an aerial jaunt

I rolled out of Dryden this morning and should be in Kenora tomorrow evening, but before dad and I parted company we got a chance to go for a quick flight together. The bosses needed a plane dropped off and another picked up in a place called Geraldton and there were no objections to me tagging along for the ride so off we went.

A friend of dad's I'd met earlier in the week, Angie, whose hubby Derek is wearing a blue shirt in my last post happened to be at the airport with her swank camera as we got organized and made our way up. She snapped a bunch of great shots and sent them my way. Thanks Angie!

"summer camp for pilots"

I've spent about a week now in Dryden hanging out with my dad and the folks he's been working with at the MNR doing fire detection. Here's me with one of the pilots Derek and a fire observer Mike beside one of the detection Cessnas. 

My dad's been calling this contract summer camp for pilots as the flying is pretty straightforward and we're basically in cottage country on a lake. Here's one of fire crews who operate on the ground doing a training exercise, the pilots call these guys the smoke eaters.

Like good summer campers we spent some time by the river watching a local volleyball league duke it out beside the patio and quaffed a local speciality, pitchers of gin and lemonade slushy.

He looks stressed!

Tomorrow dad goes back to work and I'll be riding for my next stop near Winnipeg to visit an old friend and meet his wife and son. For anyone wanting to keep in touch my travel phone will be out of commission until I can reach a Rogers store in Winnipeg so between tomorrow and Wednesday I'll be grabbing internet where I can but otherwise unreachable.

Thunder Bay, family, and time travel

Signs like this one make the one at the top bearable!

So Brent and I rode together from Wawa to Thunder Bay and enjoyed ourselves on the way. He's a much more experienced cyclist than I and an early riser to boot while I'm a slow starter in the mornings but with a bit of patience from him and a little extra hustle from me we found a good pace. Once we'd camped at my uncle's farm Friday night he continued on his way and I stayed to visit for the weekend.

Steve and his girls collecting eggs for breakfast.

We got some canoeing, swimming, fishing and all sorts of fun in, even though we got a bit stormed on out on the lake one day and my cousin Ruth's hair stood straight on end as we reached the edge of the lake as the thunder heads got close, that was something wild to see! We also did some touristy stuff, checked out the Terry Fox memorial which was fun for me as he is my brothers namesake.

After a great visit I set off toward Dryden to see my dad where he's working for the summer for the ministry of natural resources flying forest fire scouting missions. In order to get some visiting in during his days off I cheated a bit and accepted a ride from Upsala to Dryden (about 150km), but before that I crossed into Central Time, woohoo! I'm going to hang out here till the weekend and then push off for Manitoba on Sunday.

For those who haven't seen my videos on facebook yet here's the last one I shot in Lake Superior Provincial Park. I'll be posting more as I get time but right now I'm off to check out the city with pops! And as always for more pics check out the tour page.

education on the road

We've almost finished the North edge of lake Superior, having breakfast this morning at a place called The Hungry Moose and learning about traditional Canadian slang.

place holder beer

Hey all, checking in from Neys Ontario, somewhere between Marathon and Schreiber on the North shores of Lake Superior. Since I've been out of touch online I've been shooting videos with my phone to try to keep y'all posted but it's turning out to be really tough to learn a new video editing suite and get stuff uploaded while biking all day and camping all night.

I promise I do have some fun stuff to show as soon as I can sit still for a few hours near some decent high speed bandwidth and get things posted. In the meantime, here's Brent and I looking very stressed about our grievous lack of broadband.

road warriors?

Just a quick update while I drink my coffee. I'm in Hammer Lake outside Wawa making for Marathon and I've picked up a riding partner with whom I have quite a bit in common. Head over to his blog for the full story.

unexpected and unconventional in the Sault

Quick update as I roll out of Sault Ste. Marie. I arrived here Sunday evening around seven after what has been by far my longest day on the road, I put in ten hours to make it here for Canada day. What I had planned when I got here was to find my way to Velorution, but as I was trying to sort that out I got a text from Brian and his wife Natale simply saying that they had good friends in the Sault and here's their number, "you should call them".

So what, I'm going to call a total stranger, dog tired and covered in sweat and road grime and say "Hi I'm Rob"?

I texted back asking this very question.

"Yes" was the simple answer.

I called. I was given an address, and I made my way over.

I was completely ill prepared for how well and quickly I would take a liking to Jonathan and his wife Julia. From out of the blue stranger to heading downtown for fireworks and drinks we chatted up and down through travel stories, films, books, growing up, acting like a kid anyway, and countless other things including all the shenanigans we'd each gotten up to in Toronto over the years. I've had plenty of people ask me about this trip, stuff like "how many kilometres is it?" or "how long will it take you?", pretty standard stuff. Then I met these guys.

"Tell me about how this has changed your relationship with time". Whoa, aight I had to think about that one.

We played catch with heady chit chat long into the night and lounged about trying to stay ahead of the beating sun the next day. All in all a very relaxing long weekend in the Sault! Thanks again Jonathan and Julia, good luck with planning your big changes. Looking forward to catching up with you again in the big smoke.

Today, out and around Lake Superior, next stop Pancake Bay.