Blogs from North America

Fate played a hand again today and oh what a day of riding! It followed a not so good night. Getting up in the night, as one needs to do, I looked at my iPhone for the time. It was completely dead. A hard boot to no avail. I spent a restless remainder of the night thinking how the trip would be without the phone. Fiddling with it again when I was more coherent in the morning I managed to get it working. Such dependency. As it turned out where I was today it could have presented problems without a phone should something have happened. An issue when riding alone. The fate began at breakfast, no muffin, just toast. Chatting with two nice bikers from Austin, Texas about everything from a long ago girlfriend I had ... read more

Bonjour à tous, Les soirées ici, ça tourne court. Mes lieux de résidence sont excentrés, c'est repas vers les 7H, et je mange tard par rapport aux locaux, et aux anglo-saxons en général. Hier un bon steak, accompagné d'un riz cantonnais, normal dans un resto tenu par des chinois, et point final. Retour à la chambre bien avant 8H. Je reviens un peu sur mon hôtesse, Viviane. Hier au soir elle est revenue me voir, pour me mettre en garde de bien débrancher, la cafetière, et le grille pain, lorsque je quitte la chambre ça peut être dangereux. De plus, garer ma voiture, pas comme la sienne mais dans l'autre sens, plus plein de détails insignifiants, mais qui doivent compter pour elle. J'ai l'impression que c'est madame gendarme, mais ça reste facile de lui faire plaisir. ... read more

After returning from La Paz, Mexico, Leslie and I made a brief stop in Golden followed by a brief stop in Vernon to repack suitcases with foul weather sailing gear before heading to Sidney for 2 weeks of sailing on the west coast; a week sailing around Salt Spring in the Canadian Gulf Islands followed by one week in the San Juans Islands, USA. Ladysmith and Butchart gardens were highlights in the Gulf Islands. The Ladysmith Maritime Society marina is home to the largest Purple Martin colony in BC. After spending the winter in Brazil, the Blue Martins had returned to Ladysmith for the season. Purple Martins were first observed nesting there in 1989. Several nest boxes were installed in 1990. By 2002, there were 75 nest boxes and 35 pairs nested that summer and produced ... read more

We started this morning with FREE breakfast in the hotel again, and then scheduled our ride to the cruise port. There is a shuttle bus from the hotel directly to our ship’s terminal, so we paid the fee instead of a taxi that would have gotten us close but about 100 yards away. Anyway, we returned to the room and packed our bags awaiting our noon ride. We took everything down to the lobby on time and they loaded our bags and we got onto the shuttle. The steps into the van were a little problem, but we persevered and we were on our way. Thinking about it, trying to get us and our luggage into a normal sedan taxi probably would have been crowed anyway. At the terminal our bags were taken from us by ... read more

Today was a day characterized by wind. No jokes please. More of that in a moment. The day started with a donut from a local donut store and a nice chat with a fellow who lived in the Oklahoma pan handle. Well I knew Texas had a pan handle, but Oklahoma, was he pulling my leg? Later in the day I happened to be pursuing a map of cattle trail routes, more on that too, when I saw indeed there is a thin strip of Oklahoma forming a handle squashed between Kansas and Texas. Frankly, it seems more like a true handle than the Texas wannabe. Enough about pan handle envy. I took a quick look at a couple of the major sites before leaving Wichita. The “Keeper of the Plains” is at the junction of ... read more

All packed and waiting to go to the airport in a couple of hours. This has been such an awesome trip. Rain and cold was in the forecast for the entire time, and except for a couple of tiny showers during drive time, the weather was perfect. To top it all off, last night when we returned to the hotel after an amazing dinner (more on that later), we were treated to a magnificent thunderstorm, with rolling thunder bouncing off the granite hills and lightening fireworks filling the sky. Some of them were so bright you could see George Washington’s sculpture during flashes. Rained for a long time and this morning I woke to a brilliant, warmer weather. Makes me want to stay longer. I spent this week with a fun couple from the San Fran ... read more