Blogs from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, North America - page 13

Walkabout in Winnipeg Saturday, 28 July 2007 By today I’d pretty much run out of bicycle trips I wanted to do around Winnipeg, but the downtown area beckoned for a walking “tour”, so Bob dropped me off downtown near the area simply referred to as “The Forks”. That name refers to the junction of two rivers, the Red (the one behind our hotel, so-named because of its near-constant reddish-brown colour, due to the clay or something), and the Assiniboine, much smaller at this juncture. Without going into much detail I will simply say that there is a lot of significance to this particular region, as far as the history of western Canada is concerned. At this time, The Forks area is home to walking paths, shopping malls created in old warehouses, boat tours, and, of course, ... read more

To Selkirk, round trip Thursday, 26 July 2007 Today my planned route was essentially to Selkirk & back. The route to Selkirk is north across Winnipeg & a bit to the east from the hotel. And since I had NO intentions of trying to bicycle across town, it meant that Bob had to drive me to my point of embarkation (starting point) just past the outer limits of the city. Again I took Silver; we went up highway 57 to Lockport, where I headed west again, over a relatively narrow, longish bridge (which had a nice “arch”) over the Red River, to highway 9, which was again a very busy road with virtually no shoulder, heading north to Selkirk. There I rode along the main street - busy with no room for bicycles (does this sound ... read more

And on to the ‘Peg Tuesday, 24 July 2007 Today we were off to the home of Winnie the Pooh. But as it is about 100 kilometres from Morden, I was going to ride up to 60 km from the Tim Horton’s in Morden, and Bob was going to go to the hotel, check in, unload, walk Panna & then come pick me up. Just to vary the “pace” I used Silver today. It was another scorcher (turns out the high was 35° C, close to 100° F, and with the humidity it felt like 43° C) and I even took along an extra bladder with ice in it to 1) keep my lunch cool & 2) provide an extra supply of water should it be needed. The route was along highway 3 the whole way, ... read more

It had been 21 days since Montreal, over 2200 km, and we had only taken one day off. And it was all in the name of Canada Day. As if crossing the country via bicycle wasn’t enough of a Canada celebration, we wanted to be in Kenora for July 1st . On Canada Day morning, there was a beautiful sunrise to the East and some suspicious grey clouds to the West. We only had 50 km into Kenora, but we got rained on pretty hard so after arriving in Kenora and weaving through town with ice blocks for feet we were glad to finally find Conner, our Canada Day Host and Master of Ceremonies for 2007. We arrived at our destination to find Connor’s beautiful cabin complete with guest house for Brad and I where ... read more

The drive out of Ontario was the best part of the drive. That whole area from just before Thunder Bay to the border was the nicest we've been through yet. Forests to open lakes to huge walls of rocks...we were rubbernecking the whole way. There was an hour or two where we saw NOBODY going the same direction as us, and few cars going the opposite way and absolutely no civilization on either side besides logging activity. Also, the radio stations were few and far between. We went a little crazy. We stopped for food in Ignace at a small burger stand, after which point traffic picked up. I'm not sure how that works out or where they all suddenly came from. Dryden was perhaps the most interesting town so far. They had this wierd propaganda ... read more