Taking some time out in the Maritimes

CHARLOTTETOWN -- I can’t help thinking I’ve been giving the Maritimes short shrift.

After perhaps the worst meal of my trip, an unfunny and nearly inedible comedy of errors at Station 127 in Edmundston, New Brunswick -- I roared off down the four-lane Trans-Canada bound for Fredericton, the provincial capital.

I spent most of my stay in New Brunswick -- my seventh province since leaving home on May 11 -- on the four-lane Trans-Canada Highway. No backroads wandering on this stretch of the ride. I was riding point-to-point and I just wanted to get ‘er done!

Almost 80 days on the road are beginning to take a toll in terms of fatigue and recovery. One’s too quick and the other’s too slow.

Several days in the mid-to-high 30s Celcius – nearly 40C on the highway – finally kicked my ass! Not enough water on the ride and not enough supper when the riding day was done!

I know what to do! Some good food, more water and limited hours in the saddle! I started with the tasty baked potato soup at the café at the Potato World museum in Florenceville, N.B. – home of McCain Foods, Canada’s No. 1 potato processor.

I learned a few things about the spud, including its pre-eminence as Canada’s most important vegetable crop -- especially here in the Maritimes! It was well worth the $4 admission.  

I spent two lazy days holed up at the home of Anne, a former colleague from the Alberta Public Affairs Bureau; her husband Rob; and their 20-month-old son Matty. While they work in Fredericton, they live year-round in a cool beachfront home on the largest lake in New Brunswick!

It’s not a great lake, it’s a Grand Lake! And Grand Lake was just that, a grand place to rest up and recuperate after a long, hot ride!

Doing nothing was just what the doctor ordered.

Over the past week or so, I’ve developed a nasty case of “throttle wrist!” Nearly 11 weeks and 13,000 kilometers into my trans-Canada ride, I’m in a fair amount of discomfort whenever I crank the throttle. I suppose it’s some kind of repetitive strain injury. Thank God for cruise control!

I could have spent several more days lollygagging in the St. John Valley, but I had to keep moving. I have reservations on the busy ferry to Newfoundland this weekend. There’s still a fair few kilometers between me and the ferry terminal at North Sydney on Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island!

I must confess I felt quite foolish when Anne, a senior provincial communications bureaucrat, reminded me that Fredericton is the capital of New Brunswick -- and not Saint John. It’s not the first time Fredericton has tripped me up.

I’ll never forget the lesson I learned after applying for a job at Fredericton Gleaner in the late ‘70s. My cover letter and even the envelop was returned to me by the managing editor with several circles in red grease pencil, the preferred spell-check tool of the time!

An accompanying letter castigated me for not spelling Fredericton with its second “e”. “At least, you’re consistent, Mr. Kenny,” the editor wrote in declining my request for a job.

Damn me with faint praise, why dontcha!

I spent a night in Fredericton and then headed further east on the TCH, switching to a really good NB Hwy. 105 through l’Acadie to Moncton. I had hoped to catch up with an old friend, but he wasn’t available. Oh well, he knows where to find me.

I was therefore all the more thrilled to get an invitation to stay with Vic, a former publisher of the late great Brampton Times, where I worked from 1977-80 and again 1985-88!

I really enjoyed my second stint with the BT and spent a wonderful afternoon and evening with Vic, now retired, and his lovely wife Ruth. We shared beers and memories at their cool and breezy seaside home on Northumberland Strait at Grande-Digue near Shediac.

Every once in a while, Vic would take time out to fire marbles with his slingshot at a flock of Canada geese to keep them from coming ashore and fouling his lawn. He said it’s fun to watch beach-goers collecting his lost marbles at low tide!

Over a superb meal of steak and lobster – and Ruth’s excellent blue-cheese cole slaw – we caught up on the intervening 25 years. What a good time we had and didn’t always appreciate just how good they were! Time and distance have a way of winnowing the memories to just the good ones. At least, that’s how I’m rolling these days.

Before a pretty good neighbourhood fireworks display, Vic showed me a pic of himself as a young man with shoulder length brown hair and a full mustache looking like a young Michael Stivic! Those who know will know! I’m guessing it was taken around the time he went to Woodstock. Yep, that Woodstock.

I will return to New Brunswick, Grand Lake and Vic’s – with Mindy next time. We’ll get off the Trans-Canada and really see the province!

Ditto for Prince Edward Island! It was just starting to rain as I rolled along NB Hwy. 16 and the sky looked about to unleash lightning and maybe worse when I arrived at the Confederation Bridge, the Canadian-engineered “fixed link” connecting Canada’s smallest province to the Canadian mainland.

But no sooner had I got to the foot of the imposing structure, that all changed! I ran the 13-kilometer bridge in bright sunshine, no wind and even better, no traffic!!

There’s no welcome sign when you get to the PEI side of the strait, but there’s no mistaking the bright red sandstone cliffs that greet you when you arrive.

I tooled up PEI Hwy. 1 to Summerside, only to find out that The Ballad of Stompin’ Tom, a live musical tribute to the late Canadian troubadour I had really been looking forward to seeing at the Harbourfront Theatre, was not on stage Monday evenings. Darn it. I was really in the mood for some Tom songs sung in his spiritual home!

I briefly considered spending another day, but didn’t have one to spare! For a change! On to Charlottetown, the eighth provincial capital I’ve visited on this grand odyssey!

They’re celebrating the 150^th anniversary of the Charlottetown Conference in September 1864, the meeting which laid the foundation for the confederation of a handful of British colonies in North America into what is known today as the Dominion of Canada.
 
I got in a couple of good meals in Charlottetown and several good New Brunswick and P.E.I. beers like Alpine Lager and Gahan’s Harvest Gold Pale Ale, in pubs like the Gahan House, Hunter’s Ale House, the Old Triangle and the Olde Dublin. A lot of things are old, olde or auld  in this part of the country!

Riding along PEI Hwy. 2 then 16 through towns like Cardigan and Montague, I caught a midday ferry from Wood Islands, P.E.I., to Pictou, Nova Scotia, my third province this week. I really enjoyed the ride from Charlottetown round the eastern tip of the island. Next time, I’ll explore the beaches and lighthouses a little more closely.

And there will be a next time! I need some more down time on Grand Lake and the rest of the Martimes!

In the meantime, please consider a donation to my Ride for Sight. The money goes to the Foundation Fighting Blindness to fund Canadian researchers looking into the causes and prevention of blindness. Please consider making a donation here to their work.

Ride for Sight is Canada’s largest and longest-running motorcycle charity endeavour. Bikers cover their own expenses so that every penny raised goes to the foundation.

A whale of a time in Tadoussac

TADOUSSAC – Je voudrais revenir a Tadoussac juste pour la nourriture!

 

I want to return to this tourist village at the mouth of the Saguenay River that is the capital of the Quebec whale-watching industry. Didn’t see many whales on a three-hour cruise the other day, but I did spend the weekend in grat restaurants like La Gallouine and Café Boheme eating some of the best meals I’ve had since leaving home nearly 11 weeks ago.

And even more glorious than the fine regional Quebec cuisine was a little piece of motorcycle heaven called QC Hwy. 172 that is now my second-favourite stretch of biking road in the country, just behind the Old Duffy Lake Road from Lillooet down to Pemberton in British Columbia.

I left Quebec City a day later than I planned. Time just got away from me as I explored the history and culture of the Quebec capital. That’s the great thing about having no set schedule. I go when I want and stop when I want. I’m the only boss of me!

I headed up through the sweet-scented maple and pine forests of the Reserve Faunique des Laurentides (the Laurentides Nature Reserve) on the four-lane QC Hwy. 175 linking Quebec with the city of Saguenay. Lots of long sweeping curves and a few tighter turns as I made my way north from the St. Lawrence River to Chicoutimi.

Someone, I don’t remember who, told me the 300-kilometre detour through the Charlevoix region was worth the ride, but they were so right! Such wild beauty among the forests of the Larentide mountains made me feel truly blessed to be on a bike!

After a leisurely lunch in Chicoutimi, I headed southeast down Hwy. 172 on the 175-kilometer ride back to the St. Lawrence River. Very quickly, it led to some thrilling riding along La Route du Fjord south to Tadoussac!

Lotsa twists, turns and sweeping S-bends, soaring climbs and ear-popping drops! Best of all no traffic! Got to wind the Bike-a-Lounger out for the first time in weeks! I'll ride that bad girl again someday, hopefully with Mindy up behind me!

The road, named for the deep and steep-walled glacier-carved valley of the Saguenay River, is very popular with motorcyclists. And cops! The SQ – the Surete du Quebec or provincial police – were out in full force, but I was lucky that most of them were heading north as I went the other way. Really lucky!

It was all too easy to find myself clipping along at 20-to-30 kilometers above the posted 90 kmh limit. At one point, I came over a rise and was dropping down the steep decline only to find a 100-meter stretch of deep gravel at the bottom! Hitting the stones at high speed scared me enough to slow me down for the rest of the ride into the village where I planned to spend the night.

I didn’t take any pictures, not wanting to lose the moment on such a great piece of two-lane blacktop. I’ve grabbed a couple of images from the Tourisme Quebec website. I‘m sure they won’t mind!

I took a three-hour whale-watching cruise with about two dozen other people in a Zodiac inflatable boat. Once again, I found myself the only Anglo on the cruise, but the captain offered commentary in both English and French.

Up to 13 species of whales in the St. Lawrence -- including the relatively small and friendly white belugas who live here year-round and a dozen other species that migrate to the deep cold waters of the St. Lawrence and the Saguenay Fjord.

The fact that so many species are found such a relatively small ecosystem makes this one of the best places to observe whales in the world. Many companies offer whale-watching excursions beginning in May; often, the whale-watching season extends into October.

We spent most of the trip in an icy cold water-hugging mist despite temperatures in the high 20s on land and although we could hear the whales spouting, we didn’t see much of them. They mostly came to the surface and then dove back down into deep water.

We did see the backs and spouts of a pod of Minke whales, a lone blue whale – the largest beast ever on the planet!! – and some belugas, including a mother and calf. But it was fun being out on the water barely in sight of the shore.

Every time the captain changed location, we had to hunker down in our immersion suits to ward off a bitter, bone-chilling wind. I was so cold by the time we returned to land, my fingertips tingled for about an hour afterward, a sure sign of hypothermia! Thank God for brandy and strong coffee!

My next stop was the aboriginal Innu -- not Inuit -- village of Essipit near Les Escoumins, a little further east of Tadoussac on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. I had to kill about five hours -- mostly talking to folks fishing off the docks in the Saguenay-St. Lawrence national marine park – waiting for the late ferry to Trois-Pistoles, a village on the south shore of the river first settled by Basque shepherds. I had missed the 11 a.m. sailing, forgetting to book well enough in advance for the popular 90-minute crossing.

It’s a reminder that even though I have no set agenda, if I want to make plans to stay with family, friends or even a local motel, a little advance work is necessary. I’ll have to be more careful to book my crossings to and from Newfoundland next month.

After spending the night in Trois-Pistoles, named not for guns as I had always thought, but for an old French coin, I headed south down QC Hwys. 293 and 232 – another pair of nice twisty secondary highways. I stopped in St-Jean-de-Dieu at a very friendly bistro-bar for a tasty breakfast and a long chat with some of the locals.

One guy made me feel really special by saying my poor attempts to speak French showed a respect for the people and culture of Quebec and I was to be commended not only for trying, but for my accent, which he said was good – for someone from Alberta!

I said it was important to me considering how francophones might have a tough time trying to be understood outside the French-speaking regions of Canada if they didn’t at least try to speak in Canada’s other official language.

Before heading into New Brunswick on NB Hwy. 2, the four-lane Trans-Canada, I stopped at a place with the unreal name of St. Louis du Ha! Ha!!, which Wikipedia says is the only place name in the world with two exclamation marks. That was worth the picture alone!!

New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province in Canada and is home to one of those other French-speaking regions I mentioned. L’Acadie – Acadia – was an 18^th century colony of New France in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces – particularly northwestern New Brunswick – and a good bit of what is now modern-day Maine.

It’s a healthy, lively francophone region and Edmundston will host the Acadian World Congress later this year. Families, visitors and academics from the region and as far away as Louisiana – Cajun being a corruption of the word Acadien – and France will crowd the city.

The city is festooned with various versions of the Acadian flag, a blue, white and red background similar to the French tricouleur with the addition of a gold star. I especially liked the wooden version I spotted at a local Tim Hortons.

I’m sorry I’m going to miss the gathering which promises great food, music and story-telling. I’m going to spend the night in Edmundston, have a good meal, get some laundry done and head to Fredericton.

In the meantime, please consider a donation to my Ride for Sight. The money goes to the Foundation Fighting Blindness to fund Canadian researchers looking into the causes and prevention of blindness. Please consider making a donation here to their work.

Ride for Sight is Canada’s largest and longest-running motorcycle charity endeavour. Bikers cover their own expenses so that every penny raised goes to the foundation.

 

Emotions run high in Quebec

QUEBEC CITY – After three days here in the provincial capital, I more fervently believe that my Canada includes Quebec and both the country and the province would be diminished by any form of separation. Our history, our culture, our very identity as a nation are so intertwined, it would be impossible to wrest one from the other without destroying both!

That’s not a political statement as much as it is an emotional one. And my emotions have been running high since I left Montreal and started riding along QC Hwy. 138 east, bound for Trois Rivieres.

Never more so than when I took a half-hour cruise under threatening skies from Berthier-sur-Mer on the south shore of the mighty St. Lawrence River or la fleuve Saint-Laurent as it’s known here – to Grosse Ile national historic site where the river starts to widen out to the gulf of the same name.

In the late 1840s, with the ravages of potato blight wiping out the only form of payment made to poor Irish sharecroppers by their English and largely absentee landlords, thousands of my people were forced to choose between starvation or fleeing to Canada, the U.S., Australia and beyond, seeking a new life far from kin and country.

It’s not right to call this a famine when shipments to England of other agricultural products – livestock, vegetables and grain -- continued unaffected and unhindered by the tragedy unfolding for the Irish croppies.

Thousands of emigrants depopulated rural Ireland. Hundreds of them died in the overloaded and filthy, disease-ridden “coffin ships.” Those who survived the cruel 40-plus-day passage to America were put off in quarantine on islands like Grosse Ile, where the pitiful resources and inadequate medical treatment of the day meant many thousands more perished before ever getting a chance to realize their dream.

Under the towering Celtic cross memorial erected in 1909 by the Ancient Order of Hibernians to the 7,500 souls buried on the island, there are dozens of names like Kenny, Devlin and Dolan – some of them likely my ancestors – who preceded my parents, Douglas and Brigid, my brother Liam and me -- and as he reminded me yesterday, my brother Paul in vitro – to a new life in this great country of ours.

I wiped away a few tears wondering what m parents must have been thinking as they sailed past the mist-shrouded islands and mountainous shores of the river that August in 1956! I shed a few more knowing that we got a chance to succeed – and are successful unto another generation -- where ill fate and ill fortune beset so many poor sods who cast their chances on the Atlantic before us.

That wasn’t the first of my memories that came rushing back east of Montreal. In Repentigny, I suddenly remembered an exchange trip I made here in 1967, the year of Canada’s centennial.

I stayed with a kid named Jean-Pierre, also about 11, whose father worked as a Hydro-Quebec engineer on the massive Manicouagan 5 project. Nevermind that the only new phrase I recall learning was “Ferme ta guele!” – a pretty rude way of telling someone to shut up!

But I was pretty proud of the fact that nearly 50 years later, I was able to purchase sunscreen and toothpaste at a drugstore and get directions back to the autoroute in French! Score one for Visites Interprovinciales, the agency that sponsored that long-ago exchange trip.

A few more miles east found me looking for gas in Berthierville. Quite by accident, I stumbled upon Musee Gilles Villeneuve, dedicated to the iconic Formula One racer who died in an accident at the 1982 Belgian Gran Prix. He was just 32 and at the top of his sport driving for Ferrari.

The museum tracks his career from his earliest days as a snowmobile racer, his brief but impressive career in one of the world’s fastest sports and his family life in and around Berthierville. They even have his Ford truck that he went off-roading in during his "quiet time"

I remember being shocked and saddened by the death of one of Canada’s international sporting figures who was as popular as any hockey star of the era. It’s a fine museum and well worth the $10 admission.

I’ve seen some things in more than 40 years of riding motorcycles, but nothing like what I saw just outside Trois Rivieres. I had just finished lunch at the Restaurant Grec Baie-Jolie on the shores  when a couple perhaps a little older than me came out headed for a sweet-looking orange Goldwing trike. I was surprised to see le madame help le monsieur into his leather jacket. Then she carefully put his helmet on and buckled it up for him.

I realized he had some kind of brain injury as she gently helped him up onto the passenger seat of the trike, buckled her own helmet and fired up the big machine. “Ready?” she asked him in French. He tapped her on the shoulder and they were off, her laughing and giving me a thumbs up and him smiling behind her, the sun on their faces and wind at their back.

If that ain’t love, then I don’t know what is! We should all be so lucky!

I spent the night in Trois Rivieres – named for the two islands that split the mouth of the St. Maurice River where it meets the St. Lawrence.

From there, I headed north to Shawinigan, hometown of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien. I didn’t visit his museum, still angry at the corruption scandal that marked the end of an otherwise illustrious political career. His petty decision to seek a fourth term poisoned the well for his successor Paul Martin, who may have been one of our best PMs had it not been for the Chretien scandals he was saddled with.

I stopped for lunch in St-Tite, home of a major Western festival and rodeo every September, something that I’m sure most Canadians don’t know. Voted "Best Outdoor Rodeo in North America" since 1999, it annually draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Mauricie tourist region. I wonder how you say “yee haw” in French!

The rain started as I left the town and at one point was so heavy, I had to pull up under a bridge. After 20 minutes or so, I gave up waiting for it to lessen and slogged on through to Quebec City, thanking once again my decision to purchase a Scott Turn TP riding suit. On several occasions in rain, wind and even snow, it has lived up to its claims to be waterproof, windproof and warm.

I toured the Old City of Quebec, starting at the Plains of Abraham, where a bold move by English General James Wolfe to scale the rocky cliffs -- thought by the French to be impregnable -- that led to the defeat of his French counterpart Louis-Joseph de Montcalm in 1759, which proved to be a deciding moment in the conflict between the French and the English, putting New France under English rule, ultimately leading to the creation of Canada, to say nothing about the seemingly endless debate over Quebec’s place in the country and indeed the world.

I visited the historic Chateau Frontenac and the Citadelle, spiritual home to the Canadian Army’s 22nd Regiment, the famous VanDoos! Quebec is said to be the only North American city north of Mexico City to retain its original walled fortifications.

I took a long, hot walk around the shops and restaurants of the old quarter, checking out some of the churches and religious buildings that give Quebec – the city and the province – it’s distinctly Catholic flavour.

I also found a centuries-old cannonball embedded in the base of a tree. Local legend has it that the huge iron ball dates from the Battaille du Quebec, some 255 years ago. The more likely explanation is that it was placed there possibly a 100 years later to keep the wheels of horse-drawn carriages from catching on the tree when they made a tight right-hand turn from one cobbled street into another.

And here’s yet another example of the many acts of kindness shown to me by the two-wheels-and-a-motor community during this trip. Faced with daunting prospect of getting out of downtown Quebec City at rush hour, mon ange gardien appeared in the form of fellow rider Luc who led me to the correct highway and directed me to the cutoff for my hotel in the city’s east end! Merci, mon chum! Tu etait tres gentil!

I’m going to take a circuit around Ile d’Orleans on the suggestion of three guys from Toronto who put the big and hairy in big, hairy bikers. They turned out to be real nice Harley riders who kindly shared an ice-cold beer and some tales from the road when I got back from Berthier-sur-Mer after a 45-minute ride in the blazing summer sun.

They are thrashing back to Toronto today, an 800-kilometer ride. Ride safe, guys!

Speaking of acts of kindness, to date I have raised more than $2,000 for my Ride for Sight. The money goes to the Foundation Fighting Blindness to fund Canadian researchers looking into the causes and prevention of blindness. Please consider making a donation here to their work.

Ride for Sight is Canada’s largest and longest-running motorcycle charity endeavour. Bikers cover their own expenses so that every penny raised goes to the foundation.

Je roule en la belle province!

MONTREAL – I first started taking French lessons in Grade 6 when I was about 11. In my head, I speak a pretty passable, if somewhat fractured, version of Canada’s other official language. Trouble is, it doesn’t always come out that way!

And I sure can’t comprehend it as fast as it’s spoken here in what used to be called la belle province. But I have to try if I want to get around for the next couple of weeks.

I put Ontario in general and Ottawa in particular in my rearview mirrors, crossing the Ottawa River into Hull, Gatineau, Quebec – my sixth province in the two months since I embarked on my trans-Canada journey.

After a bit of fumbling around with some rather confusing highway route markers, I found myself on QC Hwy. 148, booting along in glorious summer sunshine following the banks of the Riviere des Outaouais, as its known in Quebec. They've got a different word for everything in this province!

Again, it was good to get out in the land and rack up some miles after put-putting around the nation’s capital where I made some lifelong friendships during my 12-year stay there in the late 1980s and ‘90s.

Friends like Lou, a former pro soccer player and fellow Ottawa Sun day-oner, which used to mean something before the entire Sun chain turned into the crappy journalistic embarrassment it is today.

We watched Argentina play the Dutch to a 0-0 draw before finally winning it on penalty kicks. When I said the shootout is a horrible way to end any sporting event, Lou explained to me for the first time why it has to be that way. It had never occurred to me that going beyond 90 minutes, plus 30 more of added extra time was about the maximum a player could be expected to play before exhaustion rendered them unfit to continue. Not the first time I missed the obvious.

Lou’s now an award-winning teacher of music industry arts at Algonquin College and a pretty gifted bass player in his own band.

After the game, we went to check out some local acts appearing in a nearby bar. There we ran into Johnny, another former Sun hand I hadn’t seen in more than 25 years, and his wife!

I was staying with Melanie and Dave, more friends from my brief but memorable time at the Sun. They graciously opened their home to me and invited me to join them as they spent their evenings at Ottawa’s oddly named Bluesfest. Odd because, although there was a sprinkling of blues acts like Gary Clark Jr., the lineup spanned the widest possible range of popular music. Everything from Lady Gaga to Journey to Bombino and Blake Shelton.

I put in a visit to my former colleagues at the Ottawa bureau of the Canadian Press where some longtime colleagues like John, James and Bruce (looking good despite recovering from triple bypass surgery) still hold the national government accountable with some of the finest journalism being done in the country.

The time I spent covering Parliament Hill with these gifted reporters and editors will always be the high point of my checkered career as a gypsy journalist.

Later, I spent an all-too-brief hour or so with Alice and her beau Eric, who’s related to the makers of Beau’s all-natural beers, a tasty and fast-growing craft brew that is quickly becoming a favourite across Canada and the northeastern U.S. I hope it’s available soon in Alberta.

Summer’s a busy travel season and a lot of the folks I wanted to see weren’t available, but I couldn’t leave town without saying a quick hello to the mother of my friend Frank. She’s a lovely, down-to-earth Italian lady who never fails to make me feel at home. I’ve always enjoyed our visits in the 30-plus years I’ve known her son. Maybe it’s because she reminds me so much of my own mom.

My first stop to stretch my legs was at a belvedere or scenic lookout taking in the pastoral views of the river, where a couple from Montreal on a Goldwing were enjoying their lunch. We had a great conversation en français, where I learned that the translation of “I ride” is “je roule” – literally, “I roll.” I like that.

In brilliant sunshine, I rolled on through the riverside farmland stopping in the rustic beauty of Montebello amid a crush of motards, as bikers are known in Quebec. As I enjoyed un gros Mol, a quart of Molson Export Ale, in the blazing sunshine on la terrasse, a wedding procession of more than 100 motorcycles -- including both brides -- honked their way happily through the village. What a brilliant way to start married life!

Then it was on into Montreal and my hotel on Rene Levesque Blvd., named for the feisty little Radio-Canada journalist who led the province’s first separatist government.

I get the fact that Quebecers, especially the francophones, were tired of being treated as second-class citizens in their own country. But I doubt the French language and culture would be as vibrant and thriving as it undoubtedly is today as a petite nation francophone of 6 million in a sea of nearly 400 million anglophones.

Then again, it’s probable it wouldn’t be as strong a language and culture had it not been for Levesque and the Parti Quebecois putting the fear of God into the anglo establishment for the past 40 years.

I walked through Chinatown and into Old Montreal where the cobblestone streets were jam packed with Montrealers and tourists from around the world, filling every restaurant, brasserie and shop on a hot Saturday night. Buskers and street performers competed with them all for attention and dollars and it was lucky even got a seat at the bar of a great wine bar for some chilled Chardonnay and some amazing saucisses de Toulouse. Delicious!

Sunday found me doing my laundry; there are lots of buandries – laundromats to you and me -- catering to urban Montrealers whose apartments are too small to house a washer and dryer. I ate an amazing sandwich western for breakfast at l’Oufrier as I waited for my clothes to dry. I’ve never had better and I’ve been eating them all my life.

With the World Cup final just hours away, I made my way to Gallerie BBAM!, a funky art gallery-music shop-cafe, owned by Ralph, a fellow Sheridan College alum, who became a punk music publisher-impresario. He’s still one of the coolest cats I’ve ever met and it was an absolute pleasure to spend some time with him and his wife Allison and their big black cat Monsieur Magique as they prepared to host an afternoon of live folk music in their eclectic space.

I got back to the old city just in time to catch kickoff between the Albicelestes of Argentina and die Mannschaft, the heavily favoured German side. It took almost the entire 90-minute match plus 30 minutes of overtime before Germany prevailed in front of a wildly cheering audience of mostly German fans at Pub St. Paul, which was literally packed to the rafters for the event!

Outside, it was bucketing down and I was as wet as I’ve been on this trip. By the time I sloshed back into my hotel, even my riding jacket was soaked and my sneakers are still damp two days later!

My next stop is Trois Rivieres and Cap-de-la-Madeleine. Hopefully by then, my French will have returned enough that I won’t be composing sentences in my head before I try to speak them.

In the meantime, please consider a donation to my Ride for Sight page. I’m getting close to the final third of this journey and I had hoped to raise a bit more than the current total of $1,950, although that's pretty good. It doesn’t take long to make a donation and the research you’ll help fund could mean a better life for someone threatened by the diseases of the eye that lead to blindness. Thanks.

Cobourg to Kingston

KINGSTON -- Leaving Cobourg behind, I once again headed up through the Northumberland hills around the eastern end of Rice Lake.

I was reminded of my Granny Devlin's occasional visits from Northern Ireland. She always came in the fall so she could see the colours, the reds, yellow and oranges that make this part of southern Ontario and artist/photographer's dream every autumn.

It also brought to mind a photo taken by my high school friend Laurie, taken one October morning. I had a really nice lunch with Laurie and her daughter Steph before heading back on the road.

With almost no wind and even less traffic, I made good time to Hastings and on into the village of Stirling. I was headed to Belleville and a reunion with an old Sheridan College buddy.

Chris is the recently retired former city editor at the Belleville Intelligencer -- what a great name for a paper! He still has a column and is still stirring up trouble in this city of 95,000 on the shore of the beautiful Bay of Quinte.

Chris loves to afflict the comfortable in his written musings and was involved in a heated back-and-forth with a local politician who thought he had gone too far in one of his exchanges. As a long-time rugby player, he's used to the occasional knock in head and gives as good as he gets. Even his wife Sandi got in on the action and it was fun to hear them point out the thin-skinned pol's short-comings.

Sandi's a local girl from "The County" as Prince Edward county is known to the locals. That separates them from the "cit-iots" -- folks from Toronto and beyond who have flocked to the once unspoiled area around Picton and Bloomfield and flooded it with McMansion homes, twee crafty shoppes and bistros featuring $18 hamburgers!

When I left Belleville behind, heading along ON Hwy. 62 and then 23, I could see why Chris and Sandi are so fond of the area natural beauty and lakeside charm. Even with the influx of well-heeled interlopers trying to escape the city by bringing it with them!

A great bit of motorcycle road -- despite the rain that came and went throughout the day -- brought me to Dave's Roadhouse just in time for a tasty lunch of pulled pork on a bun and a pint of Loyalist Lager, a local beer crafted by Barley Days Brewery. 

After lunch, I continued on through United Empire Loyalist country to Picton and the MV Glenora, a free ferry across the bay that brought me to some beautiful beachside riding -- despite a quickening wind and steady drizzle.

I stopped at one point to walk out the kinks and heard the crash of the waves on the beach just meters from the road. I could imagine that it wouldn't take much more wind to bring the breakers onshore and across the road as Lake Ontario narrowed and became the great St. Lawrence River! Probably not so much fun for motorists on two wheels!

I left the last of the five Great Lakes behind and got into Kingston in time for a great fish-and-chip supper at the Pilot House, one of my all-time favourite resto-pubs and purveyor of some great local craft brews! Sadly I wasn't able to convince any of my local friends to join me.

I spent the night in this historic UEL town that boasts one of Canada's great universities. Mindy and I are giving serious thought to retiring here when she decides to quit working. The Pilot House is one of my major considerations!!

m having a lot of fun catching up with old pals in Ottawa at the moment. More on that in a later post.

In the meantime, please don't forget to consider a donation to the Ride for Sight. There's a safe, secure online donation site here.

Family matters

COBOURG - Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been 12 days since my last blog post!

I headed into sweltering Toronto nearly two weeks ago and into whirlwind of visits with family and friends. Not much time for riding and even less time for blogging.

After living in the dry climate of the Canadian Prairies for nearly 20 years, I’d forgotten what temperatures in the 30s Celsius and 100 per cent humidity felt like! It was like a sauna, even at highway speeds!

I'm usually a believer in ATGATT -- all the gear all the time --  but for the first time in years, I shed my riding jacket and rode into the city each day in just a shirt. Even then, the sweat rolling into my eyes combined with sunscreen nearly blinded me!

On top of that, after 10 years, countless thousands of kilometers -- many of them strapped to my back or my bikes -- and a million words or more, my little ACER Aspire One notebook finally wore out. Its little screen gave out for good after a decade of yeoman service.

So here’s a quick rundown of the past few days:

·         Stayed in Thornhill, north of the city, with my wife’s sister and her husband Kevin, who surprised me with a key ring in the shape of a BMW K1200LT, my Bike-a-Lounger, sent to him by his brother John in Watford, England. John has been following my adventures and thought I might like it. Like it?  I love it, John! How very thoughtful of you.
·         Escaped the heat of the city with a visit to a posh yacht club on one of the Toronto islands. My brother Liam and his wife were celebrating their 27^th anniversary with their two oldest kids, Padraig and Brigitte. Congratulations and thanks for a delicious meal and some amazing views of the city.
·         Visited with my brother Michael who’s dealing with some major health problems, but manages to remain upbeat and positive. Here’s to you and me back fishing soon, bro!
·         I also had a too-short lunch with my brother Paul at a trendy dim sum eatery. Very nice!

·         Had a great barbecue with former Welland and Brampton colleague Paul, his wife Diana and their son Mark, the 10-year-old technical whiz who put my pix up on the TV screen.
·         Back in Thornhill, had dinner with Mindy’s other sibling Brooke, his wife Kim and their energetic six-year-old Claire. What a dynamo. I was exhausted just watching her go!
·         Took my 14-year-old nephew to meet his bus to summer camp. Liam was the only one who showed up on the back of a motorcycle and there were some envious looks from his fellow campers!
·         I even managed to get his mom Sonia up for a little ride, long enough for her to start acting a little wild! What is it about motorcycles?
·         I also squeezed in a visit with Guy and Toby, two brothers from my high school days in Cobourg. They are two of the coolest people I know and have been since we first met in the early ‘70s.

·          I spent a night in Port Hope listening to my sister, a two-time breast cancer survivor and helmsman for a racing dragon boat -- The Survivor Thrivers. Watching her guide her boat out of Cobourg's busy yacht harbour was a wonder to me! I’m very proud of these courageous women, especially Siobhan.
·         I’m about 9,000 kilometers into my ride now and the Beemer was in need of an oil change. Not the easiest thing to arrange from the road – especially over a long Canada Day weekend. But full marks to Owen at Endras BMW in Ajax, Ont. I was waiting for him when the shop opened on Wednesday morning and was back on the road less than two hours later!!

See what I mean about a whirlwind!

I finally got back into riding mode with a tour around beautiful Rice Lake, named for the wild rice harvested by the local Ojibway natives who called the lakeshore home. Starting in Gores Landing, I rode the lakeshore-hugging County Road 18 through the hills of old Northumberland County in gorgeous summer weather ­– bright sunshine, temps in the high 20s, humidity bearable because of the breeze off the lake.

Country Rd. 18 became 45 through Roseneath and on up to Hastings at the eastern edge of the lake. I cut back across the northern shore on County Road 2, a road I had never travelled, through several First Nations territories, to Keene and eventually Bailieboro, towns that are still as Irish today as when they were settled back in the mid-1800s!!

It was a great 100-kilometer round trip that put me back into road mode. Felt great to be twisting and turning again, setting my own course and my own speed rather than dodging hyperactive commuters on the four lane where the 100 kmh is merely a suggestion and 140-150 kmh is the average pace!!

After a quick lunch at Rhino’s Roadhouse in Bewdley, I made my way back to Cobourg and a night out visiting with my cousins Chris, John and Paul, their mom Roisin, and Johnny’s wains Grace and Charlie who were more than happy to climb aboard the bike! No fear there!

Chris and Paul and their friend Tyson play in Madman’s Window, a Celtic-Canadiana band named for a geographical oddity on the wild north Antrim coast in their parents’ native Northern Ireland! I wisely called it an early night and headed home feeling I’d really made a good effort in seeing my often elusive family, Mindy’s sibs and some old friends. I hope they all had as much fun as I did.

But the lake run reminded me I still have several thousand clicks to ride before I’m back in my baby’s arms and the sooner I’m down the road and over the next horizon, the sooner that will happen. So, it’s on to Eastern Ontario and my old stompin’ grounds in our nation’s capital.