To the Plains

Well, our fascination with the trains continues, ever present by our sides and whistles through the night at our campsites. Not something that we're used to in Pinehurst. Containers making their way from oriental ports to malls across the country. Thousands of rail cars loaded with prairie wheat heading east for processing to hot dog buns. After 22 biking days in Ontario we are now in Winnipeg. Played tourist all morning, discovering the city, eating dim sum, snacking on spicy buffalo quesadillas and eating peroghies with our bacon and eggs for breakfast. Seriously, all good things Manitoban! One more new tire and we're on our way to Saskatoon in the morning, 700 km. from here.

Pics as Promised

Left to Right, Top to Bottom:

Our backyard in Rabbit Blanket Provincial Park

The Wawa Goose and Tucker

North Shore of Lake Superior

The Seven Sisters Rapids in Massey

Waving to trains

After our last post we proceeded to the Press Box, which seemed to be the only place in town to eat. It ended up being a good idea as we finally got our meal of locally caught whitefish, we had been trying to get for quite some time, and we also found out that the Brandon Paris Band was going to be playing there later in the evening. To make a long story a bit shorter we went back later in the evening, watched the show, talked to some the band members, and got a CD with all of their signatures. It was a pretty grand time with some grand music. We also got our first bear sighting since the last post, at the dump in Nipigon. The owner of the campground we were staying at offered to take me with him when he went up to the dump so I could see one. There ended up being three. Pictures will again be coming of bears sometime, along with one of those elusive moose, I would say Winnipeg at the latest. We gained some time in Thunder Bay by biking really fast and getting there earlier than expected and getting all of the supplies we needed the same day. New front tires for both of us should get us to Vancouver. Due to a couple of days in a row where we have actually reached our goal of 100kms a day we should be into Manitoba in about 3 days. What we look forward to now is waving to more train engineers and seeing if we can get them to honk. It seems childish but it's worked twice, and they're ever so loud.

Northern Ontario, Still

Ever since our last post in Sault Ste. Marie we've begun to encounter what I call "the real Ontario". For the last five days we've been hopping from provincial park to provincial park. Our first day of biking along Lake Superior supplied us with some amazing lookouts from the top of Northern Ontario's mountains. Pictures will be coming eventually but we're having a hard time finding computers that will do what you want, nothing new there. The biggest suprise to us came when we woke up in the morning and the temperature was somewhere around 6 degrees. Very chilly when you wake up at 6:30 in the morning. To our dismay the temperature remained quite low for the next few days, despite the suns best efforts. Our spirits were lifted when we arrived at Obatanga Provincial Park, the first park after Wawa, and we met the Gauthiers who invited us to their campsite to chat and ended up feeding us an enormously delicious feed of rice, chicken stir fry, shrimp, and to my dad's delight, cold beer. We were (and still are) greatful for not having to a fallback meal of beans. Today when we woke up though, our luck with weather had run out. Above were gray skies. And rain. And fog. And cold. And wind. After a few hours of biking and losing the feeling in fingers and toes we called it quites at Schreiber and are now following the forecast to continue.

A Bear Story

On the way out of Ratter's Lake campground a wizened old timer in a pickup rolls his window down and says, "Howdy fellers. Careful of the big black bear up the road a piece." "Do you think he wants to eat us?" says I. "Oh, I don't think so." says the old timer. Cautiously, we carry on, ringing my ice cream bell the whole way, hoping he doesn't have a sweet tooth. We safely reach the highway, spared from the slathering jaws of the beast.
The weather in Ontario's near north has been quite damp and cool but we're coping better with getting wet.
Tucker had his 1st puncture and at the end of the next day I had a blowout that lifted me off my seat. Ben, our North Bay angel, rescued us, and by days end all was well again.
On the road ahead are pieces of a skunk. Bob sees a live one off the road and warns Tucker to stay well away. Tucker thinks he's talking about the dead one, and proceeds to almost run over the live one. That would have been very bad.
Life in Ontario's near north revolves solely around bait, fishing and hunting.

Sudbury

'nuf said

A Rumble Grumble

Most people that know me, know that I seldom rant. lol. But I have one.
Who thought those rumble strips at the edge of the road were a good idea? Do they not know that that area is ours? When there are only 10 inches of shoulder, that is carved up to a vicious bike shattering washboard, that forces us to ride on the dangerous side of the white line. That's a place I don't care to be. So maybe the next time the bureaucrats and decision makers are sitting around the big oak table, maybe one could ask... "what about the bicycles?"
And while I'm at it, would everyone please stop measuring distances in minutes.

Playing Tourists

As of the last few days we've spent in Ottawa we have officially become tourists. On Sunday we were planning on going to the National Art gallery and then the Museum of Civilization across the bridge in Gatineau. We ended up spending several hours at the art gallery and didn't have time for the Museum of Civiliztion. Our favorite piece of art would've had to be a large whale skeleton-ish model, made of cut up Corona chairs. (The white plastic lawn chairs that are really comfortable?) We weren't allowe to take pictures though so if you want to see it you'll just have to come to Ottawa. The next day we went to the M of C, and I could write a fairly lengthy bit about that as well, but it would take to long. Then yesterday to top it all off we dropped by the Amnesty Canada Headquarters for a lovely barbeque at lunch time, and then we had the official tour of the building. We also talked to Lindsay and George who have set up an online donation page for us, have a look if you want by clicking here. And today we hope to walk around a bit this evening, listen to some music, and watch fireworks. Happy Canada Day everyone!!!