As of this moment we are in Dryden, ON- hometown of Chris Pronger. There's a campsite in town where we are staying. It came with a mini Saint-Jean-Baptiste day celebration as there's a Quebecois couple camping beside us. The conversation with our mangled French and their broken English is a sneak preview of the Quebec leg of our journey.
Anyway, the first night of Ontario was spent east of Kenora. Kenora is home to the Kenora Thistles who won the Stanley Cup in 1907. The town doesn't let you forget that fact as your riding into town. In Kenora I finally got to see Huskie the Muskie- their giant roadside attraction fish- up close and personal; another life dream fulfilled there.
We stopped in Winnipeg for a day. The Peg has a pretty nice downtown core. Checked out the Forks which is a National Historic Site. It is where the Red river and the Assisboine converge. A more interesting area was over the river in Saint Boniface which still maintains a very French character. It is here where you can find the grave of Louis Riel and some of his lieutenants.
Here are some other Manitoba memories in no particular order:
-Seeing traditionally dressed Mennonite woman rip around on her traditional riding lawn mower.
-Confusing the hell out of the deer- they take one puzzled look at us and our strange devices and then they tear away as fast as they can. One guy didn't stop for at least 400 metres.
-Shredding my back tire. The rubber seperated and had suffered close to 20 tears- the biggest being a 4-5 inch gash. Good thing we carry spares.
-Ripping to Gladstone- just beating a major lightening storm. The storm's winds helped us reach 40 km/h speeds which is really nice on flat ground.
Also making use of a strong tailwind, I went from Grandview to Gilbert Plains -13 kms- all in my top gear.
-Steak on the grill at Gilbert Plains- we also had potatoes and garlic bread.
Riding Mountain National Park- hilly but a really healthy forest surrounded but lower lying farmland.
-Tyler snapping his chain just outside of Riding Mountain which was bit of a production to put on a new one, but we did it.
It's raining right now but hopefully it'll let up and we can power to Ignace which is 110 kms away.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
It is good to see a new posting with such great progress.
Steeper
Say hello to Thunder Bay for me as it used to be one of my old stamping grounds. Hope you enjoy the scenerey on the north shore of Lake Superior. Especially around Schreiber.
Happy Canada Day!!!!
Post a Comment