The Canadian Bit

 

Our Warm Showers hosts were at Marieville 45Ks East of Montreal, a good distance for our first days ride. However, by the time we arrived at their place we had 77Ks on our speedo and feeling quite exhausted. We were met about 15 ks out from Marieville by Michelle, our host and three of her nine children. What an amazing family. They live in a big rambling unfinished house of grand design.


 

Wooden tiled floor with occasional mosaics designed by Michelle, drawn and cut out in various timbers representing each of her children . In the work in progress main bedroom upstairs where we slept , a round mosaic with seed pods from differnt parts of the world, inclucing some Bunya Nuts from Queensland, had just been routed out and put into the floor the very day we arrived.

 

A real farmstyle meal with a whole chicken in the big casserole pot, a big bowl of potatoes and salad, the large table surrounded with six of the nine children , Michelle, Pierre, Val and I everyone spoke very good english and we had a livel y and enjoyable meal.

 

Michelle, her husband Pierre – French born – are a real pair of adventurers, just before her first son was born, they did a 3 month horse ride up the west coast of USA, then not long ago took the whole 9 kids on a Trans Canada cycle trek, Michelle making a film which she will be taking around schools in Canada, to demonstrate how families can have fun, helping each other and making the most of the great outdoors

From The Sidelines With Val

 

Cick on the pics to make them bigger.
There will no more moments like this, now the GPS is full of maps of America. Don and an Irish cycle tourist had a merry couple of hours transfering from Morgan's GPS to Don's.


 

Never , ever, drink Tim Hortons Coffee. A chain of shops has spread like the pox across Canada, and in to USA. It tases unspeakably bad. Sam, owner of Java coffee in Lexington ville, a real dusty sofa, whirring fan sort of a place, says the stuff is fixed, so people become addicted to it, (more than ordinary coffee???)His place was pretty quiet.

 

Mom, Pop and Mary Lou take a nice walk by the ocean. Its nearly time for school to start up again, but many reluctant teens can be seen out and about.

 

Don, Luke and I heading off in Lukes powder blue roadster. Sometimes I feel not a day over 40.

Val Sketches From The Track

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I was drawing, a slightly judgemental picture, of Camp America, when the lovely owner offered to loan us his canoe. We had a sunny paddle up the river. Thanks man.


 
Mr Dentist, his wife and her brother were surpried to find us camping in their forest. But no problem, we were invited to walk the grounds and see the water fall, the lake and go up to the log cabin for a shower and a beer. More grateful thanks.


 
Here we are , tackling the kiddy size ice cream. Maybe this will be the first bike trip where we do not shed some kilos.

Cool Hand Luke

We spent two nights at the house of a Warm Showers host in Portland, Maine.
Luke, had only been a member for just over two weeks when he got our email the day before we arrived, we had hoped to call him on the phone and confirm, but we arrived along the street he lived on before we found a phone.

Fortunately he was home from work having a late lunch when we knocked on his door, he made us most welcome, and was all for putting us in one of the spare bedrooms when we found out his wife did not know anything about Warm Showers (or the fact that we had been in touch,) on top of this she was expecting two of her brothers with their wives and kids for a holiday stay the next night,so we insisted on putting up our tent in the backyard.

His wife was most gracious when she arrived home to find strangers camping on the lawn and taking over the bathroom, she even invited us to a surprise party for a friend of hers some way out of town as well as to the barbeque she was putting on for her family and a few friends the next night. She went off to her friends surprise party, Luke went back to work for a couple of hours.



When Luke came home he loaded Val and I into his 1962 Ford Coupe, one of those extremely long and wide cars, it had a hood that folded down and a front seat that would fit four at a squeeze.

Off we went, and at every traffic light someone from the next car would lean out and tell Luke what a great car, what size motor did it have (think it was a 360)etc, etc. then when it got to sunset, they started telling him that the near side tail light was not working - this happened at least three times.



Val just loved the big gas guzzler, you can tell by the look on her face, and it made us both laugh out loud as she sat there. What an experience.

Next night at the family barbecue, we witnessed another side of American life, when a snitchy neighbour, firstly called the police and reported Lukes boy and his cousin for playing with fireworks (they were'nt, someone over the road had let off an exploding skyrocket) but the first we saw was a fully armed policewoman appear in the corner of the garden, looking at me and asking if I was the parent!!
Luke was quickly summoned and soon sorted this out. Then later in the night when one of the guests had stoked up the in ground fire pit a bit too high, causing the odd spark, but nothing too bad, we suddenly had two firemen appear from the same corner of the garden, brandishing fire extinguishers with which they proceeded to hose the fire out.

We wondered what Luke was going to turn on next.

From Our Side Of The Track

 

Roads in USA (for the most part) have a wide safety lane, which is great for cycling, drivers have been very courteous, and even though the separation is more than adequate, still go our over the centreline to pass - and drivers coming the other way give them room - quite unlike NZ, where drivers appear to go as close as possible, without knocking you off the bike.

 

Here we crossed the famous Appalachian tramping trail which runs almost from top to bottom of the USA. We were familiar with it from Bill Bryson's book on it.

 

In spite of warnings to watch out for Moose, and "You'll see them on the road, around here", this is the closest we got to the real thing. Of course, we did not have expert corroboration of the find, but are reasonably confidant in our claim.

 

We called this "Coyote Camp" just after dark, a coyote started calling from up above in the forest, after a couple of howls, another started up below us and across the road from our camp, both kept calling and getting closer, eventually meeting up less than 100 metres from us. At this point all went quite, so we assumed that love conquered all, and they loped off into eternal bliss.

Val's View From The Track

 

Val says... "'Don and Val on balls on bikes... trying to find the balance."..
Hello....Lily, the most delightful host in Montreal is a yoga and dance teacher, (philosopher, biker and much else) She provided us with 2 hard rubber balls, covered with spikes, with which to massage away all the stress and strain of the day. They can be very painful, so presumably very good for us!!