You don't know what you've got till it's gone

Woke up in Thunderbay this morning.  We lost another hour so 7am wake-up was difficult.  Thankfully we don't have another time change for another few days - 3 timezones in 3 days can be a bit taxing.  We got going by 7:45 and headed to the Thunderbay Restaurant on Donna's recommendation.  Got to know the owner Denyse who is positively wonderful.  We had a great chat and she fed us really well.  Her specialty are the finnish pancakes and they were lovely - reminded me of mum's.  Finished up breakfast and Denyse sent us off with a great big hug each.

We headed back to the the hotel for the pack up and I realized I didn't have my Treo Pro.  Disaster!  I need that smartphone to do the YouTube video's, plus I had 3 days worth of videos sitting in it.  I look everywhere and it's no where to be seen.  I retrace my steps all thru town - no luck.  Ishan goes to the filling station to see if I dropped it there.  I go back to the hotel for a last look - hopefully third time is the charm.  No luck at all.  I resign myself to the reality that it's lost.  I go into my bag of electrics to put the helmet camera onto charge for today's ride and low and behold there's the Treo Pro on charge!  I swear I looked there but my absent mind got the best of me.  Ishan gives 2 eye rolls for this one.

This saga has cost us an hour so we don't hit highway 17 until 10 am.  Once we get going the riding is good.  We're in the flow of it now and the daily riding is smooth and fun.  There's not too much talking, a quick hand signal and we know what the other is getting at, and our speeds are in good sync.  We're back in our rhythm just like it's southern Morrocco.  We've got great roads today all along Lake Superior.  This is just more spectacular stuff.

This is the storybook Northern Canada that Stompin' Tom sings about.  We're riding accross great big granite slabs, quintessential Ontario lake country with sign after sign warning about moose on the road.  It's a perfect sunny day with lovely light.  The sun is making the trees glow and the glittering lakes and rivers seem to be smiling at us as we roll along.

We make a quick pit stop at the Serndipity cafe in Rossport because Denyse recommended it.  I  have the blueberry shortcake and a coffee - it felt like the right lunch today.

It's better to be on the bike than off it today so we saddle back up and get cranking.  I'm switching up the soundtrack - K-OS is going full force and I'm racing by the glorious Ontario forrest in my b-boy stance.

The light is starting to fade so we pull into Wawa to pickup supplies for the gourmand meal for the night.  I pull out my Pre to send a tweet.  I'm desperate for a bio-break so I quickly put the phone away and take care of more urgent business. We pack away the dinner supplies and head out to find a camp for the night.

We find a spot in Lake Superior park and settle in for the evening.  We get camp all set and I head out to gather some firewood.

Tea is on, fire is roaring and we're done going over the day's events and the route for tomorrow.  Time for me to slip into my sleeping bag and write my thoughts for the day.  I reach into my jacket for my Pre but all I find is its beautiful suede case.  Alarm bells start to go off.  I can't have lost my gorgeous new Pre.  After having it for just 1 week I've come to totally depend on it even when I'm in the Canadian hinterland.

There's no sense in ripping apart the camp in the dark - we'll have to see how this plays out in the morning.  Hopefully the shine of a new day will reveal its location and put my mind to rest.

Next morning -
I had a couple of wolves come visit me in the night.  They sniffed me and woke me up then wandered over to the bikes to check them out (everyone loves the bikes).  They had a peek around and then went off on their merry way.  It was just a freindly visit by our wild canine comrades but my heart still skipped a beat.

After my morning tea a fellow camper on the lake dropped by for a visit.  He was curious if we had dropped a phone.  His wife found it on the road last night.  It must have fell out of my pocket when I was scoping tent sites.  Rod Smith and wife - you have my hearty gratitude.

The Pre is back in my pocket and ready to explore points eastward.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Timmies Trifecta

Started out from Winnipeg this morning after a good nights sleep.  Followed our usual morning ritual of packing the bikes and going over the days route then gassing up.

We pulled into a filling station that was connected to a Tim Hortons - nothing unusual about that.  This was the last Timmies between Winnipeg and Ontario.  It would be our first day in Ontario so starting out with a coffee and some timbits was mandatory.  Turns out alot of other hearty Canadian travellers had the same idea.  The line up for the drive through went across the parking lot, through the fillling station and onto the highway.

Ok so breakfast is done and we hit the road.  Its the saturday of labour day weekend so everyone is out - we'll be doing alot of passing today.

The praries quickly fade and start turning into northern Ontario forest.  It's clear that we've hit the great Canadian shield.  There's granite everywhere, meandering rivers with the forest right in its midst - very special stuff.

The moose warning signs start coming up very regularly and the lakes begin to pop into the landscape.  You expect to see a mountie emerge from this wilderness on horseback and ask you if you've stored your food properly so the bears don't get it.

We arrive in Kenora after a few hours and stop in for a fill up and a stretch.  A friendly old timer pulls up next to us on a bumblebee yellow segway and gives a hello and asks us about our bikes.  We have a great chat - we tell him about the trip and he fills us in on the local roads, cool spots and the secret back country locales where he used to go snowmobiling.  We give him a sticker and part ways with a hand shake.  He sticks the donkeys logo right smack in the middle of his segway and he takes off like a shot.  This guy knows how to make that thing move.

Fuel pit is over.  We jump back on the bikes and start cranking it.  I'm so excited to see Northern Ontario and we still need to get alot of kms behind us today.

The road is fantastic - alot of it has just been repaved.  There are nice big sweeping turns, mountain passes where the road has been blasted into the rock, and big straight-aways that go downhill and open up to the perfect Canadian forrest views.

It's 2:30 and we're hungry.  Next town is Ignace.  Low and behold there's a Timmies right ahead. We pull in and get the primo parking spot.  Timmies stop number 2 of the day.

We're about 20 kms from Thunderbay when the sun turns into moon and we ride into TBay by moonlight - the forrest sillouette by moonlight is a wonderfully canadian experience.  As we get into town we need some dinner and a place to lay our heads but we have no idea where to go.  I stop into a Shoppers and accost a couple of ladies in the makeup section and ask them where the downtown and fun spots are.  I meet Donna who is wonderfully helpful.  I must have looked quite out of sorts so she took pity on us and offerred to show us around.

We followed behind her as she lead us around the town showing us the places to be and the hotels/motels where we could sleep easy and not worry about the bikes.  As we thank 
Her for all her help she gives us her phone number in case we have any problems.

We pick a hotel and get settled in.  Now we're ready for dinner and we decide to call Donna to see if we can offer some dinner in consideraions for her kindness.  Well she takes it 1 step forward - she's told Wes about us and he's a motorcycle nut so he's up for chatting bikes and routes.

They pick us up from the hotel and take us to Gargoyles for dinner.  It's great conversation - we talk about bikes, trips, roads, how best to stay dry, how best to stay warm.  They clue us into the history of Thunderbay and how the community is a result of 2 towns merging together.  They were wonderful company and made us feel like old friends.

It used to be when someone mentioned Thunderbay I would think of Paul Shafer and the freezing cold.  Now Thunderbay will be memories of Donna, Wes, and friendship.

Ps.  I had a hankering for something sweet late night.  Luckily there was a Timmies across the street from the hotel.  Timmies hat trick on our first day in Ontario.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Who Smashed What?

Today was a ride and a half.  We rode from Pincher Creek to Regina and saw a lot of stuff in between.

We broke camp bright and early and headed straight for the head smashed in buffalo jump.  It was a beautiful ride through some hilly plains.  We got to the interpretive centre just as it openned and headed straight for the top.  We had a visit from a family of deer and a tour by some prairie dogs as we contemplated the ingenuity of the aboriginals.  It was a great spot and a heck of a way to hunt the wild bison.  The natives would herd the bison over a cliff and setup a butcher shop at the bottom - smart thinking.

We jumped back on the bikes and started eating up some road.  We got hungry around Lethbridge and stumbled on a family farm called Boxburn farm.  We settled in for an early lunch and chatted with our lovely waitress, Jacinta.  Boxburn is a medium sized farm that grows strawberries, raspberries, peppers, and other veggies.  They supply alot of Calgary restaurants and IGA.  Even though they produce and sell a sizeable volume there is no cutting corners on health and flavour.  They're not a strictly organic farm but everything they do on the farm leaves you feeling good about eating their veggies.

Boxburn is a recently started family farm.  This got me scratching my head abit because we're constantly hearing you can't make a living at farming and how the family farm is turning into a relic of a bye-gone era yet here is someone who has recently taken up farming and is making a go at it with some good success.

Boxburn runs a shop and a little cafe as well as the farm and our lunch at the cafe turned into a special occasion - neither of us had ever had saskatoon berry pie, today we were going to rectify that.  It was love at first bite.  Sweet and sour at the same time - lovely.

After lunch we were back on the road to Regina.  We were transitioning into the straight, fast, and windy roads of the praries.  The road was just as I expected.   Lon, linear and flanked on both sides by wheat and corn.  It's harvest time so both crops are at maturity but it's early so they haven't been cut yet.  This was an amazing site - a road that melts into the horizon surrounded by fully grown wheat and tall grass dancing in the wind.  I've never seen anything like this; the shear size of the praries is overwhelming.

We ended the day by riding into Regina by the light of a full moon that filled the night sky.  This was my prarie reality - the dream couldn't have been any better.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Afternoon siesta...on the bike!

Ok, so in all this dashing around on the bikes and eating scrumptious meals in combination with the afternoon sun has lead to a few head bobs from our friend Riz. On our way to Sudbury, Riz crackels over the coms and says he needs a break. So we pull off into the next suitable area just off the road, Riz says "hey just need to close my eyes for 5 minutes..." words trailing out of his mouth he puts his kickstand down and then a leg and rests his head on the tank bag - helmet and all still on! Within a minute I hear snoring...I was sure he be up in a jolt as the next truck comes barrelling by - nope - he's out cold and manages to stay asleep in that position on the side of the road for 40 minutes (despite my attempts to shake him awake)!! When he finally does wake up on his own - he has this perplexed look on his face - the kind where you trying to figure out where the heck you are and what just happened. He is in disbelief that he was in la-la land in that position for that long...hmmm maybe need to cut down on the lunch portion sizes?! Anway, I put my gear back on and jump back on the bike and we're off again.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

It's Africa hot

We're riding through the Canadian praries and it's blowing my mind.  I've never been through this part of the country and it is beautiful.

Riding a motorcycle through the prairie straights is not quite the piece of cake everyone was thinking.  We're going through cross winds of up to 80 kms and the drafts of the semi's are different in the wide open spaces.  It's just like boating at home.  These ginormous trucks make an air wake just like boats in the water so i've got to battle through the air displaced on the sides (there are alot of ripples) and then punch through the big bow wave.  It can be pretty intense with the combo of the cross/head winds.  These winds have been so strong that our fuel range is half of normal.

We've been so tired at the end of these days - I didn't expect that.  The wind mixed with this intense heat has been draining.  The person inside the television machine says it was 37 for a good chunk of the day.  When we rode through the Sahara we only had a day or 2 that were this hot.  It tires me out to the point where I get a little drowsy on the bike and we have to pit for a refresher.

You may ask, "how hot was it?" - it was so hot that the thingie that holds my camera onto the helmet melted off.  This thing was stuck to my helmet with industrial adhesive.  It's been tested to some ridiculous amount of weight and 2 days in this scorching heat has diminished its power so badly that it can't hold a 300 gram camera.  This my friends is an extreme condition.

This heat isn't the only comparison to the desert.  All the wheat fields are fully grown and ready for harvest and there is a lot of dry grass around so you see a great deal of yellow in the landscape and there are these little groves of trees in the middle of a vast field.  They plant the trees with the house so you have this little oasis in the midst of a field that stretches from horizon to horizon.
These trees make all the difference - without them it would feel like a baren landscape but instead you get the sense that there are people around, people that connect the west to the east.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Slow food in Calgary at Rouge

So as you've probably read, at the end of day three, we hooked up with Riz's buddy Trace in Calgary who really took care of us "biker dudes - here comes trouble..." - as I'm sure that is what all his neighbours were thinking as we roared in after circling the area a few times trying to figure out the crazy house numbering system... Well ok, we do have a tendency to get temporarily displaced - not to be confused with being lost! Besides, the Pre saved us again, pinpointing our exact spot with the blue dot, only for us to look up and see Trace standing in his driveway laughing!

Anyway, I digress... after settling in we headed out for dinner at Rouge.

We sit outside by their garden and are invited to stroll around and check
it out as this is where all the vegies and fruits served at the restaurant, that we are soon to eat, are grown! This is real slow food. 

We chat up the servers and talk about the origins of everything on their menu and even get the lowdown on Bio-Dynamic farming - it's the whole organic, slow food movement at a whole other level - I mean everything that is done at these farms is to serve a purpose - like burying Elk's bladder in the soil at specific distances to keep certain insects away from a vineyard. Sounds completly bizarre, but every step serves a purpose to ultimately help with growing food - all done organically.

So, what did we eat - Riz and Trace opted for the Chef's special menu - jumbo prawns, arctic char with seared truffle mash potatoes. I decided to try some Elk medallions with a beetroot and arugula salad. We finished with fresh fruit and a creme brulee.

 A delicious meal and a splendid evening talking about food, living  and motorcycles adventures.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Alpine resort in the Rockies...

So after a weird morning on day two yesterday, we ended it in style at the Mozart inn nestled in the "Alpine Resort" town of Kimberly, British Columbia.

We were served up some authentic European food - Wiener Schintzel and some special spinach Speckknodel for Riz. The food was excellent and our server Aleria was very sweet as she put up with our last minute order and non-stop questions since we were surprized to hear that it was their last night and they were closing the place down and heading back to Europe

All said a good meal and friendly conversation - a splendid way to end the day.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

The long Albertan day

We started out quite well today.  Trace was gracious enough to let us stay with him Calgary and he was the consumate host - porridge with berries and a fresh pot of coffee was ready before I got out of the shower.  My friend Trace was reared as a good Canadian kid.

Meanwhile Ishan and I had to sort out our faulty 2 way radio system.  The 1 guy in Canada who deals with the system we have is in Calgary which seems convenient until he tells you that he is in Oregan and has over 1200 kms to ride to get home.  None-the-less he tells us that he'll be around today.  I was dubious about this.

So we call him at 8 am. No answer we have another coffee and brain storm some alternatives.  Try him again at 9 - he answers!  I wave of relief washes over me and we start peppering him with questions.  After a few minutes of this it becomes obvious that we need to go see this guy.

We look up his address on Trace's PC, print out the directions, pack up and head out.  The printed directions say to go south on Crowchild Trail so that's what we do.  We end up at a golf course and are obviously lost.  We pull out the Pre and within 1 minute we see that we need to be going north.  Without the Pre this discovery would have taken a long, long time.  We get our bearings and figure out the correct root by following the blue dot in the Pre.

We arrive at the radio guy's house and roll into his garage.  His name is Tim and he turns out to be a super nice and totally helpful dude.  His right hand is wrecked becsuse he was on the throttle for 1200 kms yesterday but he's a total trooper and he digs right into our comm units and gets us sorted out.

Now getting everything working was no small task and took a good chunk of the day.  Match that with 30 celsius and my patience was drawing thin.  After a seemingly endless set of configs we finally get going and hit alberta highways 533 and 22 - stunning roads.  My frustrations melt away but I am knackered.  By 7 i'm ready to fall asleep on the bike.

We pull into Pinchers Creek and find s beautiful place right next to the creek to lay our heads for the night.  We clean up, brew a hot cup of tea and get some sleep.  We're going to need it because we've got a big day tomorrow.  Winnipeg here we come.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Insect Karma

Amazing day of riding.  Great roads, perfect weather, stunning country.  We left at the crack from Kimberley and savoured the ride through the foothills of the rockies on BC 93.  My unceasing fear of hitting deer/elk/moose stayed with me.  The evidence on the road was undeniable.  Never the less we enjoyed every turn.

Stopped for breakfast in Radium where we were chit chatting with this lovely local couple and a couple on a ride from Washington.  After breakfast we were back on the road with a spectacular start - Kootney park.  The entrance to the park was nothing less than stunning as we literally drove through a mountain.  Amazing vista after vista never got old.

A couple of hundred kms later we're out of all the parks and on the main highway into Calgary.  I'm travelling at a healthy pace but I start to zone out on the insect funeral grounds on the shield of my helmet.  I look up and I see this large bee coming at me at extremely high speed.  BAM!  He ricochets off the side of my helmet and goes through my jacket and down the back of my shirt.  I can feel him buzzing around.

So I'm moving at 130 km/h with a half dead wasp in my shirt.  I pull over onto this very economical (read very thin) shoulder and dismount the bike as steadily as possible with fully laden semi trucks barelling down no more than a couple of feet away.  I scurry down the embankment to get away from the bevvy of on-coming traffic.  I slowly remove my back pack - the wasp startles and tries doing what little it can.  At this point I break full out - i'm ripping off my shirt and pants as it tries to make it's way down my back.  Meanwhile everyone travelling to Calgary on highway 1 east bound is seeing me jump around on the side of the road stripped down to my skivies.

All this effort did not pay off, in the midst of my helter skelter dis-robing the wasp has decided his last act will be to penetrate me with whatever stinging power he's got left. ZZzzzz .... Oowww.  It's done - wasp is dead and i'm stung.

Hurts like a son of a gun but i've got to get back to riding so I get dressed, take a deep breath and get back on my bike.

As I put my helmet back on I start looking at all the exploded bugs.  That sting hurts but I know i'm still coming out way ahead in this tradeoff.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

What does a Bachelor's slow food table look like?

Day 1 - we're having dinner with my friend Will at his house in Winlaw, BC.  Will is an old friend that has a real passion for living locally and all things that are produced in the beautiful Slocan valley.  He is especially in tune with slow food - he grows his own veggies, and has even started keeping his own chickens.  This led me to the question "What does a bachelor's kitchen table look like?"

I've developed a real love for meals that are prepared with the slow food ethos: fresh ingredients that are produced locally and cooked with love and time.  Truth be told it's my wife's passion for this stuff that transformed my kitchen to make sure we ate with this philosophy in mind and I am quite sure I'm not the only fella out there that eats well because of his partner's passion for good, healthy, nutritous food.  So can a man accomplish this same end on his own?

The answer is a resounding yes.  We showed up at Will's really late and had to make dinner out of whatever miscellaneous stuff was in his fridge.  Turns out I was able to whip up a delicious omelette purely with ingredient's that Will had personally grown.  The eggs were fresh from his chickens (its been abit rough for him because the bears ate most of his chickens this year.  He's down to 3 and luckily they all lay eggs) and I was able to toss in some peppers, brocolli, cauliflower, and some assortted hearty greens all from his garden.

While it is true that Will is an exceptional man - I think we can still say that it is possible for a bachelor's kitchen to be slow food friendly and for his table to look pretty darn delectible.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Pre insights

We left Nelson this afternoon and headed to Balfour to catch the Kootney lake ferry.  I did not feel tip top when we left Nelson.  I was physically fine but there were definitely some mental gremlins.

  There was a lot of traffic on the 2 lane highway we were riding so my focus was firmly on passing this never ending line up of trucks and campers.  I was also trying to run an extra couple of devices on motorcycle battery power.

Meanwhile Ishan's comm unit is not working so we're depending on old fashion hand signals for communication while we're riding.  For this to be effective we both need to be watching each other.  The first gremlin - i'm being an idiot and not paying attention.  I'm singularly focussed on passing - i'm so focussed that I miss the ferry and just keep riding.  Ishan's doing everything short of standing on his seat to get my attention and all to no avail.  15 kms later I finally notice that Ishan's no where to be seen.  I pull over on a spot just as we start climbing a hill.  Ishan arrives a couple of minutes later and explains the etiquette of riding with a partner (he's given this speech a couple of times before) and clues me in to the fact that i've got us going in the wrong direction.  First question where are we?  Well neither of us really have a clue.  What to do?  I pull out my Pre and launch the Google Maps app.  It takes literally 3 seconds to unveil the ignorance.  I'm in the BC wilderness, there's no cellular reception but data is definitely coming through and this beautiful smartphone lives up to its name and covers the tracks of my ignorance.

OK no harm done - let's just turn around and I'll pay better attention.  Simple solution eh?  Not quite.  I go to start the bike and nothing happens.  The starter is labouring and won't turn over.

I was trying to run a couple of extra gadgets today off of cig lighter power - big mistake.  I've killed the battery.  I'm in the middle of the BC forest with a bike that won't start.  Now i'm in a panic.  What to do?  Time to kick it old scholl - literally.  Luckily I pulled over on a hill so we push the bike around so that it's facing down hill.  Ishan watches out for traffic while I try a rolling start.

I put the bike into second gear and try rolling down and popping the clutch to get it started.  First try: chug, chug - no luck.  Take a deep beath, second try: chug, chug, chug - no luck.  A few not so nice words and my anxiety mounts.  I pull over to let some traffic get by.  Third try - if this doesn't work we'll have to push this fully ladden bike uphill to try again, this is not an attractive prospect.  Chug, chug, chug, VROOOOM - it worked!

Big smile on both our faces - now let's get some miles behind us and get this day back on track.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Raw milk from whole cows

Day 1 and we stopped by a small family farm in Chilliwack called Home on the Range.  Some friends have been drinking raw cows milk from Alice's cows and they absolutely rave about the taste.  The idea is to drink milk that does not have any processing/pasturization - the only thing that stands between you and the cow's udders is the bottle that milk sits in.  This is a somewhat controversial topic but there is no question that milk tastes a whole lot better and creamier.  It's really hard to go back to 2% after having a glass or using it in your coffee.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Weird morning on day 2

Nelson morning

What a weird day. Huge one yesterday and it was great to hang abit with will. To short of a visit but so it goes. It took forever to get going this morning - I slept way too late (the van guest house was wicked cool), ishan's tank bag breaks just as we're about to leave, I drop my bike in will's imfamous driveway, and my battery went flat (too many gadgets). We' re finally making some progress now. On the kootney lake ferry at Balfour. Hopefully we've filled the quota of weird stuff for today.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

the crescendo of the prep - let's get going

What a day.  I've felt like I was 2 steps behind all day.  Almost done now.  Bike is tuned, packed, gassed, wired and ready to chew up some miles.  I'm tired.  Despite the hectic vibe today was a fun day.  Tomorrow's going to be so much better.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

The BMW F800GS has it's own adventure!

So after the usual working through and figuring out what bike I was going to ride across Canada, a couple of weeks go I took delivery of my sweet new ride - a BMW F800GS. A big thank you to Bob and his team (Ashton, Tim, Chris and others) at Bob's BMW (http://www.bobsbmw.com/) for getting me all sorted with the bike and kit. Bob has been very helpful in every way and is supporting our efforts by not making any money on the bike and accessories that he has supplied. Bob is very active in the community and is currently running his second Ultimate Bike Raffle (http://www.ubr2.com/) in support of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.

Ok, so I have the bike, I just have barely enough time to break it in to allow me to get the first service completed at Bob's prior to our departure and then all hell breaks loose! The original freight broker that I worked with to have the bike picked up from Bob's (after he graciously agreed to have it crated using another bike's metal crate) informs me that the crate arrangements will not suffice and a host of other uncertainties pop-up?! Good grief...now what? Do I ride the bike all the way across the country from Maryland to Vancouver? Yikes - that would be insane!!

So, the manic search for a solution begins. As luck would have it I hooked up with Mitch from Estes Forwarding. He really helped me out - managed to secure a 5 day shipping guarantee and connected me with the Steve and his team at Craters & Freighters who took care of getting the bike in a solid wood crate! Here they are using a gate lift to get the bike into their shop:

Here's the bike all secured to the crate bottom and ready for it's own road trip to Seattle...!

The bike is now in Seattle on it's way to Ride West BMW where it'll undergo the break-in servicing and be ready for me to pick up when I get to Seattle this Friday and hook up with Riz. We then ride up to Vancouver and get sorted out for the begining of our adventure on the 30th!

Can you eat slow food and still pay your rent?

Another misconception is the idea that slow-foodism is an elitist eating club…the goal is to link small producers to consumers to re-establish the continuum between our food's origins, our tables and our pocketbooks.
—Françoise Kayler, a spokesperson for the Quebec’s slow food movement

Many people call Whole Foods whole paycheck for good reason. Yesterday I dropped by for a bottle of organic dish soap and walked out with an $8 loaf of rice bread, a container of organic goat yogurt and some ridiculously expensive bio-dynamic tahini concoction. I was $50 bucks lighter when I got back on my bike.

I tried to break this cycle last Saturday by going to the secret Saturday only whole sale market called Pro- Organics. These are the folks that supply the high end, organic retailers. The test would be: “Could I walk away with just as many groceries as my regular weekly shop at Santa Barbara on Commercial Dr.” We got inside and found salmon to be a great price. $8 a pound for wild coho and a smoking good deal, $15 a pound, for black cod. Fisherman at the docks don’t give that great a deal. The free range eggs were $6.25, which is more than the farmer’s market. We bought a bunch of apricots that we had high hopes for, but it turned out that half were rotten already. That’s the thing with slow food. If you take too much time, you may not enjoy your food at its freshest.

I ended up dropping $102.81 for a box full of groceries and I did not walk away feeling like I got ripped off.

Organic Grocery List
3 pounds of salmon
2 pounds of black cod
1 bunch of kale
1 spinach garlic baguette
2 pretzels/1 foccacia loaf
1 pound of couscous
1 pound of red lentils
1 head of red lettuce
2 pounds of apricots
4 avocados
1 dozen free range eggs
1 pint of blueberries
1 butternut squash
4 vanilla beans (complete pod)
3 lemons
3 tomatoes
2 large bak choy
1 bunch spinach
5 apples

POLL
Do you think we got good value for our money? Come on gang - let's hear your comments!

p.s. If you want to know where this wholesale organic market is, ping us on Facebook by searching for the Dashing Donkeys.

The Tire Saga

Yet another wonderful summer day: Picnic in the park with the family (nicoise salad, grill roasted chicken and sausages, spinach ricotta pie, melons with mint and blueberry pie for dessert). Played at the duck pond, bocce after dinner put the kid to sleep, catch up on work - you all know the drill. All-in-all a lovely Vancouver day.

Tuesday morning I've got some shop time to mount the new Pilot Powers onto the bike so I drive over to my parents place to pick up these fantastic new tires that are sitting on the garage floor.

As I said, it's been a busy day so I don't get to this last minute pick up until midnight. I pull into the driveway - it’s a beautiful evening. The wisteria is in full bloom and the lilac is in its summer glory. Stars are out and the moon is stunning. I pull out the tires and put them into the trunk of the car. I've got my golf clubs and baby stroller in the

boot so I’ve got to pull everything out and re-jigger so that everything fits nice and comfy. My sis is still up so we sit for a nice cup of tea before I head out. The tea is delicious as always and I'm starting to get a little weary so I head out and make my way home. It's such a beautiful night, I become a little nostalgic for my childhood in this neighbourhood - these kind of summer nights around here were such a joy, man I really love this neighbourhood. I'm having such a good time reminiscing that I pull out an oldy-but-a-goody – Mark Morrison “Return of the Mac” is in full rotation on the ipod. The day couldn’t have gone much better.

I pull into my garage all set for a motorcycle-centric day tomorrow.

Tues morning – pull the battery off the charging bench. Pop it into the bike – ROAR – starts like a charm. Sounds good.

Next step – Karen needs to drive the car down to the shop with the tires. Of course she has some additional errands to run and has to put a box into the trunk . No worries, I packed so masterfully last night that there’s plenty of space.

Pop goes the trunk and there’s lots of space for the box. Turns out there’s more space than I thought because there are no tires to be seen. What the *!^%!?

Ok quick call home – hope Faiza hasn’t gone to work yet.

Phone - Ring, Ring

Rizwan – “Hello, Faiza”

Faiza – “Hi Bhaiya”

Rizwan – “ Ahhhh – are there some tires sitting in the driveway?”

Faiza – “What are you talking about?”

Rizwan – “I’m missing my new motorcycle tires.”

Faiza – “I’ll go look”

Rizwan – pensively waits

Faiza – “yup. They’re sitting in the middle of the driveway.”

Rizwan –“ Sweeeeet!” ( huge sigh of relief)

Faiza – “how did you forget them?”

Rizwan –“ i didn’t forget anything. I meant to leave them there. They needed to breathe before they get installed.”

Faiza – “I see”

Rizwan –“At this point they’ve breathed enough so it would be nice if you brought them inside. I’ll be over to pick them up in a few.”

Faiza – “OK” (she’s used to these kind of things happening).

At this point I dispatch Karen off to pick up the tires (she’s supe

r excited) and I go off to get insurance for the bike. This all gets co-ordinated via my Treo Pro and the crisis is averted with the exception of a couple of annoyed girls – but let’s be real – at this point they’re used to these happy little unexpected adventures.

Just 1 hour later than we expected and the bike is in the shop and everything is back on track. Not too shabby.

Trip prep is fully underway - time to go shopping for motorcycle gear. The fun begins!

The Donkeys are dashing across Canada in a mad rush to gobble up the vast Great White North. They’ll be riding as fast as possible but still stopping long enough to savour the tasty morsels of slow food each evening. We can't wait to discover all the delicious things that grow above the 49th parallel.