Canadian Fortune Cookie

Two posts in one day? Yes!

After riding in the rain and unloading all our wet gear, we decided we didn't want to ride to dinner. The hotel has a bar, but no food. So, we find some menus in the lobby of places that will deliver and decide on Chinese. Each dinner came with a fortune cookie. Mine had no fortune (I am not reading any omens into that), but Johnny and Mike both had fortunes. What was fun was that one side was in English, but other side was in French. Also interesting is that the lottery numbers were different ... which begs the question: Which numbers do you play?

Twillingate

We left from Clarenville this morning to drive up to Twillingate. We had heard many a good thing about potential icebergs and just a nice place. They claim to be the iceberg capital of the world! In my research I found there are a couple of icebergs in the vicinity, but you had to take a charter to get to them. But, they showed a lighthouse that can be a good viewing spot for icebergs (in season I suppose) and whales.

The weather was overcast with quite a bit of low clouds. It was misting off and on. We made our way north and the scenery was nice as usual. We finally made it up to the light house and saw no icebergs (as expected), nor any whales. Oh well, the view was nice, albeit a bit obscured by low hanging clouds. As we started to leave it was starting to rain a bit, so Johnny and I put on our rain jackets. Soon after getting started, it started raining. Not a gully washer, but solid soaking rain. After a while, Johnny asked if we saw a place with an overhang, could we stop so he could put on his rain pants. Nothing appeared for at least half an hour. By then we were both on our laps and legs, but put on the rain pants anyway. By the time we got back to the TCH (Tran Canadian Highway), the rain was lightening up a bit, but still going. We finally found a little hotel and called it quits early for the day. There is stuff spread out all over the room as it dries (or at least we are hoping they completely dry. The weather forecast is clear tomorrow, so little chance for rain and even maybe, dare I say it, some sun!

We will head towards Gros Morne National Park and make our way up to Labrador. There is about 81 kilometers of paved road and dang it, we plan to ride it :)

Getting Caught Up

I wrote a long post yesterday on the boat. The internet connection was up and down and when I hit post, it went down and I lost the post. I also lost my patience and quit.

Last I wrote, on Thursday night we didn't know how we were going to get to Newfoundland. I got up way early on Friday morning and called Marine Atlantic to get our options. The Friday evening ferry to Port aux Basques was still full. The Friday afternoon ferry to Argentia was available. So, we all made reservations. So far so good ... but we were still on PEI and had to get to the north end of Nova Scotia to get to the ferry. We quickly got ready to leave, ate breakfast and headed to the PEI ferry. According to the GPS, we had almost 3 hours of extra time to get to North Sydney. Sounds good, but the GPS knows how long the ferry is, but knows nothing of the schedule and loading and unloading time. We made it to the PEI ferry with maybe 5 minutes to spare to make the 9:30 AM ferry. Once on and across to Nova Scotia, the GPS showed we had maybe 40 minutes of time. Let me tell you there was LOTS of traffic. We had to make a gas stop and that ate some time. Eventually, traffic got lighter and we were able to make up some time and made it to the ferry before the 3 PM deadline for the 5 PM departure time.

Just so you don't think it wasn't a good ride to the PEI ferry, the sun was shining, temperature was comfortable and the coastal view was buccolic.

I have been to Nova Scotia once before, but it was early in May and there was no traffic. This time was different, but on the way we hit a few roads I hadn't been on before. One was up the side of Bras d'Or Lake and that was beatiful.

The ship to Argentia was HUGE! It looked like a cruise ship on the inside and out, except for the 3 or 4 levels that held cars, trucks, motorcycles and even some bicycles. The loading process was painfully slow. Eventually, they let the approximately 20 motorcycles load up. We rode into the ferry and parked the bikes. There were tie down straps on one wall and a friendly newfie rider showed me the rope extensions that let you tie down without scratching the chrome.

The ferry ride was about 17 hours long. I planned ahead and bought a foot long Subway sandwich and saved part for dinner. That and an apple I had brought along was dinner. Mike and Johnny partook in the buffet that was served for $20. They said it was plentiful and had some good items. I pretty much hung out in the TV/Movie room where they had chairs that would recline. That along with a nearby electrical outlet and an available wireless network I was set. I had the chance to enter all the credit card receipts, reconcile my bank account and reconcile a credit card. Sadly, I lost the post, but such is life.

The chairs were comfortable enough. I got about 6 1/2 hours of sleep and most of it pretty restful sleep. Eventually, they started announcing that we were coming into port, so we packed up and went back to the motorcycles and unstrapped the bikes and rode off the ship. The fog was lifting, but it was completely cloudy and about 57 degrees. Since we came into the point where I had planned on leaving Newfoundland, I had to review my GPS waypoints to do our trip backwards.

The first stop was Cape Spear. This is considered to be the eastern most point in North America. It was a very spectacular view and we saw whales breaking the surface of the water. Many were close enough you could hear them blow. Sadly, it happened so apparently randomly, there was no good way to take a picture with a cheap camera like mine. But as one woman noted, it is better to be in the moment and enjoy the view and not worry about the picture.

With that down, we headed to Signal Hill. It offered a beautiful view of the city of Saint John's.

Next we headed to the points my friend Stef said were todo's in Newfoundland. We rode down the western edge of the point Saint John's is on and then rounded the bottom to go around the next peninsula. We went through Brigus, then onto Bay Roberts. Sadly, since we did this backwards, I didn't have time to contact Stef to let her parents know I was there. I did however take a picture at the city sign. We then headed up to Carbonear to find a brewery I found on the internet. Well, this was the 2nd brewery bust :( Most people had never heard of it and one guy said it wasn't around anymore. UPDATE: I missed an important note in my research. They moved to Mount Pearl outside St. John's and don't do tours. So, we moved on to the town of Dildo. Yes, you read that right. We just took a picture at the sign and moved on.

Newfoundland is a beautiful, rugged, piney, rocky, green place with lots of water. It was 57 degrees off the boat, got to a high of 61 and finished back at 57. I have taken lots of pictures, but haven't had time to sort them out ... yet!

Tomorrow we are off to Twillingate. There are supposed to be icebergs there, but from what I have found on the internet, you have to hire a boat to go out and find them. Oh well, we will try to find the lighthouse and see if there are any visible. Then we head off towards Gros Morne National Park. We won't make it that far, but will be on the way.

Quick Post From PEI

Each day when I am riding, I think of things to write about on the blog. Then, we get in, eat dinner and it is late, so I feel rushed and don't get everything I thought of during the day.

When we rode through Ontario and Quebec, we were following the St. Lawrence River. Interestingly, at the west, it is a decent size river, but nothing huge. As you head east, it gets bigger and bigger. You can imagine what all the river traffic must have been like at one time.

New Brunswick was a beautiful ride this morning. Very much mountainous and started off foggy and misty. Great roads and chilly, but comfortable temperatures. Started out at 57 degrees!

As you head east, the mountains go away, and you can tell you are heading for ocean. We crossed over the Confederation Toll bridge to get to Prince Edward Island. We did some riding around and it is a very agricultural and picturesque island. I went to one of the south beaches and got some red sand. I went to a more northern beach and expected to see white sand. It was more like brown sugar. Side by side you can tell the sands apart, but if showed just one, you would just have to guess. Oh well, I must have missed the whiter sand beach!

Looks like we might have ferry issues getting to Newfoundland. From North Sydney to Port aux Basques are all full on Friday the 29th. We will call in the morning when the ferry office opens if we can get on the one from North Sydney to Argentia. We can do the island backwards :)

Quebec? Done!

We left out of Kingston, Ontario and continued on 410 East. It was 64 degrees when we left! After a fast breakfast at Tim Horton's, we continued on and finally hit the Quebec border.

From there, we headed towards Montreal. More specifically, we headed to the Unibroue brewery in Chambly. I was very excited about tasting more of their beers. Using the GPS, we changed highways many times, made several correct turns, missed a few turns (followed by U-turns) and finally pulled up to the address. I knew something was wrong when I didn't see any business name. We parked in visitor parking and I went inside. Sadly, they don't offer any tours or beer tast

ings anymore. When I said I came all the way from Texas, it still wasn't enough

even for a free sample. The only upside of the

side trip was a very picturesque

ride back to 410 to continue the trip to the

city of Quebec.

The highways in Quebec aren't nearly as nice as in Ontario. The speed limits are the same, but today we were running 115kmh just to keep up with traffic. We also ran into several bouts of rain. Today, it wasn't quite as welcome since it dropped the temperature from a high of 72, back down into the middle 60's.

But, still, not terrible and we stopped in the city of Quebec to look around. From there, we decided to head towards New Brunswick. We made it as far as Edmundston, New Brunswick. It is REAL close to the north east corner of Maine and as we found out, we lost an hour because we are now on Atlantic time. If tomorrow is any indication, it will be a chilly day tomorrow. Oh well, it is a late night here. Tomorrow we head out for PEI.

Canada, Eh?

So, we crossed over today into Windsor, Ontario by crossing the Ambassador Bridge. It is privately owned and runs $4 for the crossing. The border agent asked me twice why I was going to Newfoundland. What other answer can you give than I have never been there? Seems like there were many questions overall, and then asked if the motorcycles behind me were with me. Mike and Johnny didn't get all the questions.

We all changed our GPS's over to metric units vs. standard units. It would be tough to find the little 100kmh mark otherwise. Looks like we have traveled much further in kilometers!

The speed limit is posted at 100kmh, but watch out if you go only 100. There are big signs with the fines for speeding. They start at 120kmh, so I figure 110 must be OK. We pass trucks and a few cars, but still get passed a LOT. Still, I don't want to waste money passing it to the province of Ontario.

Since Johnny had never been to Niagara Falls, we made a "short" detour down to see the falls. It was such a different experience this time. I wasn't wearing a down parka for one! There was no ice anywhere on the street or the falls. On the way back from the falls to get going back on our route, we went through some hellacious traffic. Toronto might be a beautiful place, but not from the highway. I will say they have a good system of express lanes and collector lanes. It works well ... unless there is a burned out car in the express lanes and they shut them down totally. Not sure how long we inched our way through, but eventually we made it back. Since we are travelling parallel to Lake Ontario, we were stuck in pretty high traffic until at least 6:30.

Tomorrow we head into Quebec tomorrow and this will knock out one more province that I will have visited on a motorcycle. But, that is a post for later.

Detroit Motor City

To answer the question from yesterday ... where did we end up? We are in Detroit. We will cross the bridge into Windsor tomorrow. We drove from just north of Nashville through Tennessee, Ohio and Michigan. So weird to be in Michigan and NOT be seeing my sister or my other Michigan peeps! On the way, we saw a sign for the Jim Beam distillery. So, we HAD to stop and take a look. One thing I noticed yesterday was that we were a very patriotic group of motorcycles. Take a look and see that we are red, white and blue!

Day 1 In The Books

I left Dallas about 7:35 or so to head to Texarkana to meet Mike and Johnny. I am a bit habitually early, so I had plenty of time to rest. We made it just north of Nashville, not too bad for a first day. Went through several rain showers ... and they were pleasant. Nice to see the temperature drop one time to 77 degrees. Hmmmm, that is the expected high temperature in Newfoundland and I expect a fair amount of rain. So, kind of like a warm up I guess!

Apparently, the SPOT didn't transmit once we left Texarkana, but it did show our stop north of Nashville. Hopefully, tomorrow you will be able to see the progress as well.

We should be at the Canadian border by Detroit tomorrow. The only question will be which side of the border we stay on. Check in tomorrow to see the answer :)

Follow Along

One of my travel partners has a SPOT where he can upload our position as we travel. If you want to follow along and see where we are, then click on this:

Where Is Jonathan (And Mike & Johnny)

Newfoundland

I have been planning a motorcycle trip to Newfoundland for several years. Each year, a different bigger trip comes available and I do that instead. This year it will be Newfoundland. Along the way, I will also go through Quebec. My goal is to ride a motorcycle in all 10 provinces and 2 of the territories of Canada. Nunavut has no real roads, so no motorcycle riding there for me.

Canadian Provinces & Territories

When I am done with this trip, I will only be missing Northwest Territory and Yukon.