I have three robins in my yard that have been scouring for food the bits my lawn that are open. Flocks of geese are also in the area doing reconnaissance flights looking for some open water to settle down in. I hope they have some luck. I know the ponds up the road a piece are still frozen over.
I have 630km on so far.... about 100km less than what I had at this time last year. It's that antsie time of year that you just want to get out there and ride. As mentioned though, the weather is not co-operating.
Gene
**
June 10, 2013
We've set the date of August 20th to fly to Newfoundland. Jim has booked our flight there on the red eye out of TBay that morning.
Fabio has purchased a new steed for the journey... a brand new Trek 520 touring machine. He's grinning from ear to ear on the great ride it has.
This year we're all running the same size tires, so each of us won't need to carry a spare, even though it might be a good idea. We're all running Schwalbe Marathon's.
Gene
**
August 20, 2013
4:00a.m. came pretty early... ate breakfast and headed to the airport for 5:10 to help unload the truck, but I didn't make it there on time. The boys had the boxes all inside, thanks to the extra help from Mr. David Curtis. Thanks David :)
We had to open up the bike boxes for security to check inside... a bit of a pain after taping and wiring them together yesterday at Fabio's. With that done and over with we headed upstairs to the cafeteria. We barely had time to sit before they called for boarding our flight to Toronto. We said our goodbyes and made it through security. Our fight to TO was quick with and hour layover before boarding the next flight to Deer Lake NL... a 21/2 hour trip.
We picked up our bikes off the luggage carousel, a bit of a scramble. Once we had all our gear we gave Gordon a call at the B&B we are staying at. It didn't take too long to assemble the bikes as the large boxes allowed us to only have to remove the front wheel and handlebars :)
We headed downtown for a quick brewski and supper as the time change had us a bit mixed up. After supper we hit the grocery store to check out what they had for grub to take with us to Gros Morne tomorrow.
Gene
**
August 23
Hiking Up Gros Morne
Had a good breakfast and chat this morning with Riley and Judy from N. Carolina, then headed to the grocery store to pick up food for our lunch during the hike. I'm glad we didn't decide to cycle there.... there were steeper climbs on Hwy 430 than what we had in B.C. last year.
The parking lot at the trail-head was completely packed with cars of other hikers doing the climb. Start time was about 11:05 a.m., finish time about 5:45 p.m. including lunch and photo stops. Total length-16 kms. After we crossed a small creek near the parking area, we immediately started ascending. Throughout the whole route we had every imaginable type of terrain you could think of... wet sand, rocks and dirt, rivulets of water running down the middle of the path, steps made from wood, sand, gravel and dirt, dryish sand or gravel, boardwalks, boulders, granite chunks of all sizes and wooden stairs of different lengths.
On the way down the other side we came out from under the cloud layer and started to see some of the fiords.... yeah!!!! That was great... the only problem was the way down was much worse than the way up, even though the grade wasn't nearly as steep. The path was much more treacherous because of the wet rocks and roots.
Once we got back to the start to the main climb (4 kms from the parking lot) we stopped and ate the rest of our grub. That 4 km only took us an hour, whereas it took an hour and a half to climb initially.
We went into Rocky Harbour for supper, before heading back to Deer Lake. We're all pretty tired, as it was a very grueling day. I'm not sure how far our legs are going to take us tomorrow :)
Safe travels guys. Looking forward to following your adventures.
ReplyDeleteLaurie &.Gordon Sheppard
Good luck guys, see you in the fall
ReplyDeleteJim