Fellow Travelers and New Friends

Yesterday we woke up somewhere just outside of Winnipeg. It was a good riding day - great weather that urged us on past 500 miles - a good thing since we've been playing catch-up for the last few days.

As we've ridden west, rolling hills have given way to open prairies. Unfortunately for us, a lot of the scenery earlier in the trip was obscured by the rain and fog on our face shields. But as the weather was a bit more gracious the last couple of days we seen a lot more of the journey.

The way we heard it, Saskatchewan was going to be relatively straight and flat. And to a motorcyclist those are usually foul words. If you had told us we would have enjoyed that bit of the ride as much as we did we would have thought you crazy - but surprisingly, we did.

Rolling, emerald prairies for as far as the as the eye can see may seem like it could get tedious all day on a motorcycle, but something about it was very enjoyable. I've never seen so much green. Beautiful swells of it that went on and on until you were treated to an occasional burst of bright yellow field. It was beautiful in and of itself, but when the landscape doesn't afford much variation you tend to notice the little things that might otherwise escape you. You notice, for instance, the coyote in the field, perfectly still, and patiently waiting for something to move about. The rows of perfectly spaced trees, extraordinarily tall for the landscape, that have become a monument unto themselves, and wonder if the one that had carefully planted them so long ago was alive to see them now. You notice the curious little barns and dilapidated farm houses seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The doe and her fawn far out in the field taking advantage of the long summer grasses. The pond of ducks where the conveniently sunken piece of farm equipment has now become an island. The strategically placed piles of railroad ties along the tracks that take the grain for processing. Dandelions that looked like they were embellished in size by an artist's imagination dot the edge of the ridge along the tracks. Do the tracks follow the road or the road follow the tracks - I wonder.

We grabbed a bite to eat in Saskatoon and made our way to camp for the night - too tired to tell you about all the little things we saw.


Today started out rather uneventful. It was supposed to be our day off or make-up day and we made use of it getting to Edmonton - putting us back on schedule. The prairies of yesterday became rather ordinary and much more flat today. We continued our mission of finding quirky roadside statues and took a few pictures. One break in particular found us in a small town with eastern European roots. We were entertained by the odd ode to sausage making history just off the highway - an enormous reddish-brown sausage (see pics).

Just as I was resting on a picnic table thinking that I might be kind-of tough for taking on an adventure like this we met Andrew and Friedel. Andrew and Friedel are on an adventure of similar proportions. They began their trip in San Francisco and are riding back home to Nova Scotia. What makes them different from us is where we have, oh, approximately 85 horsepower getting us from point a to point b, they're pedaling with two legs. Seems they've done this before in other countries and we are both curious and impressed. Friedel shares tips on what to cook along the way gives the great advice on using Tiger Balm on my mosquito bites. It was a real pleasure talking to them, fellow travelers, and we exchanged information. http://travellingtwo.com/

On to Edmonton - time for an oil change. Five days of camping got me to thinking it might be nice to make use of some Mariott rewards in Edmonton and skip the unpack and re-pack ritual. The plan was to buy some oil, find a kind shop owner that would let us use an oil pan and dispose of the oil for us and find some WiFi to book a room. Getting turned down at the first garage we headed for WalMart - at least we knew we could get the oil there. As it turns out, not only did the oil and lube shop accommodate our request, but set James up with his own service bay in the garage. Just as we were about to set off in search of WiFi we met Allan in the parking lot. He was curious about where we were from and where we were heading. We got to talking and he kindly offered to let us follow him home so we could use his internet. We thought we'd pull up into the driveway, book a room online, thank him and be on our way. He invited us in to meet his wife Gail. I never got a chance to book the room. Instead we were fed grilled cheese sandwiches and offered a bed and a shower. It was hard to turn down and we spent the evening getting to know our new Canada friends over a game of Yahtzee.

More pictures coming soon - having difficulties uploading them all:



Our new friends, Allan and Gail fixed us up with breakfast and well wishes.

From pics-day 8

From pics - day 6

From pics - day 6

From pics - day 6

Thanks for the comments!

James and I are enjoying the feedback. It's nice to know you guys are thinking about us! Thanks for keeping tabs on us!

Oh Canada!

There's something remarkably therapeutic about riding the last 140 miles of the day under clear, sunny skies. It goes a long way in mending the insults and injuries from the weather and luck over the past couple of days. You forget that just 3 hours ago your fingers were numb and you were sitting in a cafe clutching a cup of coffee working up the gumption to get back on the bike. Instead, your head is clear, you're feeling good and you'll be sad to call it a day when it's time to make camp.

So, where were we. Oh yes...the last time we wrote we were leaving our hotel room for a ride in the rain. That was yesterday. What can I say about yesterday? We past through what looked like it would have been beautiful riding through Canada from what I could see through rain and mist pelting my face shield. Yesterday was just about getting as many miles behind us as we could while riding the entire day in the rain. Even the locals were complaining about the weather. We called it a night around 7 or so just outside of Thunder Bay on the north end of Lake Superior. It rained on us until we got to camp and then, mercifully, it stopped. We slept like babies .

This morning we woke up to a very damp 48 degrees. It wasn't raining, but the air was saturated which makes 48 degrees on the bike feel bitter cold. James, who had to ring out his socks last night, wrapped plastic bags around his feet before putting them back into his still water logged boots. My jacket was still sopping wet, even after I dumped the water out of the pockets the night before. We geared up just the same and hit the road. We had put about 130 miles under us and had to stop for a break. Freezing and hungry we pulled in to the Burger Scoop in a small town of which I can't recall the name just now. Dismayed that they didn't serve soup we both ordered coffee with lunch.

That's when the big announcement came that the Canada Day parade was going to be coming down the street in 10 minutes. Yes, it's Canada Day folks. I don't know much about our northern neighbors but it seems that today is the 100th anniversary of Canada becoming a country (or something like that). I should take a moment to point out that although Canada is apparently one country, eastern and western Canada couldn't seem more different. James and I had stopped in a small town just west of Quebec for a little break. We had ridden to to a boat launch to park the bikes for a minute. “Amile! Venir Amile!” I heard in French as a two-color eyed husky popped out of the bushes and inquisitively headed our way. He was followed by a young women and a somewhat chubby, awkward, 14-ish boy in a yellow life vest. The young woman and I spoke for a bit. She was a counselor at a home for children and she was helping the boy learn to swim. I asked her where she learned English. Western Canada she told me and explained that there, in eastern Canada, they were French. She didn't say, French Canadian or, we speak French. Just that they were French. Well, the western Canucks seem far from it. They don't speak French for the most part either. They do, however, say “eh” a lot. And not just when they are making a statement for you to agree with. They say it like the way a valley girl would inject the word, “like” into a sentence 5 times - but much more charming. So, like, you get what I mean, eh? Anyway, the two sides seem rather different – the east portion with the mystique of a foreign country and the west so much like home.

Back to the Canada Day parade in our small town for lunch. Armed with our Canada flag sandwich picks, James and I just looked at each other thinking, sure, our luck the parade will roll up and occupy the street for an hour just as we are trying to hop back on the bikes. It didn't. The parade was an interesting hodge podge of whoever showed up for the day with a gaggle of red hat ladies in their mobile motorized wheelchairs bringing up their rear. Interesting.

After getting up the gumption we were off again. The weather slowly started to get nicer. We decided to push through Winnipeg and get a place to camp on the other side for the night. Winnipeg looks like a great city. As we rode through the city it was alive with people. People everywhere. Along the river walk, in front of the ice cream shop, the park, the sidewalk. All facing the same direction for what I expect was probably an excellent display of fireworks for Canada day. People with their red and maple leaf flags and hats and shirts. Families riding their bikes and little boys being pulled in radio flyer wagons and pointing excitedly at the motorcycles riding by. Winnipeg is the capital of Manitoba. Their license plates say, “Friendly Manitoba,” and they looked it.

I think James and I are losing our hearing. Maybe it's the wind in the helmets or the loud mp3 player headphones drowning out the highway noise while I listen to, “when the hotel front desk attendant says, 'ohayo gozaimasu,' how do you respond?” (my Japanese audio lessons) or Vietnam-era rock. But when we get off the bikes we can never hear each other. It's a constant, “huh?”, “what?” At one of the gas stops where the communication lines were breaking down I yelled, “someone should write an SNL skit about our communication problems!” To which he replied, “huh?”
James is snoring beside me. Time for bed.

From pics-day 4-5

(Frosty fishes.)

From pics-day 4-5

Dinner in the tent last night.

From pics-day 4-5

Mmmm. Mountain House.

From pics-day 4-5

Open for caption.

From pics-day 4-5

Sky starting to clear.

A new day, a new rule.

New rule: no stopping without getting gas.

Wish us luck - it's still raining.

Here are pics from the the last couple of days. I had some great ones of Montreal but for some reason the camera didn't save them.

The thing about an adventure is....

It's not reeeaaally an adventure until something doesn't go quite as planned.

Yesterday morning in Montreal James and I took a bit of time seeing some of the city before hitting the road. It was going to make for a late night, but we figured we could do it and still make our destination. Enter the rain. We rode in the rain for almost 3 hours yesterday. Big, heavy rain drops that stung when they hit. At one point we pulled over to a Walmart to get some Rainex because it was getting hard to see in the rain as it was getting darker. You know you are in a small town when Walmart closes at 5 on Sunday.

Huddled under a gas station we decided to keep going for a while longer. As 8:00 rolled around we passed a sign for a camp site. I pulled in front of James so I could hail him over. I told him I would either set up camp in the rain or in the dark but not both (I have my standards!) and that we should stop and make camp for the night.

Side note: If there are any couples out there that are wondering whether they are with the right person and if they should get married, I have some advice for you. If you want to find out if you have the kind of relationship that could last, get on two motorcycles, ride all day with 3 hours of it in the rain. Then stop to make camp in the rain, while it's getting dark, and you are getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. IF, and I do mean IF, you can get through that then you're golden.

Back to the story.... It rained all night and into late morning. It took forever to pack up everything that was wet but the rain finally broke. We put on our wet riding gear - uck - and headed out with what we thought was clear skies and a nice clean day of riding.

We were making good time even though we stopped at every over-sized obnoxious animal statue we ran across. There was a small town every 30 miles or so and things were going well. We hit a town called Hearst. Hearst is a logging town and incidentally had not one, but a gaggle of over-sized animal statues. We just had to stop. We took the picture and not wanting to slow things down any more (priorities people!) we opted to wait till the next town for gas. We had gone about 50 miles when we started to get worried. My gauge was reading 20 miles till empty. Pull out the map - 80 miles to the next town - 50 miles back.

Nothing makes you feel like a bigger jerk than running out of gas with two empty gas cans strapped to your motorcycle.

So there we were, on the side of the road. I had the bright idea of splitting up. One person stay with the bikes and one person go back for gas. Looking back we should have stayed together. The bikes are just bikes. Soooo, (Mom, close your ears)I hitched a ride the 50 miles back, both gas cans in hand. The person that drove me to the gas station offered to take me back up as far as the next rest area - 10 miles past the town. How hard could it be to hitch a ride while carrying 4 gallons of gas??? Well, 2 miles into the walk, shoulders burning under the weight of the gas cans, 38 miles to go and after the only 6 vehicles that had come down the road had pulled as far away from me as possible, I got to thinking.... What if I couldn't get a ride? What if I was stuck in moose-land walking all night with 4 gallons of gas and no cell phone coverage? Aside from the obvious concern about getting picked up by a crazy or not getting picked up at all, the mosquitoes were becoming a real issue. If I HAD to sleep on the side of the road, would I have any blood left in the morning? Luckily (or is it the guardian angel coin my aunt gave me?), a police officer looking for speeders happened by. I hitched a ride back to James in the safety of the back of a cop car.

Once back with James, who had busied himself playing with camera equipment to stave off the panic and regret at having let me drive off with a complete stranger, we fueled up and headed back to Hearst to get a hotel room for the night and regroup.

Did I mention it was raining again as soon as we ran out of gas?

Anyway, we are okay and about to get a good night sleep so we can catch up tomorrow. Send some sunshine our way!

Pictures of obnoxious animal statues to come.

Settling in for the long haul

We did it. It's hard to believe, but we actually got all packed up and on the road today. And only 3.5 hours later than our planned departure - that's almost a record for us!

The thing about starting a big adventure ride is that it starts the same way as any other ride. Well, aside from the gear laden bikes and months of planning. You hop on and start out of your driveway, down your street and through your neighborhood. It actually takes quite some time into the trip before it really starts to set in that you won't be "there yet" for a long while.

Today's ride was from Cape Cod to Montreal. We hit New Hampshire and Vermont on the way up to Canada. Vermont looked amazing. It seems totally underrated as far as I'm concerned. You never hear of people going to Vermont for vacation, but it really is quite stunning. We were midway through Vermont when the sun started to set. You know that perfect light? The sun was illuminating the white poplar tufts that were hovering softly in the air, weightless, and it almost felt like time had stopped but we were still moving. Does that make any sense? Have you seen it in movies where everyone else is in slow motion except for the main character? That's what it felt like.

James and I, who are convinced that we'll miss every momentous childhood photo moment when we do eventually have kids because we never quite get it together to take pictures, have made a concious effort to take photos along the way. Matter of fact, we may have gone over the top with 2 still cameras, an HD camcorder and a GoPro sports video camera that can mount to the bikes or helmets.

Anyway, at one point we passed a river and dam in Mistook, Vermont. It drew us and it was time for a break anyway. We managed our way off the highway to the back end of the dam where hiked a bit following the sound of the water and climbed over the river on train bridges to get a better view. Here are some pics of today's ride:

"Being shot out of a cannon will always better than being squeezed out of a tube."

Or so says one of my favorite writers, Hunter S. Thompson, who quickly followed the statement with "That's why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba."

Hooray for fast motorcycles and hooray for motorcycles that will help you get to the arctic circle and back!

Shockingly, there are only two days left before we depart for Alaska. I'm vacillating between uber excitement and staving off the surge of panic that inevitably comes with taking 34 days off from work to ride over 11,000 miles across country - much of which will be cell phone/internet dead zone. Oh the horror! Oh the joy!

So much to do, still. I realize that that amongst my few ramblings here I have not devoted anything remotely close to what would be considered an appropriate amount of information on our bikes of choice.

Ah, the BMW F800GS. Two of those babies are currently nestled in our garage. They've been farkled, lubed, given fresh oil changes and are currently getting all the beauty rest they can before Saturday when they will finally get a chance to stretch their legs and do what they were bred to do - adventure riding.

They were not simply "made." They were bred. Someone did not show up one day at a motorcycle factory in Germany and decide to spit out an F800GS. Oh, no. Like a fine equine line that has seen generations of breeding for just the right height, speed and form, the F800GS is a product of fine selective breeding. It's paralell twin engine creating enough power while not being too big and unweildy. A fuel tank situated under the seat to keep the center of gravity low. Shave off 50 pounds compared to the bigger 1200GS and you have what Goldilocks would be exclaining is "just quite right."

You can check out more here on the bikes if you like. I've also included a standard picture of what Jame's bike looks like. My bike, Ludwig, is the dark magnesium metallic color. I chose that color because at some point I'm going to add big hot pink GS stickers on the side. I chose the name so that it would sound manly enough to be able to suffer the indignity of being adorned with something pink. Be on the lookout for pictures of the bikes loaded and ready to go in the next day or so as well as pictures of the trip and updates along the way. I hope you'll join us. I hope you'll enjoy what we can share of the trip. And well, if I rample too much I hope you'll forgive me.

On that note, for all you other Hunter S. fans out there, "Ho, ho.... we are motorcycle people."