Biking with Nancy and Gerry

Notice the end of the point that seems to be floating in the air? This is looking across Little Traverse Bay on Lake Michigan

Notice the point seemingly floating in air, to the left.

This boardwalk was 2/3 mile long!

This boardwalk near Charlevoix is 2/3 of a mile long!

Nancy, Gerry and I have had a wonderful time biking and visiting for the past three days. They got in late Monday night but were up and ready for action the next morning. After a nice walk in the woods around my dads place and the adjacent Chippewa Nature Center, we were off to get Gerry's rental bike and take a short ride around midland. It's nice to be a tourist in my home town. I saw stuff I've never seen before! I am going to refer you to Nancy's blog for pictures:
 www.adventureswithnancy.blogspot.com


Wednesday, a woman nancy had corresponded with but never actually met drove up from Lansing to ride with us. We did a 35 mile loop from my dads house, which included riding the length of the chippewa trail, a stop at the Chippewa Nature Center visitors center, where we saw wild turkeys; the Tridge; the midland farmers market to score home grown tomatoes and cukes; a pleasant picnic lunch followed by a latte and tea stop; a dozen or so miles on the beautiful Pere Marquette rail trail, and then another dozen miles on flat, scenic, low traffic back roads. Finally home to where a crock pot dinner of chicken curry was waiting for us, followed by both cake AND pie my dad had made. With ice cream of course.

The three of us in Charlevoix
We are now in Petoskey, MI. We drove up here yesterday to do a 40 mile ride on the Little Traverse Wheelway , from Petoskey to Charlevoix and back. There are lake views (Lake Michigan) along about half the trail, and some of it is right along the lake shore. Charlevoix is an upscale tourist town and there are a lot of rich people houses, and sadly, access to the lake itself is limited. But it's a very pretty town, sandwiched between Lake Michigan and Lake Charlevoix. And a very good latte place selling Wooly Bugger coffee.

Clear clear water of lake michigan

Clear clear wafer of lake Michigan

Canal connecting lakes Charlevoix and Michigan

Colors of lake Michigan

Posted with Blogsy

Odd jobs at Chippewa Pines

I've spent a few days cleaning stuff out of my old bedroom here at my dads house, and trying to find the source of the rather unpleasant cat pee smell. Shirley, his wife and my dear aunt mom (she was my mom's brother's widow) was bit of a pack rat. Among many other things I bet I found at least 500 pens and pencils, all neatly rubber-banded together. So today will include a trip to Good Will.

I bought a black light thingie at the pet store which works remarkably well for finding cat pee, and doused it all thoroughly with Natures Miracle ( if you have pets that leave presents on your carpeting, you need this stuff. It is truly miraculous!). Much more pleasant in the bedroom now.

Yesterday I helped my dad haul a truckload of stuff to the dump. The truck is his 37 year old jeep, and every time I'm home I wonder if this will be its last gasp, but so far it's doing pretty well as long as you don't exceed about 45 mph. And make sure you clean the mouse nests out of the engine in the spring.

My 85-year-old dad can hardly walk anymore, is in constant pain, and has to rest often during any type of physical activity. Yet he told me that a few weeks ago he was up on the roof to clean out his gutters and chimney! I would like to forbid him from doing this in the future but doubt it would do any good. His mind is still sharp so I guess he can make his own decisions.

Last night I got the kayak in the water for a pleasant hours paddle up the river and back. I would've gone a little further but the river is so low right now I got irritated with dragging bottom, there's not enough water for the paddles to get leverage through the little rapids, and I am reluctant to use my pricey fiberglass paddles as poles to push through.

Pictures coming soon....

Posted with Blogsy

Resting up + lotsa pictures

I've spent a relaxing and uneventful couple of days resting up here at Chippewa Pines, where I grew up. Watching the beautiful Chippewa river roll by, walking in the woods and fields, petting the cats, puttering. It took me most of a day to unload my car and get moved in here; I wonder how much of that stuff will make it back home with me?

Yesterday I believe I may have finally gotten my dads dish tv fixed for him. He's been having problems with it for months and months, hard for him because watching tv is about all he can do anymore. He called the company many times with no luck. So I called yesterday morning and by that afternoon they were out here with new receivers to update the obsolete 10 year old ones. I can only attribute this situation to age discrimination, as of course my dad sounds on the phone like the 85-year old that he is, and the company must assume that he's just a confused old guy whose kids will fix if for him.

Also spent some time trying to figure out where the cats have peed in my bedroom, as it's a bit fragrant in there. I removed one smelly blanket and that helped , but there's more to be found. Meanwhile, sleeping with the windows open.

And now, some pictures from the last few days of my trip:

In case you need to know where to park your dinosaur?

Old growth white pine forest at Hartwick Pines state park (Michigan)

Mackinaw bridge, connection Michgan's upper and lower peninsuals

Lake Superior provincial park. There are indian pictographs on those rocks down there, which I wisely
decided I didn't really need to see given the waves washing up on them.

Subie at 170,000 miles

Lake Superior Provincial Park

Lake Superior Provincial Park

Lake Superior Provincial Park

Superior Sunset, taken right from my campsite

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!

Posted with Blogsy

No more driving

I got to my dads house last night and am now enjoying my morning coffee and watching hummingbirds and clear blue sky.

I spent the past couple of days poking around in Lake Superior provincial park, on the east side of the lake, visiting some beautiful places still vivid in my mind from 34 years ago. White sand beaches, smooth granite headlands to climb on and sit in the sun. Crashing clear waves like aquamarine gemstones.

Camped right on the shores of Gitcheegumee Friday night, where I listened to those big waves crash all night. In the morning I woke up to a brisk 35 degrees and decided it was time to head south.

You really should have Lake Superior on your bucket list. Approximately the size of South Carolina, It's the largest freshwater lake in the world. Wikipedia says it contains enough water to cover the enitire landmass of both north and south America with foot of water. Waves of 20 to 30 feet arent unusual. It's big.

Once across the locks at sault ste marie (this is where lake superior drops 21 feet into lake huron), I was back in the US. A quick 40 miles across the U.P. brought me to the graceful Mackinaw bridge (where lakes michigan and huron meet) and into the lower peninsula of michigan.

Yesterday afternoon I stopped at Hartwick Pines state park, one of the places from my childhood that I've wanted to revisit. There is a grove of old growth white pine there, one of the few anywhere. Not as impressive to me now that I've seen the pacific northwest, but still quite beautiful. The grove has almost no undergrowth, just a sunspotted, rust colored floor of pine needles, tall white pines and hemlocks, and silence. This forest once covered most of michigan. How I wish I could've seen it.

although I've reached my destination, my adventure is not over. Stay tuned...

Posted with Blogsy

A driving marathon to Marathon

I was hoping to camp again last night. At beautiful Neys provinical park there was a campsite right on lake superior. But the rain has been chasing me all day and started up again just as a pulled in. So on I went to a hotel in Marathon, where I'm just finishing my breakfast.


"Oh man, I am really tired of driving right now".That's all I was able to write last night before collapsing into bed. I was too tired even to walk down to the local eatery for dinner, so ordered in for pizza.

Although long, the past couple of days has been a beautiful drive through pink granite hills (one might almost say mountains) covered with just enough dirt to support a beatiful forest of birch and evergreens. it seems like this whole area is just a thinly covered block of pink granite. Some of it looks black, but I'm told that's just lichen covering it. In other places it's pink or a beautiful red.

One of the prettiest places is Rainbow Falls, which I remember well from my last trip through here 34 years ago. One of those beautiful woodland lakes sits a few hundred feet above lake superior, and directly at the outlet of the lake is the falls, tumbling down red granite boulders. This must've come as quite a surprise to some unlucky voyageur. From the lake side it looks like one of those infinity pools.

I had hoped to camp there, but the campground was closed for the season, and a big sign said the gate would be locked at 3pm. I had barely enough time to huff and puff my way up to the lookout for a couple of pictures.

Wednesday night I camped on yet another beatiful lake, at Sleeping Giant provincial park. (The giant appears to be either a poorly developed woman, or a man with a large goiter. You choose.) Got in an hour of paddling, although it was still quite windy. My tent was just a few feet from the water, and laughing loons woke me up in the night. This park is about 20 miles off the main road, a route lined with perfectly shaped large christmas trees.

Camping has gotten expensive. This was $37.25 for a tenting site with no water or electricity. The electrified sites were I think at least $50.

Also visited Ouimet Canyon, billed as "the grand canyon of canada". It's impressive but that's really quite an overstatement. With vertical 100 meter granite walls, the canyon is about half again that wide. You'll be glad to know that Wikepedia says the canyon was formed when a diabase (a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to plutonic gabbo) sill was split open. Try using some of those words in your conversation today...

Got lost going through Thunder Bay, but luckily the route took me by Starbucks

I remember thinking a while back that I wouldn't take this driving trip if gas was $5 per gallon. Well, I'm sure I haven't spent less than $4.20 since I've been in Canada, and yesterday it was $5.10.

Onward...

Thunder Lake, like a mirror

Ouimet Canyon

Ouimet Canyon

Rainbow Falls

See the Sleeping Giant

Wowser Sunset

Posted with Blogsy

There is a town in north ontario..

Shades of Neil Young, here I am at last sitting by a quiet northern ontario lake. Night has fallen and although there are a few other campers here, there are none in sight. It's warm, with a gentle breeze, late enough in the year that the mosquitoes and black flies are gone...oh, life is good.

I finally launched my kayak today,for the first time this year. Got in 15 minutes of paddling on a lake like a mirror before the wind suddenly picked up and made me wish Id put on my sprayskirt. Mirror to whitecaps in under 5 minutes. It was a bouncy ride back.

Got ready to make a little dinner, and discovered that all the water taps in the park say "unsafe for drinking". Seems like they coulda warned about that up front! Decided an apple was enough for dinner anyway, and then found a little store just few miles down the road that had water. And Glenfiddich. So I'm set!

The store is in the tiny town of Wabigoon, on Wabigoon Lake ... Perhaps the canadian version of Lake Woebegone?

What with finding cabelas, deciding on a new camping mattress, and finding a Starbucks, it was almost noon before I managed to extricate myself from the greater Winnipeg metroplex this morning. But just a half hour east of town, the prairie was suddenly replaced by small birches and poplars. A few miles further on and I was driving through forest of birch, spruce, granite, lake after lake, and hardly any traffic. I spent much of this drive wishing I was on my bike, big wide shoulders to ride on, and 12 mph is SO much better for enjoying the scenery.

The other thing I bought at Cabelas was a head lamp. Unwilling to spend $50 to get one like the one I left at home, I opted for the $10 one. Which doesn't work at all, dammit. I mean it wont even turn on. So I spent 20 frustrating minutes digging through my car trying to find the other cheap flashlight I bought earlier, before finally remembering where id put it so it wouldn't get lost. And even worse, I later discovered that indeed I did NOT leave the other one at home..... Sigh.....This is just going to get worse as I get older, isn't it?

I forgot to tell you about leaving my venerable camping coffee mug on top of my car a few days ago, where it held on for at least a hundred miles before I finally decided to stop and see why it sounded like something was rolling around up there.

Ok, gonna turn off the electronics and enjoy the dark.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

The call of the north woods...

I pushed it through close to 400 miles yesterday and was way too tired to write last night, where I crashed in the outskirts of Winnepeg.   There are trees here, but mostly it's still vast flat fields. Pretty enough, but I'm feeling the call of the north woods and the great lakes.

At 3/4 of a million people, Winnepeg is by far the largest town I'll go through on this trip. It's large enough to have a freeway bypass around it, which I took last night, but now I'm about to delve deep into the city anyway to find Cabela's and a new, hopefully very cushy, camping mattress.

There is a bit of color just starting in the trees here, cottonwoods starting to yellow.

I enjoyed my day off in Regina, riding a segment of the trans-canada trail through town. The trail circumnavigates a pretty little lake right in the middle of town, and then follows a meandering creek 6 miles or so to the outskirts of town. I had to slalom around 4000+ runners of the Queen City marathon (not the only biker to do so, and runners seemed OK with it), and was so happy that I'd finally installed the bell that Gerry bought me a while back.

Regina frog

Capitol building across lake in regina

Me at Regina capitol bldg

WTF? This I find sorta creepy. But interesting....?

Regina overall seems to be a very nice town, with a living downtown area and beautiful tree-lined residential streets that I could happily spend another day exploring.

Rhymes with....

Tonight I am staying right in the middle of downtown Regina, the capitol of Saskatchewan. Tomorrow morning I'm planning to check out what is supposed to be a nice network of bike trails here.

Camping last night actually turned out to be very quiet after 9pm hit and all the RVers turned off their generators. Finally I could actually tell that I was camped right next to a little babbling brook, which sang me pleasantly to sleep.

Drove my first 50 or so miles this morning on gravel back roads, just lovely, lovely, gold and green rolling prairie dotted with purple-blue ponds and lakes, all covered with waterfowl.

Stopped in downtown Moose Jaw, mostly just to say I'd been there.I asked a local how to get back on hwy 1 eastbound, and of course he sent me in exactly the WRONG direction, clear back to the WEST end if town, thus proving once again that you can't trust locals for directions. Possibly this young man just did not know east from west?

I bought a new cell phone this summer party to make sure I'd have cell phone access on this trip. The Verizon website clearly says I should be able to send and receive calls from Canada, albeit at the exorbitant rate of $.69 per minute. So far, no luck. I bravely ran the gauntlet of the 1-800 Verizon customer service maze, to be told that he"didn't think" that prepaid plans had any service in Canada. The young man asked me where I was, when I told him there was dead silence. I had to explain to him that it started with an R, not a V.....

And now at last some pictures and even a couple of videos:

The first video is the best way I could figure out to show the Frank Slide, discussed a couple of days ago. The second video is just the magnificence of the great plains in Saskatchewan. 

Pictures at last!

Saskatchewan Hay

Pretty bike trail at Cypress Hills Provincial Park, Alberta

The view from the Thunder Dome (See 9/4 blog) along the N. Cascades Hwy

Some pictures at last!

Perfect biking weather

In fact, it's perfect weather for just about anything.Tonight I am camped at cedar hills provinicial park, on the border between alberta and saskatchewan. it's a pleasant place, trees and hills instead of the flat fields I drove through most of the day. This is a huge resort area, with a hotel, a couple of restaurants, a paved bike trail, many hiking trails, and a half dozen or so different campgrounds. There must be a couple hundred campsites. Irritatingly, the nicest sites, down along the pretty lake, are all closed for the season. It's Friday night, and it looks like the place will fill up tonight. So now I can hear a generator off to my right, and someone's radio to my left. Ah, wilderness...

It has been an absolutely perfect fall day, 70 with not a hint of a cloud anywhere. I of course rode all the bike trails this afternoon and did a little hiking.

So happy I decided to have breakfast at the hotel before i left this morning. When I went to pay... no credit card! SH*T! Think, where could I have left it? Last time I used it was... last night at this very same restaurant. They had it locked away for me, thank god. I'll blame those two Coconut Cloud Martinis I had after dinner. Nothing in common with a real martini other than the glass they were served in, but oh, they were sinfully delicious.

Twice this trip I have tried to get my usual vacation drink, a Manhattan, with dinner. The first bartender did not know how to make one (I've had this problem before in Canada). And last night, they were out of bitters. So uncivilized.

Posted with Blogsy

Goodbye to the mountains

After yesterday's brutally long and slow drive, it was a pleasure to start today with a 35 mile bike ride, from Cranbrook to Kimberly and back. Beautiful paved bike trail all the way, and mostly downhill on the way back. How perfect is that? This is a rail trail and part of the trans-Canada trail that's being developed, through pretty pines and along high bluffs overlooking the St. Mary's river.

Oh how I wished i'd stayed in Kimberly instead of Cranbrook. Kimberly has several blocks downtown that are motor-vehicle free, prettily brick paved, lots of restaurants and such. I got up early in Cranbrook this morning thinking I'd walk through downtown and find a nice little coffee shop. But it was dead, dead, dead, nothing open until 9 or 10 and the only coffee shop was the Safeway Starbucks, and even they didn't open until 8!

In Kimberly I even found a thrift store, where I bought a small American Tourister bag for $3. This because I'm already tired of lugging my suitcase out of the car, with it's two months worth of stuff. This will allow me to carry only what I need for a day or two.

Then on over the Rockies. Crow's Nest pass was a bit of a disappointment. Having a whole big road named after it, I thought surely it would be a steep, high, rocky affair, but not at all. It's a relatively flat, wide area of golden fields and aspens. Without the sign it wouldn't even have caught my eye as a mountain pass.

Just the other side of Crow's Nest, I came upon the Frank Slide. Wow, this is impressive. A vast field of huge boulders, like a scree slope for a giant: On April 29, 1903, 90 million tons of limestone rock slid down Turtle mountain at speeds up to 70mph, and in less than 2 minutes had obliterated a good portion of the coal mining town of Frank, the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the coal mine. A section of the mountain nearly 1/2 mile X 1/4 mile had broken off. About 80 people were killed, most of whom are still under the rocks somewhere. I'll post pictures later...

I've said goodbye to the mountains for now and am spending tonight in Lethbridge, surrounded by rolling and treeless prairie. Lethbridge is a sizable town, around a hundred thousand people. I've treated myself to a nice hotel for the night,with full and-- this is a first for me-- yummy Torrefazione Italia coffee in the room.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Mountains and Road Repair

At long last I've made it to Cranbrook BC. It took me close to nine hours to drive less than 300 miles today. Road repair, road repair, slow trucks on narrow winding roads, road repair, slow RV's on narrow winding roads, road repair. And then some more road repair. Brutal.

Still, it was a beautiful drive. And once I got on canada hwy 3 (The Crow's Nest Highway) it was a breeze.

There are a whole lot of mountains here! Today I've been through the Selkirks and the Kootenays, the orchards of the Okanagon and the western-movie-like Pend Orielle area, and now am sitting on the western edge of the Rockies. And it's raining. The first rain I've seen since July 22nd, and I am quite enjoying it.

I was hoping to get here in time to do an hour or two of biking, but, aside from the rain, it's after 6pm (mountain time) and will be dusk in an hour or so.

I am staying right in the middle of downtown Cranbrook, at what I had hoped would be a cute and funky old hotel. It is cute and funky from the outside, but the rooms look pretty much like Motel 6. Minus the amenities. Oh well, certainly more interesting than staying out on the highway next to a strip mall.

 

Posted with Blogsy

On the road again

Last night I camped in a little community park just outside of Omak. Just me and a couple of homeless people. A 50+ year old guy who says he is an ex-marine and just waiting for some sort of vet-related payoff so he can get a place to rent. Seems a bit doubtful to me but he was a nice enough guy and had an adorable little dog. And a 72-year old woman living out of her truck and working at the local food bank. Both of them have been there for a month or more, although the signs says there's a 72-hour limit for campers. Hope they find better digs before winter.

I stopped for a couple of hours of hiking in North Cascades National Park yesterday, the Thunder Dome trail. Glad for the exercise but I did not see Mel Gibson or Tina Turner, and it just wasn't very scenic except for a great view of Diablo lake at the very end. There's a much better view about 10 minutes on up the road.

Maybe it was Thunder Knob. But I like the dome thing better.

Just finished breakfast in Tonasket WA, heading on towards Republic and Colville, then probably up into Canada. In 2010 I rode this route. Hard to believe. Mountain passes: Rainy, Washington, Loup Loup, Wauconda, Sherman.

 

Posted with Blogsy

T minus 24 hours and counting....

Today I'm loading my car full of camping, hiking, biking and kayaking gear for my trip back to Michigan, where I will spend the better part of 2 months with my dear old dad.. Leaving tomorrow, I am planning a leisurely 2 week trip there, driving just north of the Canadian border most of the way. I am still undecided on the route when I get close. I would love to take the ferry across Lake Michigan. But I would also love to drive around the north side of Lake Superior. And the south side. And along the north shore of Lake Michigan. Stay tuned...

Meanwhile, I've got a house and cat sitter lined up. I've cleaned the house, the garage, the car, the refrigerator, made my list and checked it twice, did extra cuddling with the cat, forwarded my mail, put my paper on hold, returned library books, made space for housesitter in the closet and dresser....did I miss anything? I hope not.

Oh, and in case any of my Euchre group is reading this, I've stealthily foisted a somewhat refurbished Euchie off onto Mira's front porch.

It's been a busy (and pricey) summer.... Got my gutters cleaned and repaired and screening added to the top of them. Got thermal shades installed for the winter. Got the rats cleaned out of my crawlspace.Got the 8-foot-tall blackberries cut down on my hillside in preparation for landscaping in the spring. Got the landscaping plan from the geotechnical engineer. And just a few days ago I found out there was a crack in the firebox of my propane fireplace, my main source of heat. Not wanting to either freeze or asphyxiate my house sitter, I have bought a new fireplace but it won't be installed until late September, so I'll come home to a new one.

I am so looking forward to this trip. But at the same time I am already looking forward to being back here in November and settling in cozily for the winter.