Day 31

Saturday, July 24
Rest day in Kenora
0km

What a great rest day!  After six days of long rides, I suppose that any non-riding day would have been a welcome change, but I really had a good time in Kenora. 

To start the day off right, I managed to sleep in until 8:00am, which is a lot better than I have done on previous rest days.  (The key was setting up my tent in the far corner of the lawn, away from the majority of the people and out of the hot morning sun.)

A group of us took a taxi into town around 10am.  We did a bit of shopping for odds and ends, had lunch at Boston Pizza, and I got a haircut...at a proper barber shop.  (No more buzz cut for me...although its not that far off I suppose.)

In the afternoon, we took a tour in a float plane.  It was amazing!!!  Roselyn, Janna, Lorne and I were in this tiny, rikity old float palne with the pilot.  It was a very small plane with a very loud engine.  The windows didn't even close on it. 

The pilot took us us and flew over the city and some of the nicer cottages out on the Lake of the Woods.  He would point out things like the cottage owned by a member of Led Zepplin.

The lake was spectacular.  Its massive, and filled with a maze of rockey islands covered in evergreen trees.  There were hundreds of secluded little islands, with just enought space for a cottage, porch and float plane dock.

At one point, the pilot asked “Do you guys wanna do something fun?”  To which the obvious reply (sorry mom) was “Of course”.  So he gained some altitude and then raised 5 fingers in the air, and began to count down' 5...4...3...2...1...he banked the little plane sharply to the left and swooped into a nose dive for about 30 seconds.  Amazingly fun.  Better than any rollar coaster I've every been on.  We all screamed our heads off.

After that, he pivoted the flight controls over to me.  I was sitting right beside him in thr co-pilot seat.  I flew the plane as straight as I could for about a minute.  Then I held up 5 fingers and began to count down.  Everyine thought this was hilariously funny.

Before landing, we circled our camo site a few times, and took photos of our tents.  It was such a great adventure.

When we landed, we asked Lorne where he had locked up his bike.  (Lorne had skipped the taxi and riden into town.)  Instead of securing it to the float plane dock, which was in a very visible location, Lorne had locked his bike to a railing, halfway up a tree lined pathway.

“Don't worry,” he said, “I camoflaged it.”

“Did you camoflage it like a gang of alcohalic natives?” was my reply?

Lornes bike was surrounded by a group of 5 or 6 very desheveled natives with bottles of mouthwash in their hands.  Luckily, the bike was still there, and only the tools and spare parts from his seat bag were missing.

Looking back, the dozens of empty listerine bottles should have been a sign that the path was not a good place to leave a bike.

For dinner, about 25 of us went to a fancy steak house for a very nice meal.  So relaxing.  We told the story of Lorne's “bike camoflage” and laughed out lound for a solid two minutes.
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Daniel Longo
CIBC Corporate Development
(416) 956-3831