rode toward what appeared to be a low-lying, very dark cloud cover but there was no precipiation for a change; the temperature dropped to 12 degrees once we were out of the sunshine. We rode like crazy toward a clear patch of sky and when the cloud cover finally cleared, we were in a tremendous rear/cross wind. We both got tossed around pretty good for a long time. Picture sustained Tantramar Marshes conditions for many miles instead of the kilometer or so of strong wind that we might have there. For the first time, it was more than a fleeting thought that I'd have rather been in a car. But then I thought: "no! I could ride pillion on a big ol' 'wing!" But Jim figures ANY mode of travel would have been miserable in that wind. Perhaps the worst thing about the wind (once I relaxed and eased up on my death grip of the handlebars) was that we both were chilly even though the temperature gradually climbed from 12 to 19. It was hard to get comfortable and I used the breakfast break to add my fleece layer.

We stopped for breakfast around 0930h at Moosomin SK. It was a neat family restaurant but GREASY! I ordered french toast with well-done sausage (which I have once or twice a year) and panfries. I ate one or two slices of french toast, 2 of the 3 little sausages and a couple of bites of the "shredded, deep-fried patty" type of affair that was the panfries. And that stayed with me all day. Yuck :( About the only exercise I'm getting these days is walking from the bike to a motel room and squatting over T Horton toilet seats. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd miss exercising !

Soon after that stop, we hit the Manitoba boundary and Central Time. Saskatchewan does not observe Daylight Savings Time so our time didn't change until MB. Time will change again tomorrow at Thunder Bay when we hit Eastern Time.

The scenery was pretty much the same as yesterday - except, perhaps, more consistently flat, if that's possible. At one point later in the day, we hit a little sharper lefthand curve in the road and I was actually caught off guard!

Brandon, MB was on our route today - just before Winnipeg. I have a soft spot for Brandon as a nursing classmate and former colleague, Jill M, lives there with her husband, who transferred here with McCains, and there weeks-old baby. By the time we got to Brandon, the temperature was sufficiently high that I was now too hot with the fleece and I had to pull over to remove it. The wind was still howling and there was a little dust storm going on. As I pulled off the highway and started to turn right onto a service road, a car cut me off - pulling alongside and then turning rightalso - across my path. I was going slowly and anticipated it so no harm done. Costume adjustment completed, we hit the road again and pulled up to an intersection on the highway. Light turned green and Jim pulled away quickly - as he does. No big noise, just a fast, efficient forward motion. After being nailed in the Volvo a couple of years ago by an elderly guy running a red light, I'm a bit of a slowpoke through intersections. I noticed the young guy in the car beside me shake his head and chuckle - presumably at Jim's getaway. We both got through the intersection and caught up with Jim, and Buddy cruised by in the outside lane. He had a sunroof open and as he got by us, up popped his hand through the sunroof in a 2-finger salute (index and pinkie). Jim waved back and I'll go with his interpretation that Buddy was bringing us greetings from the town of Brandon :-)

We totally bypassed Winnipeg by taking hwy 100 east toward Kenora. It eventually became highway 1 again. The landscape changed soon thereafter from totally flat and green to more trees and some hills. We hit a long stretch of construction (at least 15 km +) where there was active work going on and traffic was down to one lane. There had been another long stretch (kms long) somwhere before Brandon; 'zippered' asphalt - where the asphalt is removed for recycling and paving. Traffic moved along this stretch well but I did catch my front wheel a few times which tended to slow me down - momentarily. On another stretch of road, we rode on new, unpainted asphalt (I think that was today!?) and 50 km from Kenora, we hit the worst of it. There was rough gravel, zippered asphalt AND new pavement. Lots of equipment around, lots of traffic including big trucks, and no water applied to keep dust down. We both washed our faces when we checked into our Comfort Inn room (smoking - aargh; which was the only left with 2 beds but we have a sliding glass door and the bikes are parked right outside the door) and I'm sure the housekeeping staff will think we washed our bikes with the washcloths! Essentially, we sampled every stage of highway construction today - and in no small doses of any of it.

Just before Winnipeg, there was a huge lot at the side of the highway with neatly stacked "somethings" which I soon figured out were hay bales. The stacks were spread quite a way along but they got progressively more messy and smaller. And clearly, the hay was very deteriorated and not fit for consumption. I did a quick Google search but can't find info about it. Jim thinks it may be leftovers from an urgent call for hay a year or so (or more) ago due to animals starving because of flooding - or some other disaster. Interesting.

So... between wind, construction and a respectable 811 km covered, I'm just about done in. My ischial tuberosities were protesting loudly today, too. I was pleased that yesterday was relatively 'pain' free. It's not pain per se; I don't know how to describe it. Very uncomfortable. About 70 km from Kenora, I pulled Jim over and I had a stretch and a bottle of water. Both of which revived me sufficiently to get to Kenora. We had to ride back 'downtown' for dinner after we checked in and I was so tired, Jim offered to take me on his bike. But it's character building for to soldier on so I rode my own ;-). Plus, we topped up our gas while we were out so we'll be ready to roll as soon as we get on the bikes in the morning. A note about dinner. This place (Plaza?) serves up greek food, has been in town for 38 years and has all these Recommended Where to Eat in Canada for many years. How far wrong could we go ? I was hungry for souvlaki and they even have that lemon soup (refer to Halcyon Spa post) on the menu. Big disappointment from the soup (tangy but not lemony and hardly any other flavour as well) to salad (bottled dressing, I think?) and the souvlaki - not nearly as flavourable as Dimitris and overcooked. I can't wait to tuck into a Dimitris chicken souvlaki!

Tomorrow, we're planning on an EARLY start - 0700h. We'll lose another hour at Thunder Bay and we're going to try to get to Wawa - about 1000km. I suspect there may be internet issues for the next day or so, therefore don't be alarmed if there's no post tomorrow night.

I see we have a new Follower! Hello to Lucie & Jeff in Calgary :-)

I'm sure there's more. I compose such a great post on the road but sitting here in the motel room, my brain goes to mush.

If we continue to have good weather and my butt can take it, we'll be home in time for a Running of the Hounds on Saturday and/or a bicycle ride on Sunday morning (ie Friday night). But that requires 3 very heavy days. We'll see.

ps: Jan - I didn't get back to you about dinner. Yes, lobster and Angus would be grand but to be honest about it, I've been eating beef since we hit South Dakota. I'm surprised I haven't developed gout! I'm thinking roast chicken/turkey - with gravy and dressing. No need for dessert. However.... those ginger cookies you packed up for us were very yummy ;-)

pps: Mary & Tom - I'm sorry to have missed you on the return trip. Until you're better thanked, it was my pleasure to meet you both AND the beautiful and accomplished Ellen.