Sunday, September 25, 2005
Ride for the Cure
Once again, I am out on a weekend adventure, this time for a good cause. But like all good adventures, it wasn't all sunshine and roses; it has to have some hardship to qualify as 
adventure! So my adventure was group motor bike ride around the Cabot Trail. It is a fund raiser for breast cancer research, so naturally, it is call Ride for the Cure. I unfortunately didn't do any fundraising, but a good deal of donating. This is only the 2nd year for the event, but it's popularity has already spread. This year there were 340 bikers on the ride! It was hilarious. We all met at 8am in town, and the number of bikes in the parking lot was astounding. Then off we headed to go along the trail. There were a number of scheduled stops, and they had a poker hand game, where at each stop, you picked a card out of a hat, and whoever had the best poker hand at the end of the day won a prize (which ended up being a kids dirt bike; if I'd known that, I wouldn't have picked such crappy cards!). 
The hardship came in two forms. First of all... the weather. Dun, dun DAAA!!!! It was actually not too bad out, but the nip in the air turned into almost frostbite conditions on the bike. Scattered showers and gusting winds also kept the driving interesting. The other form of hardship was fortunately not my own. There were a few accidents, one minor (broken collar bone), but one fairly major, with a totalled bike as well as two totalled legs. Not sure of the outcome yet, but hopefully he'll keep them both. Nothing good comes of driving too fast.
But on to happier pastures. I believe I mentioned my leathers. Well, check them out!! Aren't they awesome? I tell you, I sure didn't feel out of place on the ride; there must have been a whole stampede of cows slaughtered for the black leather on the Trail this weekend! What a blast. I was part of a biker gang! Best part is that I found a few people I knew so I didn't have to be alone in the crowd; I actually had people to ride with! AND, I won a shirt! A nice long sleeve zip neck navy shirt. I could have used it early that day, but hey, I'll take what I can get, when I can get it.
adventure! So my adventure was group motor bike ride around the Cabot Trail. It is a fund raiser for breast cancer research, so naturally, it is call Ride for the Cure. I unfortunately didn't do any fundraising, but a good deal of donating. This is only the 2nd year for the event, but it's popularity has already spread. This year there were 340 bikers on the ride! It was hilarious. We all met at 8am in town, and the number of bikes in the parking lot was astounding. Then off we headed to go along the trail. There were a number of scheduled stops, and they had a poker hand game, where at each stop, you picked a card out of a hat, and whoever had the best poker hand at the end of the day won a prize (which ended up being a kids dirt bike; if I'd known that, I wouldn't have picked such crappy cards!). 
The hardship came in two forms. First of all... the weather. Dun, dun DAAA!!!! It was actually not too bad out, but the nip in the air turned into almost frostbite conditions on the bike. Scattered showers and gusting winds also kept the driving interesting. The other form of hardship was fortunately not my own. There were a few accidents, one minor (broken collar bone), but one fairly major, with a totalled bike as well as two totalled legs. Not sure of the outcome yet, but hopefully he'll keep them both. Nothing good comes of driving too fast.But on to happier pastures. I believe I mentioned my leathers. Well, check them out!! Aren't they awesome? I tell you, I sure didn't feel out of place on the ride; there must have been a whole stampede of cows slaughtered for the black leather on the Trail this weekend! What a blast. I was part of a biker gang! Best part is that I found a few people I knew so I didn't have to be alone in the crowd; I actually had people to ride with! AND, I won a shirt! A nice long sleeve zip neck navy shirt. I could have used it early that day, but hey, I'll take what I can get, when I can get it.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
September Long Weekend Extravaganza
You guys would not BELIEVE the amazing long weekend I had. Well, mostly it was just the Rolling Stones conert on Saturday, but the whole weekend was an adventure, so you get to hear about it all!
FRIDAY (Sept 2, 2005)
So Friday, I finished work at ~1pm (which is the norm for me while I'm in my Family Medicine rotation; the doctor I work with only works Friday mornings! Nice!), headed home and finally got all my sh... stuff together and on to the bike (the motorbike that is) for a departure of 2pm. I got 10 minutes away and then realized I'd forgotten the directions to the campsite I was supposed to meet people at, so after an about face, I finally got on the road at 2:30pm. I headed out, sticking mostly to secondary roads, and after a very long slog (~7 hours) I finally arrived in Moncton, NB. I won't share the details of the that trip, but I did a lot of screaming and cursing inside my helmet at the semis that almost blew me off the road, the gas prices that dropped 5 cents about 30 seconds AFTER I bought my gas, my numb butt, and the very chilly wind (it was a warm day, but most temps at 90 km/h feel cool!).
So I finally get to the campsite in Moncton where a big group of residents, significant others, and some of their friends were camped. Turns out that because of the concert, the campsite had instigated limits on the number of people that could stay in each site, and all the sites our group had booked were full. So I basically snuck in and stowed away in Lexy and Darrel's tent trailer instead of setting up the tent I had lugged all the way over on my bike. But WOW, what a nice trailer! Lexy and Darrel also supplied me with some of their alcohol, which helped to mellow my considerably, but that also put me to sleep in short order too, as it had been a very long day.
SATURDAY (Sept 3, 2005)
The morning dragged on a bit, but we did make a trip to Old Navy, which helped to pass the time and lighten my wallet! Oh well, I got a bunch of new clothes out of the deal!
Finally it was time to head over to the concert. We were told it was only ~6km to the concert venue so we started to walk, but then one enterprising individual in our group snagged a minivan taxi that could fit all 11 of us (yeah, 5 couples... and me... oh joy). We got dropped at the
highway turnoff and then headed up Magnetic Hill, the concert venue, with the steady stream of people. It was a riot! Well, 
not literally; it was actually really calm and organized, which continued through the whole concert, thankfully. But all along the couple km walk up the hill, there were all these groups of tailgate parties and vendors and... people urinating in the bushes... it was a riot! We finally got to the concert site at ~4pm, just as Our Lady Peace was starting their set. Yeah! Our Lady Peace!! I thought I was just going to see the Stones. Little did I know what I was in for!
So during their set, half of us wound our way down to about 30m from the stage where some friends people wanted to hook up with were situated. So now our group was 13 people... 6 couples.... and me! Oh joy! At that point, even though we were quite close to the stage, it wasn't very crowded; lots of room to sit / sprawl bewteen opening acts. And talk about opening acts! We had missed the first act, which was
a group from Montreal, but ater Our Lady Peace, Maroon 5 came on. Then, and this is when it started to get crowded up front, the Tragically Hip played! Can you believe it? The Hip, an opening act!! They were all pretty fantastic, but only played for ~45 minutes each.
T
hen the main event started. And just kept on going. Mick Jagger may be old, but man, does he still have it goin on! The Stones totally rocked the place for 2 hours straight!! I'm not... er rather, I wasn't a huge Stones fan, but everyone knows at least a few of their songs; they're so famous and they've been around so long, it would be impossible not to. 
Well, I knew almost all their old songs, I enjoyed the new stuff, and the show was phenomenal; a big inflatable mouth and tongue that covered the big screen at one point, fire works, flames, a stage the projected out into the audience so that technically, I was back stage for a few songs!! And of course, the Stones. The energy of those old dudes was just awe inspiring. The pics here are ones I scanned in from the paper as they didn't allow cameras in. It's unfortunate that there isn't a picture of the concert site at it's fullest. They said there were 85,000 people there; I'd turn around and because the outdoor site was a natural ampitheatre that rose up, I could see (well, if I jumped up and down to see over the heads of the people behind me) the sea of people spread out behind us. It was just fantastic. The best things was how polite everyone was. There were only a few people try to push their way to the front, but even most of them were polite about it! There were no major riots or outbreaks. Gotta love being Canadian. 
(sorry about the boob shot, but check out all the people behind her! The aerial shot on the right is very early in the day, before it got crowded. I was about half way between the left post and the stage)
The trip home was made in a haze of fatigue; after standing on our feet under the hot sun all day, the walk home was impossibly long. We made it most of the way back before lucking out and finding a taxi that took us back to the campsite. We didn't last much longer after that, and I once again smuggled myself away in the tent trailer.
SUNDAY (Sept 4, 2005)
We all took it easy this morning. I had a dip in the pool after borrowing someones pass that 'proved' I actually was camping at that campsite, then I loaded things up on the bike and headed out. I got about an hours drive away when I stopped for coffee and heard an ad on the radio for leather jackets and free Stones t-shirts if you got one. Well, I'd been contemplating a jacket since I'd gotten my awesome leather chaps, and I really wanted a t-shirt too, so I did an about face and drove back to Moncton. After buying my beautiful
new black leather jacket and getting the 
free t-shirt to boot (and, can you believe it, I actually talked them into giving me the one I wanted instead of the not as nice ones they were giving away!), I finally headed out again. Sorry, these pics are a bit fuzzy (haven't figured out to focus on the self timer very well yet) and no pics of the whole outfit, but I'll put one up with my next blog.
By the time I headed out, it was 4:30 or so, so I only got about 1/2 way home before stopping for the night. It was this amazing campsite on the coast, and I set up my tent so that I could watch the sun rise in the morning... which I did do, but then went back to sleep for a few more hours!
MONDAY (Sept 5, 2005)
As I said, I slept in a bit, then got under way and headed back to Cape Breton, a place that is definitely starting to feel
like home. I kept along the Sunrise Trail on
the way back and stopped at Cape George, and very picturesque spot. Once back on Cape Breton, I took a detour out along the Ceilidh trail to Inverness and went in search of blueberries and black berries. The blueberry season was supposedly almost over and the blackberry season just starting, but try as I might, I couldn't find a u-pick anywhere. Fortunately the info centre I stopped at was supremely helpful and after exhausting all u-pick options, directed me to a blueberry patch nearby. After a few wrong turns, I found my way up the half washed out gravel road, through the puddles and under the trees to the natural meadow and blueberry patch in the middle of no where. It was awesome! There were even some blackberries, but they weren't quite ripe. I picked for an hour and got about a litre or so, and then headed home and made some home grown blueberry jam! Yum! Not a bad way to end an amazing long weekend!!
FRIDAY (Sept 2, 2005)
So Friday, I finished work at ~1pm (which is the norm for me while I'm in my Family Medicine rotation; the doctor I work with only works Friday mornings! Nice!), headed home and finally got all my sh... stuff together and on to the bike (the motorbike that is) for a departure of 2pm. I got 10 minutes away and then realized I'd forgotten the directions to the campsite I was supposed to meet people at, so after an about face, I finally got on the road at 2:30pm. I headed out, sticking mostly to secondary roads, and after a very long slog (~7 hours) I finally arrived in Moncton, NB. I won't share the details of the that trip, but I did a lot of screaming and cursing inside my helmet at the semis that almost blew me off the road, the gas prices that dropped 5 cents about 30 seconds AFTER I bought my gas, my numb butt, and the very chilly wind (it was a warm day, but most temps at 90 km/h feel cool!).
So I finally get to the campsite in Moncton where a big group of residents, significant others, and some of their friends were camped. Turns out that because of the concert, the campsite had instigated limits on the number of people that could stay in each site, and all the sites our group had booked were full. So I basically snuck in and stowed away in Lexy and Darrel's tent trailer instead of setting up the tent I had lugged all the way over on my bike. But WOW, what a nice trailer! Lexy and Darrel also supplied me with some of their alcohol, which helped to mellow my considerably, but that also put me to sleep in short order too, as it had been a very long day.
SATURDAY (Sept 3, 2005)
The morning dragged on a bit, but we did make a trip to Old Navy, which helped to pass the time and lighten my wallet! Oh well, I got a bunch of new clothes out of the deal!
Finally it was time to head over to the concert. We were told it was only ~6km to the concert venue so we started to walk, but then one enterprising individual in our group snagged a minivan taxi that could fit all 11 of us (yeah, 5 couples... and me... oh joy). We got dropped at the
highway turnoff and then headed up Magnetic Hill, the concert venue, with the steady stream of people. It was a riot! Well, 
not literally; it was actually really calm and organized, which continued through the whole concert, thankfully. But all along the couple km walk up the hill, there were all these groups of tailgate parties and vendors and... people urinating in the bushes... it was a riot! We finally got to the concert site at ~4pm, just as Our Lady Peace was starting their set. Yeah! Our Lady Peace!! I thought I was just going to see the Stones. Little did I know what I was in for!So during their set, half of us wound our way down to about 30m from the stage where some friends people wanted to hook up with were situated. So now our group was 13 people... 6 couples.... and me! Oh joy! At that point, even though we were quite close to the stage, it wasn't very crowded; lots of room to sit / sprawl bewteen opening acts. And talk about opening acts! We had missed the first act, which was
a group from Montreal, but ater Our Lady Peace, Maroon 5 came on. Then, and this is when it started to get crowded up front, the Tragically Hip played! Can you believe it? The Hip, an opening act!! They were all pretty fantastic, but only played for ~45 minutes each.T
hen the main event started. And just kept on going. Mick Jagger may be old, but man, does he still have it goin on! The Stones totally rocked the place for 2 hours straight!! I'm not... er rather, I wasn't a huge Stones fan, but everyone knows at least a few of their songs; they're so famous and they've been around so long, it would be impossible not to. 
Well, I knew almost all their old songs, I enjoyed the new stuff, and the show was phenomenal; a big inflatable mouth and tongue that covered the big screen at one point, fire works, flames, a stage the projected out into the audience so that technically, I was back stage for a few songs!! And of course, the Stones. The energy of those old dudes was just awe inspiring. The pics here are ones I scanned in from the paper as they didn't allow cameras in. It's unfortunate that there isn't a picture of the concert site at it's fullest. They said there were 85,000 people there; I'd turn around and because the outdoor site was a natural ampitheatre that rose up, I could see (well, if I jumped up and down to see over the heads of the people behind me) the sea of people spread out behind us. It was just fantastic. The best things was how polite everyone was. There were only a few people try to push their way to the front, but even most of them were polite about it! There were no major riots or outbreaks. Gotta love being Canadian. 
(sorry about the boob shot, but check out all the people behind her! The aerial shot on the right is very early in the day, before it got crowded. I was about half way between the left post and the stage)
The trip home was made in a haze of fatigue; after standing on our feet under the hot sun all day, the walk home was impossibly long. We made it most of the way back before lucking out and finding a taxi that took us back to the campsite. We didn't last much longer after that, and I once again smuggled myself away in the tent trailer.
SUNDAY (Sept 4, 2005)
We all took it easy this morning. I had a dip in the pool after borrowing someones pass that 'proved' I actually was camping at that campsite, then I loaded things up on the bike and headed out. I got about an hours drive away when I stopped for coffee and heard an ad on the radio for leather jackets and free Stones t-shirts if you got one. Well, I'd been contemplating a jacket since I'd gotten my awesome leather chaps, and I really wanted a t-shirt too, so I did an about face and drove back to Moncton. After buying my beautiful
new black leather jacket and getting the 
free t-shirt to boot (and, can you believe it, I actually talked them into giving me the one I wanted instead of the not as nice ones they were giving away!), I finally headed out again. Sorry, these pics are a bit fuzzy (haven't figured out to focus on the self timer very well yet) and no pics of the whole outfit, but I'll put one up with my next blog.
By the time I headed out, it was 4:30 or so, so I only got about 1/2 way home before stopping for the night. It was this amazing campsite on the coast, and I set up my tent so that I could watch the sun rise in the morning... which I did do, but then went back to sleep for a few more hours!
MONDAY (Sept 5, 2005)
As I said, I slept in a bit, then got under way and headed back to Cape Breton, a place that is definitely starting to feel
like home. I kept along the Sunrise Trail on
the way back and stopped at Cape George, and very picturesque spot. Once back on Cape Breton, I took a detour out along the Ceilidh trail to Inverness and went in search of blueberries and black berries. The blueberry season was supposedly almost over and the blackberry season just starting, but try as I might, I couldn't find a u-pick anywhere. Fortunately the info centre I stopped at was supremely helpful and after exhausting all u-pick options, directed me to a blueberry patch nearby. After a few wrong turns, I found my way up the half washed out gravel road, through the puddles and under the trees to the natural meadow and blueberry patch in the middle of no where. It was awesome! There were even some blackberries, but they weren't quite ripe. I picked for an hour and got about a litre or so, and then headed home and made some home grown blueberry jam! Yum! Not a bad way to end an amazing long weekend!!
(Jen's heavily loaded bike, all alone in the berry patch)
