A view from the back of the bike
The first three weeks; a view from the back of the bike (written by Lori)
The first three weeks have been both exciting and trying. To be honest there have been a few moments of envy when we've been camping near RV's. There have even been a couple of conversations around the idea of moving up to more luxurious accommodation in the future. Yes, I'm a princess. I fully admit to this. I like the finer things in life. Things like warmth, a bed, clean clothes, a clean bathroom....a bathroom. The kinds of things one might find in a home or even a traveling home. I'm not fond of bugs or Arachnids or just about anything with more than 4 legs for that matter (except caterpillars and butterflies, they're ok).
"So what the heck am I doing on the back of this darned motorcycle" you ask? I love the smells, the views, the feeling of the wind, the closeness with nature and Mark. I love the adventure of it. And let me tell you, it's already been an adventure.
In 3 weeks we have gone well over 5000 km. We have traveled from Ontario through Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and have just started our trek through Newfoundland. We've almost dropped the bike twice. Once while on a ferry, with it stopped and with me on it (total amateur move on our part). The second was on a gravel road where someone decided to put a sandbox just for fun. Mark did a great job of keeping us and the bike upright. We have almost run out of gas twice...... This I have nothing much to say about except "You have one job!!!!" All in good fun of course. We do have someone looking out for us though or we would not have made it 40ish km when it said 23 till empty.
This was taken just moments before our first almost nap. See how leaned over it was?
The scenery has been amazing but that's not a surprise. The east coast has always been one of our favourite areas to explore. We are so happy we have been able to do it more justice this time than on previous trips. We have seen a fully grown black bear on the wrong side of the animal fencing along the highway and let's not forget the fox, groundhogs, skunk and countless turtles along the way. Of course there was the duck who decided it wanted to play chicken for a while. Awkward!! Luckily we have only seen a few deer from a distance and no moose, elk, reindeer or abominable snowmen. Yet.
We have met some pretty awesome people already. A good example is just leaving Tim Hortons and having a couple stop to chat, then another person comes up and another. Soon you're having a full on love fest right there. It's amazing and not something we are overly accustomed to in southern Ontario where saying hi will get you weird looks and possibly a psych evaluation if you happen to be on a Toronto subway at the time. In fact any stop at a food establishment seems to bring on at least one good conversation. We may have to start planning these longer stops into our day so we can plan on less distance. I'm not sure Mark will go for that though. We will have to start taking pictures of these encounters.
We are already less hurried than ever before. Of course it's still been a struggle for each of us and to be honest a little difficult between us to get our mojo going. It's actually difficult to have all the time in the world and then decide what to do with it. It's far too easy to let that time slip through your fingers and suddenly you feel like you've wasted so much. We have always worked well together and do our best communicating when we get into a daily rhythm. That's been a new challenge even for us. We are both dealing with our extreme change of lifestyle in our own way and although we each understand the other it is adding a level of stress we haven't experienced before. Mark has been very patient and accommodating with my whims but I can tell it's taking it's toll. I do feel that I'm starting to warm up to the more rustic elements of the trip. The list of things I really hate is shrinking. I'm mostly down to; being cold, mosquitoes and dark, buggy bathrooms. Otherwise, with the exception of being female with all that encompasses, missing the kids terribly as well as the rest of our family and friends and any of the million other things that may bother me on any given day, I'm pretty good to go. Rain isn't my favourite but as long as it isn't combined with either cold or mosquitoes I'd be ok with it now.
I'm not the only one missing things.
Our set up and take down routine is becoming a well oiled machine. We are getting everything set up in about 15-20 minutes. Takedown is a little longer at about 45 minutes, but that includes packing the bike. I'm pretty happy about that. It gives us a little exercise in the morning before we eat and gets us warmed up too. It no longer seems like the chore it was a couple of weeks ago. We've also basically found a home for everything on the bike so putting it back is much easier and faster than it was to start with. We have both commented about how it seems like our stuff is taking up less room than it did 3 weeks ago. We have definitely found ways to pack some things smaller like the tent and sleeping bags for example. This adds just an inch here and there to make a significant difference in how everything goes together. I wonder if my hair dryer will fit now?? KIDDING!!
It took almost 2 hours for us to pack up in the morning at our first campsite. I'm surprised the mosquitoes didn't just carry the tent off in that time.
The bike has been great with the exception of the tire we had to replace. I was pretty nervous of this motorcycle to begin with. When we left on May 18th it was only the third time I had actually been on this particular bike. It's very different than our ST1300. I sit much higher and there isn't as much room for me as the Honda had. I can feel that it's top heavy as well and this was making me a little uneasy knowing the extra work Mark has to do to keep it up especially in gravel or sand and fully loaded. Over all I like how it feels now. My foot position is better than our old bike making it easier for me to push off the pegs when we go over uneven (translate-bus eating) ground or potholes. It seems to do better on the bumpy stuff for me on the back. Mark doesn't feel this but I definitely prefer this suspension. I do tend to get more wind and rain on this bike though. We have discovered when it's raining that my back gets completely covered in road mess. I'm usually wet and filthy when we stop, so we will eventually look at getting a mud guard or something to help with that. Now that we've managed to put down some miles we are both feeling much more comfortable with the bike overall.
Just don't ask me to turn around. It's definitely messy back there.
We've been humbled many times over already. Humbled by the weather that has been extra cold and rainy for this time of year. Humbled by the difficulties with our gear choices which we are still in the process of sorting out. Humbled by our two near bike naps. We've definitely been humbled by a few broken things along the way namely a tire and the iPad that had its own dirt nap. Most of all we have been humbled by the generosity of our friends both old and new and by the beauty we have seen and experienced already in such a short distance. We've been down east before but it still rates very high in the beautiful places to go. Not just the scenery but the people are amazing. I'm very happy with the way this adventure is starting to unfold.
. We had a fairly short ride to Peggy's Cove. A very beautiful spot but very sad story of Swiss Air flight 111 crashing just a few miles off the coast here back in 1998. The aircraft struck the ocean nose first at a reported speed of 555km/h with a force of 350g, which caused the aircraft to completely disintegrate. The search and recovery operation went on till December of 1999, by which time 98% of the plane (279,000lbs of aircraft debris and 40,000lbs of cargo) had been retrieved. Ultimately it was faulty wiring which caused a fire that was blamed.
