Tag: travel

Days 41 – 49 Five Days in Montreal and the Final Leg Home

RIP Leonard Cohen – A Favored Son of Montreal

The trip nearing an the end on day 41, I rode from North Bay, Ontario into Montreal, Quebec. It would be here that I would spend 5 days, four of them with my stepson Jason, exploring this beautiful, vibrant city. What a great time we had.

Jason arrived on a Friday afternoon and on that first evening we found that we could drive his car to a local metro station with free parking and catch the train. Actually, the “train” is and electrically powered, multi-car transport that travels primarily on raised platform rails. The stations that server the metro and the trains themselves were immaculate and they served nearly every section of the city.

Jason and I Riding the Train into the City

The first day we caught the metro into the city and walked all over for a total of 9 miles or so. And in that time we covered only a small section of the city. The city is vibrant and clean with a healthy scattering of greenspaces and parks. Newly constructed high rises shared the cityscape with buildings nearly 400 years old. Like Toronto, Montreal is a multicultural city that while primarily French speaking, is home to people from all over the world.

On Saturday we spent a good bit of time in the Montreal Museum of Fine Art and again walked a good bit of the city. That evening, determined to find some live music, we stumbled into a free concert: SOUL FEST Montreal. Though it started out slow, the main act did not disappoint! Dawn Tyler Watson along with a backing band and a side show of dancers framed in front of a stunning old cathedral keep the crowd on its feet. Definitely the highlight of the trip!

The final day explored more of the city and took a tour of the Montreal Botanical Gardens. That evening we said our goodbye’s over a final dinner and beers, hoping that we still have a number of cities we will still get to explore together.

On Tuesday, day 45 I head to Bangor, Maine. Main is beautiful, rural, quaint and very green.

Having crossed the US border in Maine I can feel the pull to make it home, but I want to spend one day traveling the main coast before beeline home. What I found is this – the road along the coast of Maine shares absolutely no resemblance to the Pacific Coast Highway! I was a real fight to actually the the coastline. I am sure had I done more research and planned my route out in advance I would have had better luck. But then this was my final leg home and I was really looking forward to seeing family and sleeping in my own bed. So the Maine coast can wait for another day.

After the Maine trek I spent the night in Rochester, New Hampshire. The next day I made it to Allentown, PA – through difficult traffic. The next day home to Willis, Virginia. Home at last!

Though I still really enjoy riding, especially on winding mountain roads, this will likely be my last cross-country adventure. All the the hotel points I had built up from working out of town for so long helped make this one possible, but unless you are willing to camp out a lot (which I am not) and eat on the cheap (which I did not), this is an expensive pastime. Besides, as far as just pure “riding” and beautiful rural settings, I have never found anything that quite compares to the mountains of southwest Virginia, Western North Carolina, West Virginia and Tennessee and those are in my back yard! I do want to spend some time in the exploring the west, but that is a longer trip for Thais, Cosmo and I and if the motorcycle is involved it will travel in the back of my truck while towing our travel trailer.

So, all’s well that ends well! Thanks for sharing the adventure.

Ed

Postscript – I do have a lot of GoPro video still to process from the trip but I am permanently retiring this blog and will post everything else on Facebook.

Day 34 – Williston, North Dakota

On Wednesday, July 3, I set out from Kalispell, Montana for Havre, Montana, traveling through a lesser – though no less beautiful – chain of the Rockies. Hit rain for the first few hours of the ride, but light to moderate. This ride stuck mostly to mountain passes with the peaks rising up on either side of the road. The highest elevation though the Rockies was just over 5,000 feet. The sun joined me as I made my way out of the Rockies and on to the beginning of the prairie (or plains) that make up the more easterly portion of Montana.

The Mountains open to Prairie as the Sun Breaks through the Clouds

After an evening at the Quality Inn in Havre – quality is a bit of an oxymoron in this case – I head out across the plains to cross into North Dakota, finally landing in Williston. the plains alternate between being relatively flat, and hilly, but all covered in grass or crops of one type or another. A different environment from the mountains, but beautiful in its own way. The ride went pretty smoothly up until the last 60 miles or so.

The View – 60 miles out from Williston, North Dakota

Stopping to take this picture, and hour out from my destination and heading straight into the dark abyss I knew this was not going to be fun. I was right. About 10 miles into that mess I hit a driving rain along with lightning striking uncomfortably close. I stopped to don rain gear so getting wet really wasn’t the problem. It is visibility. Motorcycle helmets will tend to fog up in this type of weather so you need to crack the face shield to get good air flow. Even then visibility is greatly reduced by water beading. And, since the face shield is now open at the bottom, driving rain strikes your lips and chin like tiny little needles, which you have to ignore because you need to maintain intense concentration to maintain speed with diminished visibility. Well, this IS an adventure, right, and adventures often present challenges. I did make it into Williston safe and sound.

Tomorrow I am off to Grand Forks, North Dakota, my staging point for rolling into to Winnipeg, Manitoba the following day.

One last item, I just realized that I posted a video I compiled of the ride Marshall and I made in the mountains outside of Bolder on Facebook, but never included it in my blog. So, if you aren’t on Facebook, you wouldn’t see it. So I am reposting here. Make sure and maximize the video for the best experience.

Until the next post ……….

Makeup Post – Day 32 – Kalispell, Montana

A LONG time since my last post which covered our time in Ventura, CA and the trip to the Sequoia National Forest. After Sequoia we had a one day stay in Santa Maria, CA before camping out in San Francisco for a couple of days. My sister Kathy was kind enough to play tour guide and drove us all through San Francisco, Marin County and the Sonoma/Napa Valley wine region.

Crossing the Border from Nevada into California

Approaching Sequoia National Park

Touring in Kathy’s Convertible

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge

Marshall and Kathy with the Pesky Fog Covering the Bridge

Finally the Bridge Comes into View

Wine Tasting in Full Swing

Once we left San Francisco we headed up the Pacific Coast, from California to Oregon and finally Washington State. The coast was socked in for a good part of the ride.

California Coast on our departure from San Francisco

California Coast

Crossing into Oregon

Oregon Coast Starts out Foggy

and Foggy

But Finally Clears Up

Our final Pacific Coast destination is Seattle where after 6,000 miles on the road both of our motorcycles are due for service. After calling ahead BMW Motorcycles of Seattle agreed to take both of our bikes in for service. After we dropped them off on Friday morning we headed down to the Pike Place Market on the Seattle water front. The market was founded in 1907 and is one of the oldest and largest continuously operating public markets in the US. A few pictures below:

However our trip to the market was short lived. Within an hour of our arrival at the market Marshall received a call from the service department at the BMW dealer. His bike had serious engine damage which, at least initially, looked like it could have ended Marshall’s leg of the trip. So we rushed back to the dealer to discuss possible solutions. Given the gravity of the damage Marshall was extremely lucky on two counts. First, the dealer was able to locates the parts necessary to replace the damage and also, incredibly, agreed to work through the weekend to repair his bike. Additionally, Marshall had purchased an after market warranty on his bike which was still in force and it paid the majority of the repairs.

However, the shock of running into such a serious issue on the trip along with the mounting expenses of over a month on the road was taking its toll. At this point Marshall was thinking of planning an earlier exit (we were both feeling the money crunch) but we had different plans on an exit strategy. I still wanted to go a more northerly route through Idaho and Montana and eventually tour Canada as well. He wanted to bee-line to Mount Rushmore and head straight home from there. So, in the end we both made it to Spokane, Washington and went our separate ways the next morning, wishing each other a safe journey on and now individual paths.

So today, which is now day 32 I rode from Spokane through Idaho to Kalispell, Montana, home to Glacier National Park.

Entering Glacier National Park

The plan from here is to take a northerly route through Montana and North Dakota then track north and spend a few days in Winnipeg, Manitoba. From there I will trace an as yet undetermined route that will deliver me to Montreal, Quebec, Canada where I plan to meet up with my world-traveling stepson Jason. He and I spent few days in Toronto a few years back when I was on a project in Buffalo – we had a blast. We are both looking forward to this new adventure.

Onward …..

Day 19 – Chillin’ in Ventura, CA

There have been a number of days since my last post and we have covered a lot of ground in that time. From Boulder, CO we traveled west across the Rockies to Grand Junction, CO, then to Salina, UT, from Salina to Ely, NV, from Ely to Bishop, CA, from Bishop, CA to Bakersfield, CA which was out jump-off point for the Sequoia National Park and finally to Ventura, CA where will take a break for a couple of days before heading up the Pacific Coast Highway. Each of those rides had their own beauty and charm. The Rockies were amazing, stunning vistas and snow covered peaks. Interstate 70 is like no interstate I have ever traveled. Long tight curves, rapid changes in altitude and a complete onslaught of visual panoramas mile after mile. Utah with its buttes and mesas, warm red and brown colors, Nevada with its golden brown hills.

One reason for my recent lack of posts is the deluge of videos we have amassed on this trip coupled with my inexperience with editing this media. Tonight I finally got around to creating one montage of stills from our trip through the Sequoia National Forrest. I am also posting a video taken at the concert we attended in Boulder. That concert was the initial driver of our mad pace to make Boulder in 10 days. Though Marshall was probably not as excited about the concert as I was, we both had a good time. The group, My Son the Hurricane, is out of Ontario, Canada and tours all over North America and Europe. The group is akin to a marriage between the B52’s, a rap group and a high school marching band but their most distinct feature is their incredible energy. The venue really helped make the night. The concert was hosted by the Roots Music Project (https://www.rootsmusicproject.org/) which is a Boulder based nonprofit that provides a fully equipped venue for lots of bands and musicians. It is a small, intimate environment that helped drive the connection between the band and the audience. What a great night!

I have a lot of other content from our trips from Santa Fe to Canon City, Co and Canon City to Boulder that needs attention before I can post. But, eventually, I will get there. Until then, checkout the two YouTube videos below. I found that YouTube is the best method of hosting video content on this site.

Make sure and maximize the videos for the best viewing experience!

The video of our trip to Sequoia National Park: https://youtu.be/brrN7oaR4K4

The video of the My Son the Hurricane concert on June 10,2024 in Boulder, CO: https://youtu.be/9ZyRAfUXRpo

Days 9, 10, 11 – Santa Fe, Canon City, Boulder

Roaring through the peaks,
Wind whispers secrets, unseen,
Roads to Boulder gleam

Well, it was inevitable given the pace that we were attempting that sooner or later I would fall behind on the daily posts. We experienced the most spectacular rides yet through the Rockies as we made our way from Santa Fe to Canon City on Sunday and from Canon City to Boulder on Monday. Rough Thunderstorms towards the later half of our ride into Canon City but all in all the scenery was spectacular. Still working on editing GoPro videos for these trips. On Monday we finally got to see the concert that drove our timeline at the start of the trip and it was over the top energy-wise. Will include videos of that once I get caught up. Actually, after getting back late from the concert Monday night, we chilled here in Boulder today. We did get a nice little mountain ride in around Boulder. More details and videos on these trips soon I hope.

Last minute research on Zion National park (wait times, forced to use shuttles within the park) turned us away from our original plans to go there. We are re-routing to get started on the southern end of the Pacific Coast Highway now. The first leg will be to make it to Grand Junction, CO by tomorrow evening.

Until then ………

A NEW ADVENTURE – USA/CANADA MOTORCYCLE TRIP 2024

Back in the spring of 2018 I completed a contract project at the Jeep plant in Toledo and I was ready for some time off. One of my first goals was purchasing dirt bikes for my 10 year-old grandson and I, which turned into a fantastic bonding opportunity that lasted up through 2023 as he was approaching 16 and I was approaching 74. The other goal that I was able to realize was to complete a 9,000 mile, 5-week solo trip across the US and Canada on a 1997 Honda Valkyrie. I fell in love with cross-country riding on that trip and knew that I wanted to do this again. However, after that first trip it was time to get back to work for a while, so another couple of contract projects and a final full-time gig brings me to the present. I retired from my full-time job as a senior controls engineer with Darling Ingredients at the beginning of May, allowing be to realize that next cross-country trip.

This year’s trip will see two major changes; first I won’t be going solo. Marshal Keys, a riding buddy I met through my younger brother Dave, is an all-in partner on this trip. Marshall and I (in the picture below) had the opportunity to take a four day trip through Southwest Virginia, Western North Carolina and Tennessee in 2022 and had a great time. This trip should be monumental!

The second major change from first cross-country trip is time/distance. Where I pushed hard to make 9,000 miles in five weeks on the first trip, we are expecting to spend approximately 10 weeks on the road this time around. More miles, more time, more Adventure!

The initial plan is to take ten days to get from Willis, VA to Boulder, CO where we have tickets to see My Son the Hurricane on June 10. Along the way there will be stops in Spartanburg, SC, Nashville, TN, Memphis, TN, Clarksville, AR (where we will spend and extra day on a 300 mile trek through the Ozarks), Amarillo, TX, Roswell, NM (pure schlock, I know), Santa Fe, NM and Canon City, CO. (A rough point to point map below)

The next stop will likely be Zion National Park in Utah. We will begin to flesh out the rest of the trip on the fly.

My goal is to try to post daily updates but I remember how time consuming that was on the last trip, so we will see how that pans out.