Happy Mother's Day

Okay, so Trevor and I did our MD duties;

"Happy mother's day, see you in a few hours..."

Then we did our husbandly thing, which is to let Mom have her day with the kiddies, after all, that's what Mother's Day is all about, right.

Trev left the machine gun at home this trip.

He showed up on his new camo paint scheme KLR 650 and in dull sunlight but reasonably warm and windy conditions, we set off up my hill north on County Line road.  I had on jeans, boots, a fleece turtleneck zipped up to the hilt and my faithful MSR enduro jacket.  After picking up route 6 in Sea View (yup there is one) we passed the Irishtown road and turned off shortly onto clay hard packed 262.  I often ride this short, wide stretch of country road, it's scenic, has some fairly significant elevation changes and passes through some of the nicest countryside on the Island.     




About halfway to Long River I led Trev up onto the highest piece of land in the entire area.  From atop our hill retreat you can see the sea we call 'the Gulf of St. Lawrence in one direction and an arm of Long River in da udder!  This building (see photo) used to be owned by some Americuns who used it near as I can tell, as an airport for RC planes.  It's been re-painted a dull yellow and appears empty so perhaps it's been sold.  Even RC pilots get too old to fly...

My plan (?) for the limited time we had, it was after all Mother's Day right, was to zig zag cross country on back paved and unpaved roads some mere tracks to the Devil's Punchbowl.  I wanted to check two things one... what the creek looked like after last winter and what condition the trail going up would be like.

I peeled off my fleece at the 'crick'.



It was fairly warm in the woods, didn't see any trout, but Trevor whom we often refer to as the...
Killer (K L R) Fisherman, thought it would yield a few brookies soon enough.  The signs were down at the Punchbowl, after all it's still not quite spring around these here parts unlike Ron's banana belt out west.  A brightly clad mountain bicyclist came roaring (?) down the hill passing us on the narrow trail heading downhill while we were going up!  Before the hill gets rough and steep, we stopped for a look see, walking about a hundred yards on what turned out to be a muddy, washed out, track.  I thought with my smaller lighter and newly aggressive dual sport tires I could have made it to the top, but Mr. T didn't think his worn rear rubber would have enough bite up that slimy track that by the way, still had run-off from Saturday night's heavy rains. 

We decided to come back another day and give it a go.  I rode this piece last year and even though it doesn't look treacherous, looks can be deceiving.  Most of the falls I take riding off road are generally at low speed trails much like this one.  Getting stalled out while attempting to jump some boulders in a foot deep sand-wash on a dry creek bed back of Phoenix, up some rocky hillside in the Sierra  Giganta mountains or on the trail we were looking at.  Roots of trees poking out of the earth, mud and rocks compound your difficulties.  I broke my ankle on just such an innocuous trail heading up a mountain in Baja some years back. 

Trails like this get lots of respect from the Doctor!

 

While contemplating 'do we or don't we', the bike rider pulled up beside us.  Turns out this male specimen of human fitness, lived in the local area and rode this hill weekly.  We watched him slither his way "up" the track as often paddling the bike as pedaling it. He did make it though, which I think only served to make Trevor mad, vowing to replace his slick with a proper dual purpose knobby soon as possible.



From there Trevor led me back across country roads to Kinkora where Erin was waiting, ummm... patiently?

Being much older than the boy mounting the army shaded KLR... I don't have to answer to a Mom with young children so I went my merry way off to Fernwood for a visit with long time pal Rob.  We sat in awe looking at footage of the Fort Mac Murray fire disaster (an entire city of 80,000 plus evacuated, some hundreds of miles) in the heart of Canada's oil sands region (where by the way I learned my machining trade and lived a total of 15 years) before catching up with bits of our lives since my last stop nearly a year ago. 

It was nearly dark, which doesn't mean much as it was overcast most of the day, by the time I and my Serow rolled into our driveway on C.L. Road. The newly installed gearing proved to relax the engine speed slightly while still allowing me to pull the front end up in low gear if I had to crawl over something. I did however make a note to self; 'adjust gear shifter slightly lower.'

So it was a good day, never a bad thing when you're twisting the throttle in the company of like minded people, just as well as today... it's cold, spitting rain and with a chilly howling wind, that has our tall pines bending at a 45 degree angle!

1 kilometer from my place.  Trout in there!

Even little Willy chose discretion over a romping around outdoors.

Why is it the the weather service can't seem to predict good and happy weather for us outdoor types but have no problem hitting the nail on the head when it's miserable out there?