Cambridge Ontario to Wasaga Beach Ontario and Back (sort of)

Some days you eats the bear.......

.....and some days the bear eats you.

By the time I got up this morning, Kim and Mike had already left for work. Sandy and I headed up to Canadian Tire to get a copy of their house key cut, stopped at Mickey D's for breakfast and picked up a few groceries at Zehr's, dropping them back at the house.

Tom had taken the day off to clean Heather's Rebel, which was being stored in his Mom's garage near his condo in Waterloo. We rode over to see him and then we all went over to Heather's office for lunch. She looks lost in there with a table, one computer and a chair in that large empty space. Most of the furnishings went at auction earlier this week and she will be done at the end of the month. The bike noise seemed to be getting worse, so I called J&R and spoke to Rhonda. She said John was there this afternoon, so I decided to ride up and have him take a look. Tom took Sandy back to Kim & Mike's.

On the two hour ride to J&R in Wasaga Beach, I noted that the noise was worse when I backed off the throttle and, at lower speeds, I could feel a vibration through my foot pegs. Not a good sign. I arrived at the shop about 3:10. John dropped what he was doing and took the bike on the road for a test. I hoped for a dragging caliper or dirty brake pad, but he came back and confirmed what I really knew but didn't want to think about. Drive shaft universal joint. The same as happened to my 1976 Wing with 40K miles on it, only this one has 82K miles, many of them towing a camper trailer at 80MPH. Interestingly, the extended warranty kicked in two weeks ago.

When I think about it, this is all for the best. It will cause me some problems in the short term and tomorrow won't be near as much fun, but this early will allow us to get it fixed with minimum disruption. If it had happened during any of the big trips this summer, it would have really messed things up.

So now I am stuck in Wasaga Beach. As some kind of a weird positive omen, a guy pulled in on a Honda Rune, the only one I have ever seen on the road. I called Heather and she arranged for Tom to come and pick me up. Then I called Leo and was telling him the tale (he is negotiating right now for a new Wing). He asked if I wanted him to come down to Waterloo Monday and bring us home. I said sure. Friends like this are a prize better than gold.

Tom arrived about 5:45 and, on the way back to Cambridge, I got him to drive through the Hockley Valley and the Forks of the Credit. He figures he might like Hockey tomorrow on the way home with the new bike, but that the Forks would have to wait until he has more experience. Good call, IMHO:-)

Back at Kim and Mike's, Mike had cooked up some excellent stuffed pork chops and then we all sat around and passed the time for a while until Tom and Heather went home and the rest of us turned in. Tom and Heather took her car and left us his so we could go over to their place in Waterloo in the morning and get Operation Suzuki under way.