Planning, Planning!

Planning, Planning!

7 April 2007

It is now about 1½ months till "scheduled" departure date, May 15th. That may change, as we don't want to miss any games if the Senators go far enough in the playoffs (hey, we've got our priorities!). But, we're operating on the assumption of d-day May 15.

Casper, our Ford E250 van, is currently being customized to accommodate up to 3 bikes, with a tiny kitchen area, small couch for resting, room for some clothes & Panna's crate, even a tiny porta-potty, as there may be times of "urgency"... I'm hoping he'll be ready by mid-April, so we can get used to driving him, plus assess how much room we do have for stuff -- neither Bob nor I am accustomed to "traveling light". And Panna will have her own needs -- toys, treats, etc. We don't actually plan to sleep in the van overnight -- we do like to have real beds & real bathrooms, so at least that will not be an issue.

...But finding motels IS an issue, especially since Bob and I don’t sleep in the same room (someone’s snoring bothers the other person...) & some places just don’t take pets. Fortunately there seem to be quite a few which do, and, somewhat surprisingly, quite a few motels/hotels offer mini-fridges (for keeping Panna’s food fresh), microwaves (for popcorn?), and high-speed internet access - sometimes wireless. So, while we may not be doing the 5-star thing as far as accommodations go, I think we’ll do allright. The thing for me now is to use my computer at home to research possible places to stay so that as we go along we don’t have to do a lot of research into motels in towns we anticipate to visit.

Another issue is locating the route the TransCanada Trail (TCT) does take. In Manitoba it seems to be very well organized, with detailed maps for each of the 6 regions it goes through. Although Manitoba is only about 400 km wide, the circuitous nature of the trail results in its covering about 1200 km. Saskatchewan seems to have completed only a fairly small portion of the TCT from Moose Jaw east to Duck Mountain Provincial Park. There are online maps of those portions and I’m working with them and a map of southern Saskatchewan to get an idea of the route we’ll take, including the roads between portions of the trail. Ontario, as one can imagine, is a huge province to cover west-to-east, and there is a map available showing the TCT as well as other hiking and snowmobile trails and the major highways. Never having been farther to the northwestern part of Ontario than Kapuskasing, and then only for 24 hours in1979, I’ve got no real idea of what awaits - have gotten the impression it’s pretty hilly in some parts. So we’ll just have to wait and see - having set my own “rules” for this endeavour, I’m allowing that some days I may just have to accept a 10-km walk/hike (maybe with Panna) in lieu of a 60-km bike ride - I want a challenge, am not trying to kill myself!

In the meantime, I’m trying to get/keep fit by riding Blue, the road bike, on the trainer, as much daily as possible. Silver has just returned from a tune-up and we did go out once, a fairly short but nice ride. Can’t believe how much more fun it is to ride in the “real” world than inside, even with an MP3 player! The cold of Canadian (Ottawa) spring is a bit of a downer, but I’m just going to have to dress warmly and get out there.

More to follow...:-)

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