Your dad only turns 80 once...

[Dan Filetti]

Yup! Just ask "Dan The Bacon Guy"

Would that be Dan Filetti with his 3/8" thick slices??   

Cap'n Ron. . .

I wondered that too, but then I thought, naaah couldn't be...  Having some of that fine, 3/8th thick, apple wood smoked bacon this am, as a matter of fact.

Dan

Dan

[Bminder]

Ron, when I crossed the Canadian border in Manitoba for the first time, I was grilled the same way.  I'd never been out of the US before, and as an American it really ticked me off because I kept thinking "It's none of your business where I'm going, how much money I have on me, and why I'm here!"  But I had enough sense (barely) to keep those thoughts to myself.
But it was a weird experience.

[CanDman]

WOW......this trip just keeps getting better and better......lol......Captain ......I am blown away.....I love reading about your trip.......I was in White Mountain at last years NESR.....and 2 years b4 that when I did my big ride out to the Cabbot trail  in Cape Breton and back........AMAZING ROADS !!!!   ..one of these days I will post that run....... In the meantime I want to enjoy the rest of your journey 

[Capn Ron]

Ron, when I crossed the Canadian border in Manitoba for the first time, I was grilled the same way.  I'd never been out of the US before, and as an American it really ticked me off because I kept thinking "It's none of your business where I'm going, how much money I have on me, and why I'm here!"  But I had enough sense (barely) to keep those thoughts to myself.
But it was a weird experience.

Yeah, for me it was just an odd set of questions.  As Americans, we can take our privacy and freedoms for granted.  "I should be able to just go anywhere and do anything I want without being questioned."  After reflecting on that experience, I realize what element they're trying to filter out...  They were just trying to figure out if I was that element.   

Cap'n Ron. . .

[Capn Ron]

WOW......this trip just keeps getting better and better......lol......Captain ......I am blown away.....I love reading about your trip.......I was in White Mountain at last years NESR.....and 2 years b4 that when I did my big ride out to the Cabbot trail  in Cape Breton and back........AMAZING ROADS !!!!   ..one of these days I will post that run....... In the meantime I want to enjoy the rest of your journey 

Glad you're along for the ride CanDMan!  Stick around, I'll be in your neighborhood soon enough!   

Cap'n Ron. . .

[CanDman]

WOW......this trip just keeps getting better and better......lol......Captain ......I am blown away.....I love reading about your trip.......I was in White Mountain at last years NESR.....and 2 years b4 that when I did my big ride out to the Cabbot trail  in Cape Breton and back........AMAZING ROADS !!!!   ..one of these days I will post that run....... In the meantime I want to enjoy the rest of your journey 

Glad you're along for the ride CanDMan!  Stick around, I'll be in your neighborhood soon enough!   

Cap'n Ron. . .

Looking forward to being in yours......(6 months  ) .....Kurt...it is my Jubilee Year and my brother said it was going to be a beauty....!!!!!   
Kev

[Capn Ron]

Forth Leg, Day 3: Saint John, NB to Bridgewater, NS (409 km...that's 255 miles for us metric challenged Americans!)

So, this was my first morning waking up in Canada!  I was on my own...in a foreign country with only my wits and my trusty FJ to see me through all this.  I had downloaded all the detail maps for Canada on my navigation app last night while I had a solid WiFi connection.  I adjusted my cell phone plan for the next thirty days to try and avoid some shocking roaming fees, but the bottom line is...if I can find a free WiFi connection...all the better!   

I had already pre-purchased a ticket on the ferry from Saint John, NB to Digby, NS a week earlier...all I had to do was find the ferry terminal and be on time!  This would end up being my route for the day:



Since this was the first time EVER putting the bike on a ferry, I headed over there first thing to ask a lot of questions.  They were very matter-of-fact about the whole deal and put my mind at ease.  "Just go to the front of the line at 11:00am.  Ride onto the ferry and we'll help you get it tied down."  Oh.  That's it?  I guess they've dealt with this sort of thing before.  Now I had about an hour to kill and I was still in Saint John.  I had passed a sign for a Martello Tower a few blocks back so I went to check it out.



Not even sure what this is supposed to be, but I wandered up and took a look inside:



It's basically a round fortification with very thick walls.  This particular one was built in 1815, but they've been around since the 15th century.  Apparently easy to build, extremely strong and easily defendable, you can find them all over the world!  There was a guide there and I just walked in and said, "I'm sorry, I only have about fifteen minutes before I have to leave for the ferry...can you just give me the quick tour?"  He started to tell me about the construction with a main central pillar that gave the tower its strength:



All the canon around the tower that could defend with a 360 degree view:



The safe storage of gunpowder well below ground level:



The mortise and tenon construction of each of the floors:



I was in awe!  I realized I had been there for a half an hour and I wanted to stay and see more!  I thanked my guide for giving me some insight to a Martello Tower...something I had never heard of an hour earlier!  This was a big part of this trip...going to see life...history...nature...in places I had never been to enrich my understanding.  My head was filled with more questions than answers about the history of Saint John, but I had to get on a boat!

I rode down to the ferry terminal and all went pretty much as described.  I rode up to the bow and parked the FJ athwartships in my lane.  There were plenty of deckhands directing me to ratchet straps to tie down my bike.  With a little fiddling, I was satisfied my ride would remain upright in the roughest of sea conditions!



I then settled in for the three-hour ride across the Bay of Fundy to Digby.  I met another motorcyclist (Richard) on a Honda ST1300 from Connecticut.  He was visiting friends in Nova Scotia and helping them out with installing some custom cabinets in their kitchen.  He had ridden up into Canada quite a bit and the conversation seemed to focus on how to stay dry on a motorcycle.  Being from Southern California...riding in the rain was a foreign concept to me!  Within a few hours, we approached Digby:



Rich and I grabbed some lunch in the small town of Digby...swapped some more stories, wished each other well and went our separate ways.  I had it set in my mind that I wanted to ride all the way around Nova Scotia so I headed south towards Yarmouth.  About thirty minutes down the road it started to POUR!!!  I mean the kind of rain that hurts...bigger drops than I had ever seen...with a 30 knot accompanying wind to boot!  I could hear Richard in my head:  "There's no such thing as a waterproof glove!"  Boy, was he right!  I was SOAKED to the bone!

Going up the east coast, the rain finally let up and I pulled over to take a shot of the bike at the farthest east I had ever been:



I noticed all those gray clouds and assumed I'd be in for plenty of that these next few days if Rich knew what he was talking about!

I found a little mom and pop motel right on the water near Bridgewater and was happy to be warm and dry for the night!!  I'm hoping for better weather tomorrow...

Cap'n Ron. . .

[X-Ray]

Wow, just wow, 

I'm sitting here having a couple of cold beers reading this, how do you get such a fantastic cougar shot?? Tell you what, when your journey is finished Ron I'm going to go back and read it right through again, this is fantastic.

[simi_ed]

Ray, I'm going out on a limb here; that's is a 'stock shot' of a cougar.  Ron may spin a good yarn, but he's (probably) not that good of a pho-tog.  I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

[Capn Ron]

Wow, just wow, 

I'm sitting here having a couple of cold beers reading this, how do you get such a fantastic cougar shot?? Tell you what, when your journey is finished Ron I'm going to go back and read it right through again, this is fantastic.

Ed's right, I'm a decent photog, but not that good!  I was going around 40mph when I first saw the cougar...I hit the brakes and watched her leap from my left to the other side of the road and up into the hills.  Enjoying the moment was all I could manage while still riding!

I took around 2,000 pics on this trip and they really help me recall where I was on a particular day.  On a rare occasion, I'll use a stock photo in case someone thinks my idea of a cougar is a middle-age housewife leaping across the highway.   

Cap'n Ron. . .

[simi_ed]

Middle-aged housewife leapt out in front of you??  I'd do more than slow down 
Actually, when we went to Willits in 2010, I saw a puma (black cougar) bound across Hwy 20 in about 2-3 'steps', just outside of Ft Bragg, near sunset.  My wife was looking over my shoulder, down the road & missed it.  Big Kitty!!!  You wouldn't want that cat to take a bite out of your hand.  It'd take your hand, wrist and part of your forearm.

[Dan Filetti]

I saw a 2 black bear (one dead one bounding across the road) and a bald eagle recently.  I also saw a grizzly mom and her cubs in BC a few years back.

Dan

[X-Ray]

Heh Heh, alls good. I did say I was having a couple of beers pondering this! I'm thinking, thats is the shot of a lifetime, 

[Firehawk068]

Yup! Just ask "Dan The Bacon Guy"

Would that be Dan Filetti with his 3/8" thick slices??   
Cap'n Ron. . .

I wondered that too, but then I thought, naaah couldn't be...  Having some of that fine, 3/8th thick, apple wood smoked bacon this am, as a matter of fact.

Yes Dan, I was referring to you......................and your 3/8" thick slices! 

[Capn Ron]

Forth Leg, Day 4: Bridgewater, NS to Sheet Harbour, NS (312 km/195 miles)

Today was a very relaxing day...I didn't really need to be anywhere at any particular time.  The ladies I met back in Saint John put "Peggy's Cove" on my list of things to go see, so I set out!  My meanderings today ended up looking like this:



Now, Peggy's cove was just up the road and I figured I'd go check that out right after breakfast.  Well, I packed up all my gear on the bike and fired it up.  Hmmmm...I was getting a LOT of what I imagined was valve clacking noise.  So much that it concerned me.  I shut it down and thought for a bit.  When I did the oil change in New York less than a week earlier, I used a motorcycle-specific synthetic 20w-50.  The fact that it's cold in Nova Scotia hadn't even entered my mind!!!  To test this theory out, I re-started the bike and let it warm up...sure enough, quiet as an FJ1200 engine could be!  My plans now included another oil change ASAP.  I found an out of the way auto parts store...I popped in and they stocked Royal Purple 10w-40...Not a motorcycle blend, but I'll take it.  The owner was very accommodating, telling me he'd take back the used oil and let me do the change in the parking space in front of his store!  I walked next door to a hardware store and found an aluminum turkey roasting pan for $3.  Drain pan?  check!

Life would be a lot easier if I had a socket and extension to pull that drain plug, so I went to another nearby store...this one serviced chain saws.  They were happy to lend me their tools and I was in business!



Clearly, by the look of that parking space, I wasn't the first to do an oil change there!  About 20 minutes later, I was all cleaned up and back on the road.   

As a side note, the folks in the Maritimes are extremely nice.  The hospitality I received from everyone was so over-the-top that I thought I was on a hidden camera show.  The owner of that shop took some time to educate me on how to read the clouds in Nova Scotia.  There are only two conditions...patchy:  This is where you can clearly see light and dark patches...not to worry.  Gray:  This is where the sky is SOLID dark gray and you had better pull over and put on the rain gear!  This knowledge proved to be extremely helpful over the coming miles!!

I left there and headed to Peggy's Cove.  It's a very rocky coastline village with a lighthouse.  It spit rain on and off, but was cool to check out: 



Then I went to the lighthouse:



Some nice folks I met from Quebec took my picture:



Who the hell is that photobomber in the green jacket?   

I spent about an hour just watching the waves crash in...this was the North Atlantic!  The same waters that took down the Titanic...that sunk the Andrea Gail during the "Perfect Storm"...It seemed to have a feel all its own and I was happy to just soak it all in for a while.



I then moved on to Halifax.  A city that reminded me of parts of New York City...In many ways, a very modern city....but with a storied history.  I rode up to the Citadel...complete with drawbridge!!



I then went to the maritime museum.  One of the best I've been to.  I saw the original blueprints for the sailing schooner "Bluenose" (Check the back of a Canadian dime).  I also saw a piece of a deckchair recovered from the Titantic sinking!



History was coming to life for me...Things were starting to click...Not just something you read about in history books, but you start to put the pieces together and it hits you that the Titanic sinking was nearby...that Halifax lobster boats were actually finding pieces of the doomed ship in 1912.

As much as I was enjoying Halifax, I grabbed a slice of pizza in the downtown area, stocked up on more backpacker meals at a sporting goods store and headed out.  It was raining off and on all day and the ride north of Halifax was no different.  At some point it started pouring in buckets and I was drenched!  I mean down to the skivvies soaked!  I needed a warm place to sleep for the night and I found what I was after in Sheet Harbour.  I laid all my gear out over the heater and went to sleep hoping all would be dry by morning.

It was another great day.  Amazing scenery, friendly people and learning some history of the area...I would LOVE to get back to Halifax some day!!

Cap'n Ron. . .