The Year So Far

We're not traveling anywhere with this post but I though that we had so much going on in the first 24 days of the year that I would get them recorded for posterity.

First, it continued to snow except when the weather got really cold. This is just like one of the real winters of days gone by. It seemed particularly onerous because we have become spoiled by mild winters in recent years. I have run the snowblower more than I did in the last four years combined and we have seen more mornings where the temperature ranged between -30 and -40C than we did in those same four years. But we haven't had it as bad as our southern friends who haven't seen a winter like this in decades, if ever.

Sandy's father, Harry, has been in the hospital for over two weeks as they  try to solve problems with a bladder blockage. He was supposed to come home yesterday and then today, but that was delayed due to some new issues. Harry is 89 and very sharp mentally, but his body could use a little tuning up.

 The Avalanche has been experiencing some intermittent electrical issues. It loses power momentarily, just enough to reset the clock. I had the battery load tested and the charging system checked and all was reported as good. Then, yesterday, it refused to start. Stone cold dead, nothing whatsoever happened when I turned the key. I called CAA to get it towed to the dealer, but the fellow who showed up put his booster pack on it and it started. I wanted it dead so they could find the problem once and for all. Still, I drove it to Crosstown Chevrolet where they found the 175 amp main fuse (they call it the Superfuse) corroded so they cleaned it up. Interrupted power at this point could account for all the problems we have had. I hope this takes care of the issue.

I attended four sessions at the hospital Cardiac Rehab unit located in the YMCA building. This was an introduction to the gym for heart patients, most of whom had no history of working out. The routines were minimal, considering I started back at my regular workout routine in mid-December. My caseworker Trevor (also my fitness coach when I started at the Y twelve years ago) agreed that I would do my regular workouts and just consult with him going forward. I have a treadmill stress test with my cardiologist in early February to check out how the stent is working out and another the same week at the hospital arranged by rehab. This one will involve a stationary bike and an O2 mask to measure my efficiency and determine my optimum heartbeat range for cardio workouts. The Y threw a curve by shutting the exercise floor down for a week to install new equipment and I had to adapt to a new device called an Arc Trainer. After some time with it, I think it will work even better for me than my familiar elliptical.

The volunteer jobs have been busy. Action Sudbury Chair Ron and Secretary Mary went to Italy over Christmas and are now in Mexico until April. As Vice-chair, I will be taking care of business until they get back. The MS Society (where I am treasurer of the local chapter) financial year end and 2014 budgeting processes were compounded by the resignation of the Chapter Chair and a series of moves to improve our fiscal position. The Freedom Riders annual statements and 2014 Budget are required soon. To top it off, I have just assumed the roll of secretary/treasurer of the local OPP Veterans chapter and dues are now receivable. Once I get the work done, I am going to reassess my commitments.

I switched browsers from Chrome to Firefox due to the flaky way that the former was using memory. This has resulted in some tinkering. I also started using Todoist again. As the name implies, it is a system for keeping lists of jobs to do. It is better now than it used to be and is proving useful in coordinating all the tasks I have to get done. I still need to get a new printer to replace the one that is giving me problems.

Oh yes, and the snowplow got stuck again.

Freedom Riders Kris Kringle Party

The Freedom Riders Motorcycle Association of Northern Ontario, Inc. is our local riding club. It is a great group of more than seventy-five people. One of the club traditions is that we don't hold our Christmas party until mid-January. After the rush leading up to the holiday, it is much more relaxed later on. People's schedules are less congested, venues are easier to find and potential gifts are usually on sale.

This year, we rented the small hall at a local playground/outdoor rink maintained by the Lions Club. It was just big enough for the 44 people who attended.

The Gathering

Chantal

Lealand, John and Shawn

Before the party, the Club held its January meeting. After the business was done, Shawn got up and explained that Sue had not received her Firefughter calendar for 2014. To make up for this, he presented her with a calendar that he had produced, highlighting the Men of the Freedom Riders in all their glory. I must point out that glory can be a relative term.

Sue and "the boys"

Following that, it was time to recognize Shawn's birthday. We had a special guest in attendance to honour him.

Shawn and his "beaver buddy"

The next order of business was food. Our event coordinator, Danielle, had done a great job getting the various pot luck offerings organized as well as cooking a turkey. The meal was excellent although I found that taking a little bit of everything added up to a whole lot.

Danielle, mastermind of the Kris Kringle

The dessert table

Happy members dig in

After dinner, we got down to the gift exchange. Each person brought a gift valued at up to $20, marked as to whether it was for a guy, a girl or either, and put it on the table. Names were placed in a barrel and the Kringlemaster (VP Ken instead of  me for a change) oversaw the proceedings.

First, a name was pulled from the barrel. That person took a gift from the table and opened it. Then another person's  name was pulled. That individual could take a gift from the table or steal the already opened gift, whereupon the first person would select another gift from the table. This continued, with the person stolen from able to steal any other gift that had not been stolen during the current round, with the round ending when someone picked a table gift.

Normally, there end up being a couple of popular gifts that keep getting stolen back and forth. This time, there were more than usual and each round became extended as the same gifts kept getting passed back and forth. It was several hours before we got down to the last name in the barrel.

Bev opens the first gift as Ken looks on

Everyone is paying close attention

Rapt attention prevailed

Freedom Riders colours

Bill goes to the table

Cathay guards the popular Sons of Anarchy pillow

Sandy and a gift she held temporarily

Finally, the last gift on the table

Dan was the last name to be pulled

When it was all over, Dan had won the coveted last position and the gifts made their final rotation around the assembled multitudes. Sandy ended up with a selection of candles while I managed to keep the popular wolf blanket. Due to the length of the process, there was some talk about amending the rules for next year, but there was no clear idea how to do this.

The last formal activity of the evening was the annual Attendance Draw. Each member gets one ticket in the draw for every official club activity they attend. The winner gets a $275 gift certificate from Leatherworks Plus, a $25 gas card donated by President Rob and a refund of their current year dues. The second place prize was another $25 gas card from Rob. The big winner was Chantal, better half of the same Rob.

Organized activities done, the members socialized and, bit by bit, started to leave. Some had booked rooms at a nearby motel to save the problems of having to get home after partying. This was another great gathering that helped build and maintain club spirit and we look forward to doing it again next year.

The Snowplow Did It Again

The snow plow got stuck in the ditch on Boxing day. Today he did it again. Same street, different corner. This time, they used a large front end loader to try and get it out. Instead, they got the loader stuck as well. Trying to pull the loader out with a pickup truck was a lost cause. The were there a long time and I never did see how they got extricated.

Really????

Woodstock Ontario to Sudbury Ontario

We watched the rest of Elysium this morning. It was not as good as I had expected considering Jodie Foster was in it, but OK. It had snowed just enough overnight to make the roads a bit greasy, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.  We checked out the new baby's room (used to be our room) that Heather and Tom had set up for Jasper, who should be along in the third week of February to take up residence.

Jasper's room

We bid our goodbyes to Heather and Tom and headed for Zehr's to get Sandy a supply of her special chocolate bars, Cadbury dark chocolate Fruit & Nut bars that have somehow become very scarce in Sudbury. Then we (I'll get slapped by my dietitian) got breakfast at McDonald's and were on the road by 9:45 AM.

Highway 401 was pretty good although it was almost raining at -2 C. We almost got to Cambridge before we saw the first car off the road, and then the second one soon after.

 First car off the road today

The 401 was actually pretty good

Between Cambridge and Toronto, two more cars were off in the boonies. I have no idea how  they could do this on an unfrozen road surface, but good judgement seemed to be at a premium this morning. Since it was Sunday morning, I decided to take Highway 401 all the way to Highway 400 North, a choice that worked out well. On the 400, we were doing well northbound but the other side was starting to jam up as we crossed Major Mackenzie Drive. We started to get a bit more snow as we headed north and we saw some more cars that had hit the rhubarb before we got to Barrie.

Another one bites the snow near Highway 88

North of Highway 88, we got heavier snow and the road started to be snow packed. The heavy southbound traffic was impacted by another wreck that took up two lanes. We saw one of the new snow plows that tows a trailer that can be deployed to the right so that one unit can cover two lanes.

Winter wonderland

New two lane snow plow

We stopped at the new Petrocan station at the north end of Port Severn. This is a really nice facility, even though it is a bit tricky to get into. I wonder how it will eat into the business of the Tim's/Petrocan at Horseshoe Lake Road? Snow accumulation was heavier here and we saw some sleds riding in for fuel. Continuing north, it was +2 C and the highway was clear again.

I stopped at the Canadian Tire gas bar in Parry Sound for more windshield washer fluid but the were out. No surprise, given the sloppy road conditions. I put the last jug I was carrying into the tank and we mushed onwards.

Just before Still River, traffic ground to a halt. Looking ahead, we could see emergency vehicles near the O.P.P. detachment. I got out and commiserated with other drivers about the inconvenience of living in a land where closure of certain sections of road could cause detours of one hundred miles or more. But we were lucky and they started letting vehicles through in a single lane before too long. The cause was an SUV that had apparently caught fire and burned.

 All stop

 I didn't argue when this guy pulled in ahead of me

 Moving ahead slowly

 Now we see the problem

 I hope this guy was insured

It burned up real good

The rest of the trip was uneventful. When we got home, snow been drifting a bit and I had to shovel a path to the door so Sandy wouldn't get her pant cuffs snowy. I decided to wait until the City plow went so I didn't have to fire the Red Monster up twice. By bedtime, they still hadn't come around but, with four wheel drive, the snow wasn't a problem for us.

 Some drifting while we were away

 We need a path to the door

Marks of a sloppy highway

Today's Route (316 Avalanche miles):

Interactive Map

VROC Toronto Bike Show Dinner

I woke up at 4:00 AM with some ideas about how to handle some of the MS Society Treasurer's business and couldn't get back to sleep, so I went downstairs, broke out the computer and got to work. Then I finished the overdue blog entries, catching it right up to New Year's Eve before everyone else got up.

It was a damp cold when I took the truck to fill it up. We decided that, due to how Heather was feeling, we would skip the bike show and just do the dinner in Toronto. But we still had other things on the agenda. Because Jolene had been sick and missed her birthday party in Aylmer last month, Kim and Mike had organized one for her at Churchill Park in Cambridge. Mike called and asked if we could pick up some pizzas at Little Caesar's near the park so that was our first stop.

The birthday party was in full swing when we got there about noon with the pizzas. In addition to Jolene and Robyn, some of Jojo's classmates and their parents were there. Food, cupcakes, cookie decorating and toys. What more could a five year old ask for?

One of the Moms distributing the food

 The Birthday Girl likes pizza

 A good looking group

 Robyn having fun

 Cookie decorating is the best

Robyn in the driver's seat

We spent about an hour and a half at the party and then headed on to Babies 'R Us in Kitchener where Heather was maintaining a baby gift registry. I had never heard of this before but it seemed like a big business there. Then we stopped at Best Buy where I wasn't able to find a charger for my PS3 controllers.

Shopping done, the GPS told me it was farther to Wild Wing in Brampton, our supper venue, than I had thought. I decided to pull out all the stops and routed us there via the expensive 407 Express Toll Road, with the Garmin indicating we would be four minutes late. Four minutes was easy to make up by ignoring the speed limits and the fuel consumption indicator. We were almost at the restaurant when Rainman called twice, first to check the location and then to say he had found it. We pulled in at 5:00 PM on the  nose and found a table waiting and Rainman already seated.

A word about Rainman (Randy in this case, because we do have more than one active Rainman in VROC). Rainman lived near Atlanta, Georgia and rode with Six Pack Jack, Stockbridge Richard and Daley. We have known him for years and have attended many different rallies together across the country together. A couple of years ago, his employer suggested it might be a good career move to work in the Toronto Office for a while. Despite the jolt of trading Georgia winters for Toronto, he took them up on it. But this is the first time we have actually gotten together with him on Canuckian soil.

It was a good thing that our group wasn't too big because this was not a very big Wild Wing. There were just our four family members and Rainman plus Maxxx and Marianne, who showed up soon after we did. Water was off the menu because the mall had just lost its supply, but the food was still available.  We placed our orders and then spent supper talking about old times and new plans. It was a very nice visit, although I totally forgot to take any pictures. I need to develop some of the sam photography habits Sherm has.

We wrapped up just before 7:00 and headed back to Woodstock, arriving back at the house around 8:00 PM. We settled in to watch the movie Elysium, but I guess the day must have really worn me out because I fell asleep part way through. When they woke me up, I had just enough energy to get to bed.

Today's Route (173 Avalanche miles):

Interactive Map

Sudbury Ontario to Woodstock Ontario

The first weekend has traditionally been the annual Toronto Motorcycle Show and VROC dinner weekend. The dinner has been sporadic the last couple of years but, especially with Rainman having relocated from Georgia to Toronto this year, we wanted to make it happen again. We planned to stay with Heather and Tom in Woodstock and all make the trek to Toronto tomorrow.

It was -36 C in Sudbury this morning with a wind chill that made it feel like -48 C. Talk about your Polar Vortex and I gave the truck extra time too warm up. We swung by the Sudbury Trail Plan office on the way out so I could pick up the coffee travel mug that I had left in Normie's car on our New Year's Eve Red Nose adventure. It had warmed to -28C by the time we got rolling at 11:00 AM under clear, bright skies.

The snowmobile trails we could see from the highway looked great. I knew a time would come when I was sorry there wasn't a sled in the garage and I think that time was now. South of Parry Sound, there was a layer of pressure ice on the roads. This occurs when the vehicles compress snow into a hard packed icy layer and the temperature is too cold for salt to work. It can be tricky but a steady hand and reasonable speed will usually see you through.

We stopped at Waubaushene for a bathroom break and so I could pick up some 5 Hour Energy drinks. Going through Barrie, the traffic ground to a halt and I was worried that a wreck had tied up the road. But no, someone had just put their brakes on near Essa Road and everyone reacted. Soon, we were rolling again.

It was Friday afternoon so going through Toronto wasn't an option. We went across Highway 9 to Mono Mills and then down Airport Road. Once we turned on old Highway 24, it was obvious that there had been a recent ice storm.

Icy trees along Highway 24

Sparkling ice as far as the eye can see

In Guelph, I tried a new route to avoid the rush hour traffic. Coming into town, I jogged west on Speedwell and cut up to Highway 7. We followed 7 to Breslau where we caught Fountain Street to Maple Grove to King to the 401. Not a bad way to go, but it will need some fine-tuning.. With the sun in my eyes on the 401, I missed the exit at Woodstock and had to go 7 kilometers to the next exit before we could turn around. We finally pulled into Heather and Tom's driveway at 4:45 PM.

I was feeling shaky and tested my blood sugar. It was, inexplicably, down to 4.3 (about 80 by US measure) so I had some juice to pick it up. I still haven't figured what drives the glucose levels in the short term.

Heather had just had a root canal done at the dentist and was feeling a little down because they couldn't freeze it due to her pregnancy. She is planning a home birth later in February and her doula, a sort of birthing coach, named Faith stopped by. It turned out that Faith had relatives in Sudbury. Her uncle is the late Marvin Smith, who I used to deal with when he worked at the Ministry of Natural Resources and I was head of the snowmobile association.

The four of us went out to Kelsey's for supper. My steak was only so-so, a disappointment because they usually have pretty good meat. Then we went back to the house and I worked on catching up my overdue blogs until we went to  bed about 10:00 PM.

Today's Route (314 Avalanche Miles):

 Interactive Map