Day1 (Ride: 598KM | 368Miles)

It’s surreal how suddenly this trip all came together.  Nat went from considering coming all the way to Orillia Ontario with me and then heading back home the next day, then preferred accompanying me  up till  our 1^st tank full was consumed then have lunch wherever we ended up being to turn around to head back home, to finally just getting me to Kahnawake for the tank fill up.  She simply was too sad to ride knowing I was going away for a month.  I took a picture of her teary farewell and look at it every night before going to bed.  It’s a wonderful feeling knowing someone cares for you so much.  Makes me wonder how the spouses of our military deal with the long separations when they go away on tour overseas for months on end.

This day was sunny, low winds, not to hot, simply perfect riding weather!  1^st destination; Harley Davidson in Oshawa Ontario, where Ken offered to meet up with me to then ride the up North for 2 hours taking the scenic side roads back to his place.  Plenty of nice scenery and events happening along all the little towns we passed as it was the long Labour Day weekend.  We even saw was a train and caboose that was converted for driving on the roads – whoever the owner was I bet he’s got quite the miniature railroads systems in his basement! 

We did a quick stop the Kirkfield Lift Locks to see some really cool historic marine waterway engineering feats.

  

Then off to Ken’s where I was greeted by not one, not two, but three dogs!  Naturally the whole neighbourhood dogs joined in the celebration of welcoming me to Orillia.  Once the excitement was over, I finally got to meet the cat and later even the Python!  Did we stop a ZOO? .. No, not at all, it was actually one the most lovely homes I have ever been in.  April (Ken’s wife) definitely has a talent for home decorating and could probably launch herself in a new career if she so wanted.  If I was an editor of some fancy home decor magazine I’d want to feature some of her work in my magazine.   I think Nat would have liked to have met April.  They have some similar qualities and talents.  I look forward to that meeting.

So after Ken and April whipped us up a superb BBQ the boys went downstairs to the man-cave where I finally met the Python.  

He was a friendly critter.  A little too clingy at times but for those who know me well, I kind of like clingy (zing Steve!).  Followed was a few cold brews, watching a bit of video of our comrade’s video of his ride trip to Alaska on Hester (Shrug’s Alaskapade blog Link), then a few entries in our bike Forum with pictures of the moment (link to thread).

Once we got over the horsing around and having fun, we started having even MORE fun planning my route out of Orillia to the States via Soul Ste-Marie.  Not sure how the idea came about (the mind was a little numb by lack of sleep and the light beer at this point!), but in nutshell, Ken decides to come with me all the way to Sault Ste.Marie MI!  The plan forms, we tell April.  Her reply to Ken (with a smile) is ‘’don’t let the door hit you on the way out honey’’ (what a great gal!).