Kakabeka Falls & Errands

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Kakabeka Falls & Errands

Friday, 10 August 2007

By now we are in Thunder Bay. Yesterday was by default an “off” day. It was just too far to comfortably drive (over 300 km) and still allow 4-5 hours for my “work” (even if I’m riding only 3-4 hours, with my breaks it does take about an hour longer than the riding time). Without saying it was a boring drive, one can say the omnipresent forest, with only occasional rock sightings, and very few lakes to see, well, it does become repetitive. We had lunch in the town of Atikokan, where I had a very tasty (salty enough) grilled cheese sandwich.

Darell & Patti both said we must go to see Kakabeka Falls, so we drove there, and they certainly were beautiful & impressive. Not as massive as Niagara Falls, but noisy, and very forceful. Panna kept seeing chipmunks (no more prairie dogs) & had a great time pulling Bob around, who did NOT want to get close to the railings. We had the opportunity to cross over the river just prior to the falls and look at them from both sides. There was an interesting path we might have taken, to give me a longer walk prior to my bike ride, but we’d both forgotten to bring water for Panna to drink (Guess neither Bob nor I was wide awake yet!) & she was already panting, probably from the excitement of the “hunt”.

We then returned to Casper & I took off on Blue, heading back to Thunder Bay, while Bob & Panna went to do their “thing” - laundry, that day. On the whole my ride back to Thunder Bay, although shorter in the end than I’d expected, was pretty nice. There were two construction zones, where the lanes were narrowed by those “cones”, used to denote lane changes. It was truly my good fortune to have approached both of those areas during gaps in the traffic - might have been a bit crowded otherwise.

Back in Thunder Bay I had some banking to do at the Bank of Nova Scotia. There are three branches in the area, and a gal at the front desk of the hotel told me which one would be closest. Looking at my map, which did cover Thunder Bay in detail, I planned my route to it, went up a given street, and turned right onto Victoria, as the bank was at 500+ Victoria East. The numbers around me were in the 2000+ range, so I figured I’d best turn around & head west to the “zero” point. Well, I didn’t go far before I was on Victoria West, and those numbers started at 700 or so & went down the farther west I went. Now, I’ve NEVER been in a city where the numbers started high in the middle then went down, but that’s how it was here, and I finally found the bank, right downtown, in an older part of the city (our hotel is more in the suburbs). After that I rode around a bit more, ulitimately trying to locate a particular recreational path which runs right past our hotel. It took a little effort but I did find the one, which was really satisfying. Tomorrow I’ll explore more of this pathway system - it almost makes me feel like I’m in Ottawa where bike paths abound.

DAY 44: 40.8 km (I know, I’m slacking off!), in 2:19 hours, ave. speed 17.6 km/hr, max. speed unknown - for some reason the bike computer says it was 112.4 km/hr - but I don’t think that’s the case!

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