A-hole of the week

I normally am not a busy-body that goes around telling others how to behave, but I will make an exception or this.

I am currently visiting Calgary - sadly not on my motorbike - got here by plane and hired a car, I had business at the Calgary University Campus today, the subject of a future post. As I was about to leave the parking lot, I noticed this little guy panting in the car parked next to me.

The day was not wildly hot, but was sunny and cloudless and in the sun the interior of my rental car was hot enough to be quite uncomfortable even after the windows were wound down.

Now the drivers' side window and the passenger side window were open a crack, but even so it must have been getting really hot inside this car. I could not see if any water had been made available and as I said the little dog was panting. I could see from the pay-and-display ticket on the dash that the car had been there more than two hours.

I called campus security and waited until they arrived - I trust that they took the matter further and did not just leave the poor dog to it's fate. I want to give this message to whoever left that dog in that car - you are a fuck-wit and the winner of this week's Stupid Asshole of the Week award. Congrats.

 Asshole of the week... And the winner is....

Man For All Seasons

The thought has struck me that I have managed to ride more than once during each season of the year over the past year. Spring, summer and fall are expected, but I did ride in Ontario on Christmas day and technically it was still winter in Savannah, albeit on the cusp of spring, when I rented the Harley Softail. I guess Savannah doesn’t really count as it was T-shirt and shorts weather most of the time I was there. The long and harsh winter here in Canada is the bane of the lives of anyone that loves to ride a motorcycle. Anyone else that likes outdoorsy stuff as well I suppose, but winter does allow me to do other things with the time that I would otherwise fritter away with riding my motorbike and writing blogs about it. That is the theory anyway, and now that the riding season has started I look back on the achievements of the winter compared to the plans I had in November and frankly I despair for myself. The book I was going to write hasn’t progressed beyond 40 pages, the carpentry projects I was going to tackle floundered, the house interior did not get a single lick of paint, I did not even read the books I had intended to. Goodness knows what the fuck I’ve been doing with all my time.

Here in Canada we are living through a paradox that we are not entirely happy with, a mild winter followed by a shitty spring. It’s as if the mild winter has seriously overstayed it’s welcome, like a guest that has drunk too much of your booze and simply doesn’t get the message that it’s time to bugger off home. We have a few warm days, then the temperature drops to zero or even below. Two weekends ago Sunday was warm enough for Helena and I to take a ride together, now Helena just does not ride if it’s too cold, so it was actually pretty decent, still cool enough to need to be well wrapped up on a bike though. We went north to Terra Nova, not far from the spot that I wiped out on with the Boulevard, actually went passed the scene of the crime… very slowly around that particular bend. We had a reasonably decent cup of coffee at the Terra Nova Public House, before heading home. They do a prime rib roast dinner every Sunday evening, it’s a nice little pub, so I’d like try this out one Sunday evening, possibly just drive up in the Dodge Caravan. Boring I know, but I don’t like to ride at night in these parts due to the abundance of small forest animals that can wander across your path and create an issue for you and themselves – also I don’t ride with alcohol in my blood. It would be difficult to enjoy an evening in a pub and not have a glass or two of something stronger than Diet Coke. Maybe I’ll invite someone that can be the DD and then I can imbibe enough to make everyone much more interesting… but not enough to convince myself that I am interesting or can actually dance the fandango.

Anyway, that’s just all speculation – today is the last day in April and the weather is playing ball for a change, a glance at the forecast tells me that this is just a blip on an otherwise wet and overcast spring pattern we are experiencing. Tomorrow is not going to be pleasant so it’s a matter of use it or lose it, I decide on the former, and rush through my Saturday chores. Just a note here on my screwed up generation, when I was a kid my dad did not have chores to do, I did, now having reached the age when I start to get senior discounts I still have chores, WTF went wrong? No matter, by noon I’m all chored out, its KSU (kick stand up) time and I’m out of there. I have set out with no real idea where I’m going to ride to, normally I have some sort of plan, If I’m riding with Helena or some else then I plan the route as carefully as possible, but when I’m riding alone it’s a little loosey-goosey.

 I find myself heading north on side roads west of Highway 27, mostly gravel roads through farming areas. Preparations for the coming growing season are well underway, fields are plowed, some even planted. I notice that the sod farmers are already rolling up the first batch of the season. Indeed, I have noticed that the temporary garden centers that appear in the parking lots of grocery stores are in process of going up, gardening has started despite the lousy weather. The rule of thumb is not to start planting seedlings until Victoria Day - May 23, possibility of low overnight temperatures. Helena violated this rule a few years back and we ended up frantically digging up hundreds of seedlings one evening and bringing them into the house to escape the frost. Canadians seem to be big on gardening even though the gardening season is even shorter than the motorcycling season, my personal contribution to the garden comprises of one day a year to repair and re-commission the sprinkler system and I look after the composters. Gardening isn’t entirely my bag, baby. Luckily Helena is an enthusiastic gardener.

Our Garden in Summer - Fruits of Helena's Labor.. and my compost 

Riding in this area this time of year reminds me strongly of the Natal Midlands in winter. It’s something more than the rolling hills, mostly grey and brown fields, olive green patches of forest, tidy farms and an occasional patch of green, it’s in the light and angle of the sun. A wave of nostalgia hits me, which is a little ridiculous as I have, all told, probably spent less than three weeks of my whole life in that area and most of that just driving through on my way to the Natal Coast. Nostalgia is a really an odd phenomenon, it’s just a trick our minds play on us, false memory syndrome for the most part. I think my nostalgia is for the time that I knew that if I wanted to I could drive a few hundred kilometers and be in the lovely Natal Midlands in just a few hours, though that never actually happened on a whim like that. Of course the Midlands are not all that lovely in all of its parts, hidden in the hills are thousands of hopeless shanty settlements where possibly millions of people live lives mired in poverty and sometimes tribal violence. The reality of the other side of the African coin.

 Shades of Natal Midlands 

Anyway, as I get close to Barrie I drag my mind back to the task at hand and decide to take Highway 400 north through the city, past my Alma Mater (Georgian College weekend M1 exit motorcycle license course) and up to Horseshow Valley and Craighurst. I make a mental note to register for the M2 exist course, I’d like to do it this spring. It was my intension to do the course last summer, but the episode with the Suzuki Boulevard and the steel barrier got in my way  http://not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2015/08/death-of-boulevard.html, at the time the incident freaked me out a little more than I cared to admit.  I am over that, I still like to go fast now and then, but I don’t take a corner faster than am confident to do so. I have, however, improved on my cornering and maybe even have regained confidence beyond the Boulevard crash point, certainly the KLR is a much more maneuverable bike.

The short stretch on Highway 400 is fun once the City of Barrie is in the rear view mirrors and road works are behind me. The pavement is in super condition on this stretch, nicely redone in the past year or two. The KLR has no problem doing highway speeds and I can totally hold my own in the motorway traffic, surprisingly going from 120 km/h to 130 to overtake takes only a couple of seconds, more to the surprise of the motorists than to me.  This is actually quite a gutsy little machine, it would totally smoke the V-twin 900 cc Kawasaki Vulcan, the first motor cycle I owned. It does, however, burn oil at sustained speeds over 120 km/h so I try to avoid long distances on the motorway, but the odd 30 or 40 kilometer stretch playing a bit of Russian roulette in the high-speed motorway traffic just adds to the excitement of being alive. There is a line from the movie ‘The World’s Fastest Indian’ where Burt Monro (Antony Hopkins) says that he lives more in five minutes riding his motorcycle flat out than most people manage to live in a lifetime.

I’m not trying to break any land speed records, but I do get what he is talking about, the feeling of pushing the envelope, that’s what is so alluring about riding a motorcycle. I’m certainly not looking for death, but I have reached the age when I have realized that immortality is not an option, actually if it were to be available it would not necessarily be a good option, so if my end were to come riding my bike that would be acceptable. My children have reached the age that they are, or should, be independent, I would be missed I’m sure, but nobody will go hungry as a result of my demise. The one thing I worry about is getting into an accident that leaves me seriously impaired, mentally or physically, much rather I be a total write off.

On that depressing note I take the turn-off to Craighurst and Horseshoe Valley. This is where I did the one day course last year on off-road/dirt bike riding with Clinton Smout (see http://not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2015/09/on-and-offthe-road-that-is.html ). This really is a lovely area to ride through, but first things first, I am starving now and a stop at Loobies Restaurant in Craighurst is in order. This is a place worth stopping at and spending more than the 45 minuets I have budget for. Last year Clinton bought me a coffee and slice of strawberry rhubarb pie at the end of the course at Loobies. Today I order the Canadian hamburger, sans the bun, with creamy coleslaw, I’m still eating low carb. They serve this on a bed of lettuce and tomato, beef patty, cheddar cheese and bacon, very, very tasty and the coleslaw is delicious… the coffee is not too shabby for a place like this, especially with a good helping of cream.

After lunch I follow Horseshoe Valley Road, aka Simcoe County Road 22 in an easterly direction until 5^th Line N, which I follow south. The sign says ‘Rough Road’ and they are not kidding, this is the type of road the KLR was designed for, gravel, very loose and plenty of soft sand, steep up and down hills. Enough to get the feeling of adventure touring, without really adventure touring, it’s nice. I see there are lots of trails around here where OTRF (Ontario Trail Riders Federation) members are allowed to ride – I haven’t renewed my membership for this year, mainly because I found that I didn’t really ride the trails very much. I like to ride the gravel roads, but the hard core trail riding is just not for me, perhaps had I started doing trail riding when I was much younger the bug might have bitten, right now I find it a little too energetic for my taste. I probably ride 95% on pavement, I need to figure out more routes that include more gravel, at least so that I can justify the semi knobblies I have on the bike.

5th Line N

This area is nicely forested with a mix of evergreen and deciduous, the deciduous trees have not yet got their spring leaves so the forest maintains a bare sort of beauty. I’ve said before that spring is the ugliest season in Southern Ontario, at least until the leaves appear and the ferns and flowers erupt from the earth. However, I have to admit when you are inside a forest different standard prevails – it remains lovely through all seasons, just the nature of the lovely is different. Slightly to the north of here is the Copeland Forest, though I have seen it from Highway 400, I haven’t yet been there.  I believe that it is really gorgeous, a small piece of the deep woods that remains from the great forest that blanketed the entire eastern side of this continent. It’s a popular place for walking trails, bird watching, horse trails and riding mountain bikes, I don’t believe you can ride a motor cycle there, but that’s ok with me, we need tranquil places that anyone can go to and commune a bit with nature is peace and quiet. The forest I’m riding through seems to be partly Simcoe County forest and privately owned land. I notice that there are Skidoo trails here… mmm maybe I should consider that for a winter thing to do.

All too soon the gravel road ends at the intersection of 5^th line and Bass Lake Side Road, it’s paved from there on to where it meets up with Lake Simcoe. I turn left, there are a few nice little twisties on this road before it ends in a T-Junction and I make my way south to Old Barrie Road and through the small city of Orillia. Orillia is the second largest city on the shores of Lake Simcoe, not a very large city I will grant you, but a city nonetheless with a population over 30,000 and growing. I always fancied that it must have been named after some or other hot Iberian babe, but apparently ‘orillia’ just means ‘lakeshore’. Which is not a bad name for a city that borders on two lakes, Simcoe and Couchiching. There is evidence that this area has been settled by humans for at least 4,000 years, with the setting of fish traps in the narrows between these two lakes as the main attraction for settlements here. In fact, it is this narrows that the name Toronto comes from, which was the original name for Lake Simcoe, so perhaps Orillia has the real rights to this name. Of course the Indians that last held sway over this point on these waterways are no longer here, they, or their descendants are instead running a casino a few kilometers to the north on the east shores of Lake Couchiching - Casino Rama where some idiots regularly pour a decent proportion of the bi-monthly income into slot machines.

As I cross over the narrows and join up with the Trans-Canadian Highway I see that both lakes are well and truly thawed, ice fishing is done, normal fishing and boating activities are well underway. Oh yes, I like it. I may well be a man for all seasons, but bring on summer!  

It’s getting late so I stick to the main routes and I’m home in an hour and a half, in time walk the dogs and enjoy a sundowner on the deck, albeit with a thick sweater on.

BTW – follow me on Twitter

https://twitter.com/notso_easyrider

Deep South

It’s Wednesday and Mike is attending to his course with Gulf Stream and I’m going to find out what this baby really can do. Actually that’s just a joke, I don’t think I have quite got the cojones to take this Harley to the limit. Yesterday before I met up with Mike I did a stretch on the I95 and rode at 90 mph, about 144 km/h, I could feel that there were still plenty of horses available in the store. Taking my KLR 650 up to the max is a little scary as well, not because it’s so fast, but because at 140 km/h, which is about the most one can expect to get from it, it no longer feels terribly stable, the bike is just not heavy enough. The Harley Davidson Softail Heritage is plenty heavy enough so stability isn’t an issue, it’s just that it vibrates like crazy. This seems to be a Harley thing; I have experienced this with Helena’s 883 Sportster, but thought that it was something that just the Sportster did at anything over 110 km/h, but even the Softail gets the shakes at about the same speed. I mean really it shakes, like enough to loosen the ancient amalgam in my back teeth. Even the single cylinder KLR is a smoother ride, I’m no mechanic, but I suspect this is because the engine is air cooled, which is less effective than liquid, hence the design allows for a little more play in the moving parts than is the case for a liquid cooled machine.

The big Harley parked  outside my the hotel

The gal at the Harley dealership – hardly a gal I suppose, she is at least my age and then a few – that did the rental for me gave me a few routes that I could try. Just some Google maps printed out, very simple, probably took someone an hour or so to do, but hey, what a fabulous thing to do. I’m not from around here and they know the good routes to ride, it’s great that they thought to do it. That is something that one just has to hand to Harley Davidson, if I ever bought a Harley it would be less to do with the bike and more to do with the service. Helena, and even I, always get treated like long lost buddies or family when we go to Barrie Harley Davidson, the dealership where she bought her bike. Sure they do it to sell bikes, but it’s still nice.

I chose the ‘Millen Loop’ route that will take me inland, I’m keen to see the Deep South, warts, guys in bedsheets and all. Whereas there may well be many rednecks that are backward, bigoted and inbred, my travels in the southern states so far have not revealed a great many of this type of person. On the contrary, the friendliest and nicest Americans, both black and white that I have come across have been encountered in the southern states. This may well be because I have so far mostly only visited the more sophisticated spots, seaside Florida, Hilton Head, Charleston and Savannah hardly qualify as the deep south. Anyway, from my hotel in mid-town Savannah I head south on Abercorn Street, which seems to be the road that divides Savannah into east and west sides. Abercorn Street is also Highway 204, which swings west as you reach the outskirts of Savannah. Loads of construction on the road and my progress is a little delayed, I tap into the power of the big Harley and do some skillful maneuvering to get past the obstruction much faster than my four wheeled fellow travelers, it is the advantage of this mode of transport, I feel their chagrin as I sail past and into the sunlit uplands of the open road.  Under the I95 and past the Harley dealership, zoom do I. There is a smile on my face; it’s March break, I’m free, it’s warm and I’m riding a great motorcycle on a road I’ve not ridden before – what more can a chap reasonably ask for?     

After going under the I95 the road changes name to Fort Argyle Road, but keeps the Highway 204 identity there are some nice gentle twistiness through some pine plantations and natural forests. It’s pleasant, but no real match for the more beautiful forests of the north where I hale from. One can just imagine what this continent must have looked like a mere 500 years ago, before Homo European Destructus had completely tamed and exploited it. It’s not that I believe in the well debunked ideal of the virtues of the noble savage - it is reasonably well proved that the arrival of the ancestors of today’s First Nations in the New World spelt extinction for the mega fauna of two continents – however the ignoble savage certainly was lighter on the ecology than western civilization. What I am talking about is a lost world that we only get to glimpse from the remnants and so imagine the great forests and endless grass plains that once was this continent.  Sadly, most human beings don’t even think about what we have lost, we are too busy working to feed our consumerism or concerning ourselves with the doings and screwings of the rich and famous and other trivial shit.

As I travel further from Savannah I notice that the level of apparent prosperity declines, not marginally, but rather sharply. It doesn’t take many miles to be right in the boonies and the quality of the housing drops like a stone. I have remarked on this disparity in the USA before, but it still surprises me that the biggest economy and most powerful country on earth has such a level of wealth inequality. Mike said to me that he thinks that Americans value personal independence above anything else, hence socialistic ideals of social equality, redistribution of wealth, universal health care and so on have never really caught on. Personally I think the poor have bought into the myth of the American dream and have swapped an acceptable standard of living for a one in a hundred thousand chance of becoming a George Clooney.  The middle class is no less delusional, but this problem is more universal, we have sold our souls and waking hours to the capitalists for the dubious privilege of buying and owning what is mostly unnecessary rubbish. Oh, how I would love to be free, to spend my days riding a motorcycle and my evenings writing about it, but sadly that is not my life and these moments are rare and snatched, my soul, like everyone else’s, is forfeit.

There is another phenomenon that I notice. No matter how grubby and poor the housing in the small settlements I encounter along the way, there is no shortage of churches. Honestly, I have never seen so many churches for so few houses before. I’ve discovered that there are more varieties of Baptists than even Heinz could cope with. Also the churches are always way nicer looking than the homes, I pass one sign outside a church for some or other flavor of Baptist, ‘Pastor appreciation week – give generously’. I wonder whose bright idea that was? It seems to my cynical mind that the only business that’s doing well out here is the God business. Maybe it makes sense, if you are poor and living in squalid circumstances, you have limited education and opportunities out in the boonies are almost non-existent, then the promise that God will see to it that you have an eternity of good things in the next life must be very appealing. Of course this is one of the means by which the haves have kept the have-nots in their place for millennia. Oh well perhaps it’s more pleasant to live with hope, that may be delusional, than no hope at all.

I take a right where Highway 204 ends with a T-junction with US Highway 208, which feels like I’m going the wrong way, but I have confidence in the map I’m following, and indeed it is just a short while before I’m heading North West again on Eldora Road. A nice quiet, but sadly straight as a die, road. I pass some scraggly looking cotton fields; I am guessing they look scraggly because it is the time of year, probably early spring is not the best time to look at a cotton field. One cannot but think about the history of this industry in this part of the world, and shake your head in wonder. The American Civil War officially ended in 1865, so that would be a good date to use as the definitive end of official slavery in the USA. This is 151 years ago; it is about two life times past – which means that there are still people alive today whose grandparents were born into slavery. I know that perceptions of morality have a lot to do with the prevailing zeitgeist, but I believe that for one human being to own another is the most immoral thing in relative and absolute terms. It is difficult to get one’s head around the fact that this practice was only finally abandoned by this nation, whose foundational values was supposedly liberation of the individual, a mere 151 years ago. It is also interesting to note what the the ancient texts, that so many people believe provide our moral compass, have to say on the subject – the Koran positively endorses and encourages slavery, and the Bible, both Old and New Testaments makes no negative moral judgement on the issue, God clearly has no issue with the practice.

As I turn off Eldora road to Old River Road I’m starting to get quite hungry. I deliberately didn’t eat breakfast in my hotel room, it has a bar fridge where I have some ham, cheese and hard boiled eggs, because I fancied to find a little rustic diner somewhere and have fried eggs, bacon and maybe try some grits for bnreakfast. I have in my mind the scene from the movie ‘My Cousin Vinny’ where Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei have breakfast and taste grits for the first time. To this point I have not passed any place that is remotely what I have in mind since leaving the city limits of Savannah. Grits, by the way, for the benefit of my ‘mieliepap’ eating readers in Africa, is just roughly ground white corn (maize) made into a porridge, it’s ok, but Africans have more and tastier ways of cooking this staple.  Old River Road is a pleasant road to ride, the blacktop is in pretty decent shape, as is the case with most roads in the USA, there is not much traffic and the scenery is a nice mix of farmland and forest, albeit absent of diners and infested with churches. I believe the ‘River’ in ‘Old River Road’ is a reference to the Ogeechee River which it runs parallel to, but not close enough to ever actually get a glimpse of it. I’ve crossed this river a few times earlier in the day and yesterday on my way down to Brunswick, it meanders across the coastal plains to eventually meet the ocean about twenty odd miles south of Savannah. Ogeechee must have an American Indian origin, some cursory research doesn’t reveal exactly what, but it does have a really great sound when you pronounce it… try it.

Ogeechee River

It’s getting on to noon and the emptiness in my stomach is now making itself felt and still I haven’t spotted a rustic diner, or anywhere else that promises a decent meal – I decide to take a detour from the mapped out route and turn left down Highway 24, a slightly more substantial road in the hope of finding something. I’m also running a little low on gas, not dangerously so yet, however I have noticed that the v-twin 103 cubic inch (about 1700 cc) machine is a lot greedier on gas than my KLR’s 650 cc single and when you reach a certain point on the gauge the remaining gas seems to drop at an alarming rate. It turns out that my instinct is spot on and at the intersection of Clito Road there is a gas station and a Zip-n-Foods, not exactly the rustic diner, but I have dropped my standards due to hunger pangs.  Zip-n-Foods is more like a convenience store with a few Formica covered tables. The breakfast menu is no longer available, but they have hot trays of battered fried pork chops, Southern fried chicken pieces and stir fried rice. I opt for three large pieces of Southern fried chicken, two huge breasts and a generous thigh, served to me in a Styrofoam container with plastic knife and fork, which I do not bother with. Mm, mm, mm, the Colonel should retire, I have never tasted fried chicken quite as delicious as this. Seriously, the batter is just perfect in the balance between crisp and oily, with a nice little explosion of spiced oil as you bite into it, then the meat is tender, moist, tasty and cooked just enough. I wash it down with a bottle of Diet Coke and it feels like I have eaten at the Ritz. The funny thing is the place is run by Indians, not the North American kind, the Asian variety, and like all people that I have encountered in the Southern states they are friendly and helpful, and clearly have figured out fried chicken. I have just one complaint, the gas station only has 87 octane which is not really suitable for the motorcycle, my hosts advise that I’ll find a gas station back on the Old River Road not too far that sells premium grade gas.

Zip-n-Foods - home of great fried chicken

And so it turns out, stomach full and gas tank full I proceed on Old River Road which eventually becomes Old Savannah Road, then north on US 25 to the small town of Millen, hence the name that Harley Davidson gave to the route. From Millen it’s Highway 17 to the town of Wadley. Wadley is the most north-westerly point of the route. The route is basically a right angled triangle and Wadley is the endpoint of the hypotenuse. As we all learned in grade 5 math, although the squares of the other two sides together are equal to the square of the hypotenuse, the sum of actual lengths of the other two sides is greater than the hypotenuse, hence at Wadley I am less than half way, even though it’s already 2 in the afternoon. I have arrangements to meet Mike at 4.30. I text and arrange a later time. We are planning an early dinner in Savannah – sushi.  I actually don’t expect to be too late, from Wadley it’s motorway and main roads home. US 1 directly south is a dual carriageway motorway and the traffic speed is well over 80 mph which the Harley does with ease, albeit at the expense of jellied eyes and loosened dental amalgam. At the town of Lyons, I take US 280 east which eventually merges with Highway 204 which is, as mentioned earlier, none other than Abercorn Street, which is pretty much where my hotel is. I’m home in time for a shower and change before Mike fetches me for dinner.

As I put the finishing touches to this post, it is several weeks later. I am back in Canada, and sadly back in winter. It has been a very grey Sunday and I’m looking out of the window to the back garden that is covered in a light dusting of snow. I really miss the sunny and warm Georgian spring that I was able to experience for a short time. Frankly I miss Georgia and South Carolina.  Mike and I visited, by car, Hilton Head, Charleston and Tybee Island. What a fabulous part of the world, I will definitely like to ride down to the area on my bike sometime, I suspect that autumn is the time to do it, summer may well be too hot.

I managed one short ride since getting back, but then the polar vortex paid us a visit. For now, it looks like the riding season is delayed for a few weeks, it seems that Wiarton Willie, the Ontario groundhog, got it wrong.  

BTW – follow me on Twitter:

@notso_easyrider

Hilton Head - South Carolina 

Charleston - South Carolina  

Tybee Island - Georgia 

Savannah Georgia USA

It was 1974 or there about, the Age of Aquarius had already dawned, those of us boys that could wore our hair long, the rest of us were envious. I fell into the envious group, still at school and subject to school rules, an inch above the collar and no lock to touch the ears, my standing in the cool group was at an all-time low. I attended a strict boarding school, bit of a borstal in fact, that brooked no shit at all, beatings were as regular as clockwork and more often than not administered by a prefect. Happily getting buggered was not… it was not that sort of school.  Mike, on the other hand suffered from none of these drawbacks, he had long blond hair that hung down to his shoulders, was gainfully employed, owned a car and a motorcycle. He was also my elder sister’s boyfriend, the coolest guy I knew and a definite departure from the bad choices in men my sister had been exercising up to that point in time. The motorcycle was indeed the quintessential bike of the era, a 650 cc Triumph Bonneville that he had built up from a scrapped bike with love, care and attention to detail. It was the sort of machine that, had he kept it, would have been worth a small fortune to a serious collector today. It was the first bike that I ever rode on, passenger only, I hung onto that pillion for dear life as Mike carved through the twisties of the Magaliesburg Mountains on a breakfast run one Sunday morning during a school holiday.

Mike - still a cool guy

Today, forty odd years later Mike is still a cool guy and still has more hair than I have, which does not say much because I’m a natural bald – to be honest his is considerably thinner and wispier than the long blonde locks of yore. He and my sister were married before I finished high school and shortly after that happy event they moved to Hong Kong. We have spent most of our adult lives with only sporadic contact, sometimes years have passed with no more than a telephone conversation or two. Many, many gallons of water have passed under the bridge since that breakfast run in the Magaliesburg Mountains, but finally I get to repay the favor. Circumstances have brought us to the same continent and time zone for a few weeks, so we decided to meet-up in Savannah Georgia, which is how, right now, he is riding behind me on the passenger seat of a rented Harley Davidson Softail Heritage.

You can say whatever you like about Harley Davidson, but if you are going to ride two-up on a motorcycle and you are two sizable guys, a large Harley is definitely the bike to do it on. The stock Harley 103 cubic inch v-twin motor has enough torque to plow a corn field and plenty of horses, so there is absolutely no problem with the hardware we are riding. The software is perhaps not quite as good as it once was and mounting the bike for both of us is an inelegant affair, I had to take care not to kick Mike in the balls as I contorted myself to get my leg over the saddle whilst minimizing the pain in my (slightly) arthritic hips .The first few slow maneuvers  to get onto the route, which includes doing a few U-turns, are admittedly quite ropey, getting used to a different center of gravity takes a bit of practice, but as soon as we get going and the power of the bike puts me in control, I start to feel more confident and comfortable. Not only does the Softail deliver considerable brute force and the sheer amount of steel gives it stability, it really is a high spec machine – ABS brakes, cruise control, fuel gauge as well as miles to empty indicator. On the comfort side the seat is as easy on the ass as any seat I’ve ridden on, Mike claims that the passenger seat is not too bad either, but perhaps he is just saying that to make me feel better about his ordeal, and it does have a backrest. The bike has a pair of roomy black leather panniers that on this trip are nearly empty, but would be very useful on a longer trip, or if I owned this machine I’d fill them with the junk I like to carry on a ride. Thank goodness it of course does have a windshield; I am a total whoopsy where windshields are concerned – it is a must have. The suspension is excellent and despite the weight hasn’t bottomed out over any of the bumps we have traversed, oh yes, no false neutrals, not a single one – I really like that. This actually is a very easy bike to ride.   

The first few miles are not entirely what you would call picturesque, it is typical of the outskirts of any North American city, even one as lovely as Savannah, cookie cutter strip malls, car dealerships and ugly warehousing. We are heading south down USA highway 17 to Jekyll Island, just south of Brunswick. Mike is doing a course at the Gulf Steam facility in Savannah which has kept him occupied until two in the afternoon which is why I’ve chosen a route that I expect will get us home before nightfall. Fortunately, the scenery improves quite quickly, soon we are riding through marshy plains. Rivers, both small and large meander through the marches that are covered in tall reeds or grasses. I assume that as summer gets going these will change from grey to green, which probably improves the view... still it is pleasing enough on the eye. The Savannah River traverses just such plains on its route from Savannah Harbor to the Atlantic Ocean, so when you look across the plain to a ship sailing up the river you get the illusion of a ship sailing through the reeds. The route we are on, however, is more the province of small pleasure craft and we pass several little lakes with boat houses and jetties. This is not an area that I would gladly take a swim in and definitely wouldn’t walk the Dachshund through, I suspect that it is well and truly infested with ‘gators. Not that I have any issue with alligators, they were here long before us so I wish them well, will not buy shoes made from their skins, but I will give them a considerable wide berth.

The road is very straight, it’s a bit disappointing as there are so few twisties, but that is the nature of the area, it is flat so when engineers build roads there is no motivation to add a bunch of curves, a lamentable tendency not to consider the motorcycle fun factor and focus only on the cost of building the road. As a break from the marshy reed plains we do get to ride through some forest. There are a lot of pine plantations, but some patches of deciduous forest remain. Here the new leaves are making a light green appearance. It is mid-March, at least six weeks ahead of the schedule that the forests of Southern Ontario are following, but then it is 26 degrees Celsius here and people are wearing shorts and T-shirts, back home it is still overcoat weather.

We make our first stop in the little town of Eulonia at the Piggly Wiggly, yes for all the fans of ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ not privileged to visit the South, there actually is a chain of grocery stores called Piggly Wiggly. We park under a massive oak tree, liberally hung with Spanish moss, dismount with all the dignity we managed when getting on, and buy a couple of Coke Zeros and sugar free Red Bulls which we suck down our patched throats – it has been a warm afternoon ride so far.  Next stop Jekyll Island.

Piggly Wiggly and Oak tree we parked under 

 View from Piggy Wiggly

It isn’t long before we pass through the western side of Brunswick, not hugely attractive with the main feature being a large factory with a smoke stack that belches a constant belch of white smoke, it smells like a paper mill, but I’m not quite sure. I know that the town has a whole lot more to offer, with pretty squares in an old town center and the several islands attached to it are serious tourist attractions, but that smelly smoke stack does detract form it’s many virtues.  A short way beyond the town we cross over a lovely graceful suspension bridge. Americans certainly know how to build bridges and as you know, if you have been following this blog, that I love bridges, especially suspension bridges. This one is a decent height to allow for shipping to reach the Port of Brunswick a few miles inland along the oddly named ‘Fancy Bluff Creek’ which is no mere creek at all, but a sizable piece of water. We get a glimpse of a great view as we cross, but there is just no place to stop. Memo to bridge building engineers, would it add that much to the cost to make a few lookout points where a chap can stop and admire the view and your brilliant work?  Shortly after crossing the bridge we turn right to Jekyll Island.

Along the USA Highway 17 

There is a $6 toll to get in which is fine, only we are not planning to stay long, possibly just long enough to have an early supper before heading back the way we came. I’m not entirely sure what I had hoped to find, perhaps something a little more rustic, maybe a seaside village like Tybee on Tybee Island close to Savannah, with little greasy spoon diners, bistros and shops that sell beach crap like belly boards, postcards and flip flops – I like that sort of thing though I wouldn’t actually buy that stuff. Instead Jekyll Island is very upmarket, manmade and a little clinical, it’s nice for sure, but just not what we are looking for. We stop and take walk around, mosey onto the beach which is pretty empty. 

Tybee Island 

Best T-shirt ever - don't know why I didn't buy it

Mike mentions that he spotted an interesting place a few miles before the bridge that we could have supper at, it sounds like the sort of place that would suit my mood. The Marshside Grill turns out to be a pleasant, busy, noisy place that serves good food at reasonable prices. I have fish and chips, which is grouper, washed down with copious glasses of diet coke, no Scotch for me, no sir, not while riding a motorcycle. We eat inside, although there is a verandah overlooking a river which looks pleasant, already the midges are becoming a nuisance, I bet the mosquitoes here are something awful in summer. While we eat I notice that the sun is setting at an alarming rate so chivvy the proceedings along a bit. I want to minimize the distance that we will ride in the dark.  It’s the critters I’m worried about, nocturnal forest animals, I’m not sure if skunks are common here, but I’m sure raccoons and coyotes are plentiful. Hitting one of these creatures would probably undo us in a spectacular way. The wrath of my elder sister for returning Mike in a less than pristine condition does not bear thinking about.

In the end I drop Mike off at his hotel in one piece, we rode the last third of the distance in the dark, but without incident. I ride the final few miles to my hotel, a little closer to downtown Savannah, but still outside the area that would be classified as the historic center of town. I’m booked into a crappy Days Inn hotel/motel and lucky to be there, Savannah is busting at the seams with visitors. This is March break and St. Patrick’s day week to boot. Savannah is the second most popular city for this drunken street party in America, second only to Chicago, apparently bigger even than Boston, this is a piss-up that goes on all week. I wonder what St. Patrick, a sober character by all accounts, would have thought about this boozy annual celebration in his name that takes place more than a millennium and a half after his death, on a continent that hadn’t even been imagined by the Irish people he had supposedly converted to Christianity. I guess most of what he is thought to have done is more modern myth than real history, certainly he did not banish snakes from Ireland and did no better than anyone else to shoehorn a polytheistic doctrine into a monotheistic mold…. and he wasn’t even Irish at all. 

Party gearing up for lift off - time to get outa there - River Street Savannah,  St Patrick's Day week  

El Niño

El Niño, in case you don’t know, is a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific in a cyclical pattern that effects weather patterns all over the world. In South Africa where I grew up, El Niño meant drought and very hot summers, it still does, and this year is one of the driest and hottest on record, I can believe it, I felt it when I was visiting a few weeks ago. I believe that here in Canada the strong El Niño contributed to the wet fall and so far mild winter, and to a small, but gratefully received Christmas present for me. Yup, you guessed it, I’m spending my Christmas afternoon riding the KLR instead of sleeping off too much turkey. Thank you Jesus…in case you also didn’t know the term El Niño refers to the Christ Child.

Since the Muskoka trip I have indeed not managed to do any longish rides, but finished off the season with a few pleasant local rides… a loop through Terra Nova, few times to Port Perry via Uxbridge, once around Lake Simcoe, a few times to Musselman’s Lake near Stouffville and a loop or two through Zephyr and Udora. All together I guess I have managed about 14,000 Km this season, about half on the late and lamented Boulevard and half on the KLR. The accident in the middle of the season sort of put a kybosh on my plans to do a cross continent ride, so maybe that’s on the cards for next year, we shall see how things turnout.

Near to Terra Nova - one of the last rides in the fall. 

Anyway, just before leaving for South Africa for the brief visit, I decided to winterize the bikes in the reasonable expectation of icy cold weather laced with snow and the occasional ice rain storm.  Previously Helena and I had stored our bikes at Barrie Harley Davidson, but this year we decided on a DIY job and save us the $600. There is more to the decision than a bit of Scots canniness, it goes with my decision to take personal control over at least the basics of the maintenance. A few moments with Google and I knew what the procedure was, and a trip up to Royal Distributors to buy a few bits and bobs and I was ready. I gave the KLR a full service, including oil change, new oil filter, spark change and doohickey reset and Helena’s Harley got a similar treatment. Filled up gas and added fuel stabilizer, cleaned both bikes, oiled the KLR chain, wiped all exposed metal parts with a clean oily rag, hooked up drip charges to the batteries and put dust covers over the bikes. To keep them warm I put the bikes on rubber mats and switched on the cheap electric oil radiator, I’d purchased from Walmart, to a low heat setting.

Winterized bikes, the camo motif is a bit much, but if I ever need to hide away in a forest... 

I felt ready for the cold that quite frankly hasn’t yet descended. Sure we have had a few days of sub-zero temperature, Fairy Lake (the little artificial lake that is the center piece of the park close to my home) has achieved a skin of ice for the odd few days and there has been a dusting of snow a couple of times, but honestly there has been nothing to write home about. Even the Canada geese are still hanging around, they really should have deserted us by now. Not that I am complaining, the Canadian winter is not the prime reason I live here, but it is odd that it has so far been largely absent, worrying a bit actually. I know that this is an El Niño effect, but I am sure that the effect is magnified by the worsening global climate change. Last week I saw a video of a lake that slid over a cliff, I kid you not, the lake slid down a hill and disintegrated over a cliff, this was somewhere in northern Canada where the permafrost has recently become a little less permanent and so trees topple over and lakes fall over cliffs.  I don’t need any more convincing that our species is driving the mother of all extinction events on this planet, and our species won’t survive that. I don’t think that we should abandon efforts to prevent the cataclysm, but I harbor a strong doubt that we can stop it. Our problem is that there are just too many people and too much greed and I am as bad as the next guy. I have begun to think that this planet will be so much better off when the last human has breathed its last breath.

That all said, it’s Christmas day and it’s 8 degrees centigrade and almost wind still, so I have pulled the cover off the KLR, unhooked the battery charger, double socked, put on the Kevlar jeans, mesh jacket scarf, bright green wind resistant rain gear, boots and so on.  The sausage dogs look at me in wonder and doubt, nothing would lodge them from the sensible thing they are doing ‘ballasbak’ in front of the fire. ‘Ballasbak’ means baking your balls, or taking it easy, not that they actually have balls after a visit to the vet a few years back.  

Ballasbak

Merry bloody Christmas and off I go. I head west into the watery sun, it’s barely past midday, but the sun is low in the sky and all the shadows it casts are long and have an eeriness to them. The village of Kettleby is as quiet as a church on Tuesday morning, in front of some of the houses there are groups of cars parked, I guess that ham and turkey feasting is going on inside, but outside nothing stirs, just me riding through. Pottageville is the same and Schomberg, if possible is even quieter, its many restaurants are all closed – weird I would have thought that there is at least some demand to be fed commercially rather than bother with all that cooking. My family have given up on all that, too much effort, which is why I’m able to be where I am instead of stuffing my face with the obligatory festive fare, yay freedom.

From Schomberg I go north, following dirt roads in the general direction of Cookstown. I am contemplating going through the forest area around Terra Nova, but I notice that the temperature is dropping quite noticeably the further north I go. Just past Cookstown I chicken out and decide to go south again, I aim for Beeton via dirt roads. Beeton is a repeat of all the other villages, dead as a doornail, I turn west again, Loretto then Hockley Village. Now that I’m on a well-travelled motorcycle route it is evident that I’m not the only dude taking advantage of the day, not nearly as many bikes out on this road as you will see in summer, but a lot more than I would have thought for a winter day, we do the wave rather more enthusiastically than normal, it’s a ‘what the fuck we are actually riding today’ sort of wave.

Green Christmas 

Long eerie shadows, just past noon 

This, as I have said before, is a terrific road to ride and the watery sunlight, relative cold and general bleakness of the scenery takes nothing from the pleasure of carving through those bends. By the time I get to Orangeville it is almost 4.p.m and the sun is seriously low, shining right into my eyes, and the temperature is falling fast. I have started to lose feeling in my fingers and toes, toes isn’t an issue, but I’m worried about the fingers, I still need to use them to get home, the case for heated grips or gloves is made abundantly clear. I turn around and head home the way I came, weaving through Hockley Valley Road, now with the setting sun at my back. At Highway 10, Airport Road, I decide to go south to Highway 9 to get home quicker, but end up unable to resist a small detour along Coolihans Side Road, if ever I manage to buy that small holding this is where I would like to buy. Back on Highway 9 I ride like the demons of hell are just behind me, which in a sense they actually are, assholes in large pick-up trucks that drive like the road belongs to them. I’m home before dark, but it takes a painful half hour for the fingers and toes to thaw.

Hockley Valley Road Christmas day 2015 

Tomorrow I’ll re-winterize the KLR, I suspect that this was the last ride of 2015. No doubt the Canadian winter will arrive soon and we’ll be having to cope with a few feet of snow. This is the last post for the year, and I may not post again until the spring. 

The Screaming Heads of Muskoka

I cannot believe that I have got so far behind with this blog, sorry, sorry, sorry… real life has got in the way. Since the last post I have spent a week in South Africa, with an additional 70 hours of flying and transit time, and the climax of a very busy project at work. Bum excuses I know, but true nonetheless. The trip to South Africa was wonderful and perhaps I’ll write about it in due course, if only to dispel the winter blues that are coming my way.  The trip included a few profoundly proud moments for a parent, I watched my daughter present her absolutely fabulous fashion collection on the runway and graduate with a BA in Fashion Design. Man, do they grow up so fast, the years speed by so quickly, it was only yesterday that I held her tiny body in my hands and rocked her to sleep. Anyway allow me to cycle back in time to mid-fall and the trip to Muskoka.

 

Paying a visit to the Screaming Heads has been on my bucket list ever since hearing about them a few years ago. I recall after seeing pictures of these sculptures for the first time, thinking that these heads are protesting something, something about the way we are ‘managing’ things. It turns out that I was right, artist Peter Camani, an ex-school teacher has created these sculptures and opened his farm to the public to view them in an attempt to protest against the environmental degradation we humans visit upon the planet in the pursuit of the good life as defined by Walmart et al. I get it completely, sometimes I feel that I can scream along with them.  I guess that if things carry on the way they are heading there will come a day when we will all be screaming and not in protest, but in real anguish when everything of consequence goes tits up thanks to our consumerism. I must admit to not knowing the answers, but I do know that current received wisdom is driving us, lemming like, over the abyss. I know that the western ideal of rampant unchecked capitalism is as flawed a system as central planning. I know that when CEOs of companies earn salaries north of a million dollars a year (in some cases many times that) or people can spend a million dollars on as frivolous a thing as a wedding celebration, whist millions of people starve, there really is something that stinks about the way things are organized.  I know that as long as the system can only function if there is constant growth and rewards cost cutting at the expense of the environment or at the comfort of our fellow creature (calves in feedlots, broiler chickens, pigs in factory farms, wild animals deprived of habitat and so on) we will doom our own species to a horrible end. 

On a more cheerful note, it is a gorgeous morning and despite the efforts of the employees of CN (for the benefit of non-Canadians, CN is The Canadian National Railway Company), I am feeling pretty good (see http://www.not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2015/10/planes-trains-and-motorcycles.html). I have a decent ride ahead of me for the day and that is always guaranteed to make me cheerful. I wipe the KLR down with a cloth I brought along for just that, drying off the dew, and I carry out the daily safety inspection. I've learned to do that before setting out on a longish ride, I know one should always do it, but I must admit to not being quite as fastidious when I’m just doing a short spin. Today the inspection reveals that I am indeed low on engine oil. These motorcycles tend to burn oil when you push them hard, I hadn’t thought that I had done terribly long stretches at 100 km/h plus, but then it is coming up for the next service. My host had mentioned that there is a Canadian Tire service station on the road out of town, for sure they will have the right grade of oil and with a bit of luck they will stock the motorcycle version… memo to me, carry a liter of the stuff in the saddle bags on long rides in the future.

I pack up, settle the modest account and head out, first stop Canadian Tire, fill up gas and top up oil, indeed they carry exactly the oil I want, good ol’ CT. Joseph Street becomes Parry Sound Drive which in turn becomes Highway 124. I go under Highway 400 and follow the 124 for about 8 km, then turn northwards into Lorimer Lakes Road. A few kilometers on the road forks and I take the left fork which goes by the silly name of ‘Bunny Trail’. Silly name, but gorgeous road, the blacktop is in perfect condition and the curves are plentiful and not so tight that you can’t take them at a decent speed. I encounter one heart-stopping moment, the road has no markings, which should not be an issue as drivers are after all supposed to be adults, but one asshole in a big ass truck nearly forces me off the road. I think every motorcyclist has had a few of these moments, I can recall at least three, when suddenly there is a car on your side of the road bearing straight down on you. This particular prick decided that the whole fucking road is his side of the road. I head for the very edge of the pavement and the truck swerves back to where he should have been. The incident is over in perhaps two seconds and as there is nowhere safe to stop and let the adrenaline dissipate, I just carry on, albeit at somewhat of a slower pace and soon settle back into enjoying the ride.  

Bunny Trail

Eventually Bunny Trail meets up with Muskoka Road 520, another great motorcycle road to ride in this lovely county. It’s a reasonable distance to the turnoff to the Screaming Heads, the Lord of the Rings sounding ‘Midlothian Road’. Indeed by the time I reach this point I am getting fairly hungry, but the chance of finding somewhere to eat seems low. The road is pleasantly twisty but not in great condition so I take it easy, which turns out to be a good thing, Midlothian Castle, as the farm is called, is easy to miss. Once in the grounds it is apparent that it is somewhat busier than expected, there is a sort of New Age market on the go, as well as a disk golf tournament. I manage to get a semi-reasonable cup of coffee from a stall that sells organic cookies and such like, but as I have sworn off eating carbs, I give the eats a miss.

Now disc golf is worth a small digression. I am deeply shocked to discover so many adherents in one place, at least 20, and one of them tells me that 100 more are expected, there is a major tournament on the go. For the uninitiated, disc golf is a form of golf played with Frisbees, I kid you not. The players throw Frisbees instead of hitting golf balls and finally toss the thing into a basket at the end of the ‘hole’. There is a park near to where I live that hosts disc golf every Sunday in summer. Every Sunday the baskets are placed out, but I have seen no more than three people actually tossing the Frisbees from tees to greens and into baskets over the past several summers. I never thought that this was an actual sport with actual tournaments, but here in the most unexpected place is a bunch of enthusiastic guys and gals throwing Frisbees and walking around with special bags to hold the discs. Still I suspect that disc golf won’t be an Olympic sport any time soon.

Midlothian Castle is indeed an unexpected place and the screaming heads are something to see, definitely worth a visit if you find yourself in this part of the word. The expression of anguish is so clear it is palpable, they are warning us, but I guess we will just ignore these, like we ignore all the warnings. The heads are not all in the same place, and I wander around to see them, taking care not to get in the way of a Frisbee. I would have liked to have experienced the place with less people around, I think a grey rainy morning with no one about would have been a more appropriate setting, still it was good. I take my leave, wave to the disc golfers I’d been chatting to and head down Midlothian Road the way I came

Midlothian Castle

 Few of the screaming heads 

The Not-so-Easy Rider, picture courtesy of an avid disc golfer

I'd also scream if I had a gong hanging from a nasal orifice 

My route takes me to Burk’s Falls. I’m quite hungry, but don’t want to waste an hour at a restaurant so it’s Tim Hortons and a large coffee with cream that takes the edge off. I take Highway 11 south bound for a few kilometers until turning right onto County Road 518, heading west to Orrville. Another fantastic road to ride a motorcycle on, sweeping curves, excellent pavement and the beauty of Muskoka in the fall.  At Orrville I discover a great little coffee shop / bakery. They serve me a platter of cheese, Salami, olives and ham accompanied by an excellent cup of coffee. There is not much to Orrville so it’s surprising to find something like this there. The baked goods look very tasty, but as I mentioned I have sworn of the carbs to reduce my waistline a bit. While sitting on the veranda having lunch I research using the map app on my phone, I’m looking for some off-the-beaten-track roads to ride, maybe some dirt roads. I decide on a route that will take me south on Star Lake Road, then onto Turtle Lake road, then onto the oddly named Tally Ho Swords Road and end up on Highway 141.

 Orrville Bakery

This turns out to be dirt road most of the way, through some very lovely areas. Lots of lakes and forest (lots of cottages too). The KLR feels sure footed enough on the gravel, but I keep the speed down, don’t go above sixty and take the corners a little like a grandmother. I enjoy the change of pace and the feeling of freedom and adventure, it’s very tame I know, but still, a little way into that dual sport / enduro territory.    

Highway 141 takes me to Highway 400, thirty odd kilometers south of Parry Sound. I have spent the morning riding a loop. It was great fun, but now I head for home, about a two hour ride on the busy as hell highway. It’s the cottage traffic, Sunday afternoon Muskoka empties back into Toronto. I’m sad now, as I know this is the last longish ride of the season, the rainy season is here and winter is approaching and I must winterize the bikes before leaving for South Africa. I’ll still ride a bit for sure, but won’t be venturing far from home.  

Muskoka has beautiful fall colours, but this park around the corner from my home is also stunning

Planes, Trains and Motorcycles

This trip wasn’t really planned, until yesterday I hadn’t even thought about riding, other than maybe a snatched few hours if the weather played ball. It’s been that sort of week, head down and deal with the brown stuff as it comes my way. Yesterday afternoon I lifted my head up and noticed that the weather forecast was looking rather good for the weekend. These weekends with nice weather at this time of year are little gifts bestowed by the gods of weather to the gods of motorbikes, and are ignored at your peril, pissing these celestial beings off can result in constant rain until it starts to snow in November. At any rate that is my story and I will stand by it, which is why I am setting out for a weekend numb-bum shortly before noon on a truly glorious fall day. My original thought had been to leave home at the fart-of-sparrow, but there has been a niggling job that had to be done sooner or later and to my credit I decide to do it, of course I had reckoned on an hour delay, tops – heard that one before?

The caulk-free drain provided as a freebie with the shower I had installed was proving to be a little unsatisfactory, it leaked, and my temporary solution of a bucket beneath the drain in the crawl space, whilst effective, was definitely not a final solution. Continuing with this ersatz arrangement for another few days was tempting, but I needed to get it fixed before it is discovered by other members of the family and my rep goes down the drain, so to speak. My morning activities involved the caulk-free drain getting thoroughly caulked, but only after a monumental struggle to get the bloody thing loose. This involved sawing through PVC drain pipes, and then having to cement the severed pipes back together with joins, after dashing to the nearest Home Depot for the joins and cement. Anyway, I’ll see in due course if my efforts will be rewarded by the gods of plumbing with a leak free showering experience.  Words of wisdom for others that may be installing showers, make the hole in the floor big enough to get your hands in, make sure the thread on the ring is clean and oil it with a drop of baby oil. Oh yes, use a good quality silicon sealer even if the manufacturer claims that you don’t need any caulk at all.

Job done, I spend a half hour poring over Google maps and decide that I’ll ride to Tobermory at the north end of the Bruce Peninsula, find a place to stay, then spend Sunday exploring the area, before riding home. It seems like a good plan, but the little voice in my head tells me that the fall colors will be more spectacular in Muskoka. Of course Maine, Vermont or Adirondack would be the pinnacle, but that requires a bit more time than I have on my hands right now. Still I set out with a route in mind that will take me to Bruce County, however as I reach the turn-off from highway 27 that will take me there, the KLR goes straight, Muskoka it is… more lakes, more forest, more hills and there are still some damn good roads there that I haven’t yet ridden.

Fall colours in Muskoka  

For some distance I trace, going the other way, the route Helena and I took a week ago when we rode up to have lunch in Bracebridge. It’s the homeward route we followed that I am riding now. North on highway 27, then north on highway 400 from Barrie, east on Old Barrie Road, then north again on highway 11. I take my leave of the motorway at Severn Township and follow Muskoka road 13, also known as Southwood Road. This is great, pretty much what I came this way to see, the autumn color festival courtesy of the forest trees. There is a fair amount of evergreen around here, lots of pine, so the reds yellows and orange contrast wonderfully against the green. Sometimes one comes across whole swathes of forest that seem not to be effected in the slightest by the season and are hanging onto summer verdant greens, why these trees are green and not the ones a mile back, same species as far as I can tell… who knows?

Southwood Road with cemetery in the middle of nowhere

The last time I rode this road was with my heavy (see http://www.not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2015/07/bike-shopping.html) in late spring. I am impressed, back then there were considerable stretches that were seriously damaged, now almost all of the bad sections have been resurfaced. It’s a lovely ride, but you can’t take most of these corners at a speed that makes for exhilarating riding, they are just too tight. Fortunately the scenery is so lovely that you actually just want to take it easy, take in the view and smell the hummus, so to speak. After dashing up the motorways at 120 km/h plus, this is a nice change of pace. I relax and get into a pattern of weaving through the non-stop corners going at between forty and sixty, mostly I’m in third or fourth gear and I get to practice leaning on the corners. There are not many places that you can safely stop to take some pictures, but I come across a little cemetery and stop for a photo op. It’s sunny and warm, an absolutely a gorgeous fall day, all the more precious when you know that there are only a few of these left this year and quite possibly no more that fall on a weekend. Living the dream… at least for now.

Southwood Road eventually winds its way to meet up with Highway 169, which I follow north to the picturesque little town of Bala, I stop to stretch my legs and buy a little bottle of Scotch at the local LCBO. For the benefit of readers outside of Canada, LCBO stands for the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, which controls the liquor in Ontario by selling it to anyone over the age of 19 that can pay for it, it is a government controlled monopoly. From my point of view it is a slick, well run business with cheerful, beautifully laid out shops, stocked with booze from the four corners of this world. As

alcohol is an addictive chemical substance, this would make the government of Ontario the biggest pusher in the province. I’m actually ok with the whole idea, at least the profits of this trade are going into a pot that keeps my taxes a bit lower and doesn’t just make some fat cat capitalist even richer, which is exactly what would happen if it were decided to privatize. So I’m all for the LCBO, and must stress that I have grave doubts any private enterprise could do this any better, the LCBO outlets are the very example of retail at its best. Anyway the LCBO at Bala is in complete character with the town, and as I am in an expansive mood I splash out on a half bottle of Glenfiddich Single Malt 12 years old Scotch… yum.

From Bala I carry on with the 169 to Foot’s Bay, then Lake Joseph Road. This is lake country, lots of water, lots of hills and the road takes lovely sweeping curves. This is a great road for riding a motorcycle, the blacktop is in excellent condition, the traffic is light, the scenery is great and you can do a good speed. The sun is getting a little low in the sky so I am glad I am travelling north. Thus time of year riding east or west in the early morning or evening carries the extra danger of getting blinded by the sun, or even worse, the oncoming traffic getting blinded. I am not exaggerating, I have had moments when coming over a rise to suddenly find the sun directly in my eyes and I couldn’t see anything at all except this blinding light, bloody scary. Eventually Lake Joseph Road meets up with Highway 400 and the last few kilometers to Parry Sound pass in a blur of 120 to 130 km/h, high speed indeed for the KLR, but that single cylinder 650 cc carbureted motor seems to be quite up to the job… love this little bike.

Parry Sound is an interesting if not entirely pretty town, on the shores of Lake Huron. It’s a little bit of a gritty town with a gritty past and hasn’t been completely gentrified by ‘cottage money’ from Toronto…I like it, it’s got the feeling of a working class town with few pretensions. The town is a bit of a railway juncture, a good deal of Canadian timber that built the great cities of North America passed through Parry Sound over the last hundred or so years, and as I will reveal, the railway lines are still running (at all hours of the night). I make my way to the waterfront with the intention of finding a pleasant, but inexpensive pension where I might spend the night, preferably with a verandah and a view over the harbor. I assume that there will be dozens of such establishments with plenty of vacant rooms at nicely discount prices…I assume wrong, there is one and it is full, damn. I ask the proprietress to point me in the direction of some other places where I may lay my head down for the night. There is nothing on the waterfront, but there are several motels in town and a Comfort Inn, but she warns me, a touch gleefully, that there is a very big wedding on the go and she thinks that nearly everything is fully booked.  I’m not too worried, if Parry Sound does not have room at an inn for me, I’ll just go elsewhere, it is still a few hours before sunset is complete.

Nonetheless I follow her directions to where the motels are located, it seems they are mostly on Church Street (what town settled by Brits in the Victorian era does not sport a Church street?). Enquires at the first three places come up with blanks, but my persistence pays off on the third place. The Town and Country Motel is not actually on Church Street, it is on Joseph Street, however Church becomes Joseph. The motel is just as the lady from the B&B on the waterfront said, “Just a block after the Dairy Queen”. The way she spoke it was as if DQ is the pinnacle of Parry Sound cuisine, I hope not. There are two rooms left, a smoking room and a non-smoking room, I am surprised that smoking rooms still exist, but snap up the non-smoking room. This is a real motel, but a really nice one. It advertises itself as “clean, quiet and affordable”, and indeed that is exactly what it is. The room is spotless, simply, but nicely furnished and as I said really, really clean. The owner, it turns out, is also a keen motorcyclist and we spend a few moments discussing the joys of riding a steel pony. I notice a few other motorbikes parked in front of the rooms (it’s a motel, you park in front of your room). My room costs about $70 for the night, very inexpensive when you consider there are beds for 5 people, and it has its own bathroom, needless to say spotless as well.  Nowadays you

would think that having its own bathroom is sort of accepted as a given, but as I discovered on the trip to Manitoulin Island earlier this year (see http://www.not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2015/07/wet-wet-wet.html) there are still places that consider that as an extra, an optional luxury, and as you didn’t ask for a bathroom you shouldn’t be surprised by its absence. Anyway no such concern with Town and Country Motel, the bathroom is thrown right in.  So far all is good and as advertised, clean, quiet and fairly priced, I would say cheap, but that word has managed to get a bad press. 

I am about a fifteen to twenty minute walk from the waterfront where I have decided to have dinner, Dairy Queen be damned (actually I would not be caught dead eating at DQ). After an afternoon on the bike, walking feels good. I have of course freshened up with a shower and a change of underwear, but as I have not packed extravagantly, my cleanest dirty shirt and the jeans I wore all day will have to do. I have left the motorcycle jacket in the room and wear a fleecy hoody instead, however, in truth it is almost warm enough for shirt sleeves. Fall is soo unpredictable, can be hot one day and pissing cold the next.

Parry Sound has a very pleasant, if rather quiet little waterfront, a bit short on places to stay as already mentioned, but there are a few pubs and restaurants, with verandahs with nice views. I notice that these establishments are not terribly busy so I spend a few quality minutes wandering about the harbor area, unconcerned that I will not be able to get dinner. There is an actual airline, the Georgian Bay Airlines Ltd. albeit it has just a few Cessna single engine seaplanes, still very romantic. The

Island Queen Cruise ship lies at anchor, I’m not sure that it still operates this late in the season, in season you can book what I believe is a pretty decent outing on this vessel and get to see many of the islands (there are some 30,000 plus they say) in the Georgian bay area. I have seen some of these from the ferry between Tobermory and Manitoulin Island so can attest to the general loveliness of Georgian Bay. If you have been following this blog you will know that I have a love affair with Lake Huron. I elect to have supper at the Bay Street Café, which turns out to be a pretty decent choice. I have a plate of fried squid to start and finish with baby spinach salad with scallops in a cream sauce… very delicious low carb options. Service is friendly and efficient and the waitress certainly earns her tip. As a bonus I watch a full moon rise over a hill covered in autumn colors.

Moon rise over hill with train crossing bridge - from the patio of Bay Street Café

It is still light when I leave the restaurant and start my walk back to the motel, perhaps now with a little less spring in my step thanks to a pleasantly full stomach. I pass under the somewhat famous trestle railway bridge that crosses over Seguin River (hardly much of a river, just a short piece of water connecting Mill Lake to Lake Huron), completed in 1907, still very much in service and to my delight get to watch a long freight train cross the bridge. I think I have mentioned that I like bridges and this one is really beautiful. I have noticed that there are at least two railway lines going through the town, so there is about nowhere that you can possibly be very far from a railway line, it seems to be charming, I like trains almost as much as bridges. I have no foreboding.

Trestle railway bridge over Seguin River

After a nice walk, long enough to settle the dinner I get back to the motel and bash out a few paragraphs of this blog on my laptop. Can’t seem to pick up the Wi-Fi so the idea of streaming a movie from Netflix is a non-starter, that really is something Canadian hospitality needs to get better with, good fast internet is not an option anymore, like bathrooms, it is expected. I have a few tots of the Glenfiddich Single Malt 12 years old Scotch and forgive the Town and Country the lousy internet. I’m pretty tired so bed seems like a decent option anyway.

It’s morning and the Sealy Posturepedic moment is conspicuous by its absence, I did not exactly get a good night sleep. Now I do not blame the motel in the slightest, if you stay in Parry Sound this is a given, I just didn’t know it. I was in the depths of a really good sleep, about midnight, when the ‘My Cousin Vinny’ thing happened. The sudden noise was awful, that fucker of a train diver leaned unnecessarily long and hard on his horn, which sent me flying up from my bed in fright, sleep banished… so much for quiet. It may have been a conspiracy, but it felt like there were trains passing through at regular intervals all of the rest of the night, spaced apart so I could just slip into a state of slumber before the next one. Eventually by wrapping my head in a pillow I managed to get some sleep. 

It’s a couple of hours later than intended that I get washed, dressed, pack my stuff up and drag my bleary-eyed persona to the reception room where coffee and muffins are served, included in the reasonable rate. I decline the muffins but the coffee is acceptable and by the third cup my bonhomie is somewhat restored. There are a couple of other guys about my age having breakfast that are also touring the area on motorcycles, we discuss routes… I plan to visit the semi-famous Screaming Heads of Muskoka, and get a suggestion for a few interesting roads to ride to get there and then home. These sound better than the route I had planned, this is really a great little place despite the railways, clean and full of like-minded people!