Turkey Point
The Trip
We left Rhode Island at about 7:00 AM. The Troupe that I brought with me consisted of myself (Papakeith) and Paula (MamaPapa (anyone but me remember Barbapapa the cartoon? Sorry, it just popped into my head)), Samantha my daughter and her boyfriend Rob, and my nephew Dave, his wife Cheryl, and a couple of their children-Danny, Heather, Trisha, and Rock. After a shaky start(two rest stops in the first 1 ½ hours) we made pretty good time.
The trip itself was uneventful to the border. We were right on schedule. We made the border by about 4:00 PM. From there FLYIN_KAW had told us that it was just over an hour to Turkey Point.
What he failed to mention was that it was just over an hour in KAW time not US hours ;)
We made it to the campground at 8:00 and met MRRMX right at the check in. We said hello briefly, and headed to our respective campsites.
Once we were settled in, the boys and I went off in search of beer. Upon my return I see that flyin’ kaw has arrived, and is giving my wife a big hug. James (kaw) introduced us to his riding buddy Scott. After all of the introductions, I was thirsty, and I proceeded to empty a few barley pops with our Canadian and American friends. Some friendly jabs were made about everybody’s accent, eh? The long trip was forgotten, and the mood seemed perfect. Pretty soon it was time to turn in. When asked when we wanted to start riding, I said, “ At the crack of dawn.”(more on this later)
The Ride?
I awoke around 6:00 the next morning ready to hit the trails. Apparently, I was the only one. Once again the US time system seemed to clash with the Canadian standard. After getting the coffee and bacon brewing, I made my way over to KAW’s site to see how close they were to being ready to ride.
They were still asleep.
Since they were asleep, I figured it was my sworn duty to wake them from their slumber. :p
I ran my finger over the spokes of their bikes ‘tink, tink, tink, tink’ . . . nuthin’.
I rattled the shift lever on the KDX ‘clink, clunk, clank’ . . . nuthin’
I proceeded to shake the two bikes and the trailer that carried them ! ‘ Clink, Rattle, Slosh, Creak, Slam, Pop!!!!. . . I think that one of them actually might have breathed slightly heavier for a moment, then settled down again.
They were still asleep.
I firmly believe that I could have started their bike on their trailer and ridden off into the morning mist, and neither Scott or KAW would have woke.
I gave up and went back to my campsite for pancakes and bacon
Around 10:00 everyone was up and about. The nearest fuel was about 15 minutes away. We figured that we would get fuel, some coffee, return for the bikes, and go riding. Just as we were getting ready to roll out, kaw informed us of a problem.
It seems that James couldn’t find his filter cage. It turned out that he had left his filter cage sitting on the shelf of his fathers garage the night before. :(
Long story short- KAW can’t buy a filter cage from a local shop, and needs to drive home to get his.
We arrive back at the campsite at 1:00 or so, grab our bikes and start heading out of the campground for our first ride on Canadian soil. Then, just before the exit, I see a familiar GMC pulling a black trailer. OffRoadWarrior, and LoriKTM had arrived. We got them tuned around, and headed to the Turkey Point Riding area.
Good trails! The trails at TP consist of sand, whoops, trees, and log crossings. We would make the occasional stop back at the trucks to see if James had made it back, but other than that we were out in the woods. I expected the dust to be pretty bad, and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t too bad. Still, we were covered with dirt, dust and small scrapes from the trees by the time we returned to camp.
No water.
Apparently someone forgot to put another quarter in the “hydro” and their was no water available in the campground. We Yanks thought about it for a couple of minutes, and decided to make our pilgrimage to Lake Erie to cleanse our dirty bodies.
As we passed by the FLYIN_KAW site, we see a bike up on stands with it’s rear wheel missing. Dave ad Lori played Santa Clause this weekend bringing tires for all the good dirtbikers! Both Rob and Scott got a full set of very slightly used tires, and Dave(my nephew) received a front tire. As we approached the site ORW and Scott were changing the tires by lantern light with the help of MRRMX and FLYIN_KAW.
Anyway, off the the lake we went. For any of you who have yet to see one of the great lakes in person, do it! To put it in perspective, you can fit about 10 Rhode Islands in Lake Erie. I dunno, I thought it was pretty cool.
Ride Deux
FLYIN_KAW decided to join us for the ride on Sunday. We even started before noon! I managed to get a tree branch across my face in the first two minutes of the ride. I then proceeded to get all out of control on some whoops, save it, only to loose it once I was nearly stopped. We hit some different trails in the same general area. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I was really enjoying myself. Even with the crash into Dave(nephew) that sent me over the bars, I was still having fun.
All too soon Dave and Lori had to pack it up and head back to the US. FLYIN_KAW, Scott and MRRMX all figured on following suit fairly soon too. We all decided to pack up the bikes. Dave(nephew), Rob, and I decided that we should spend some time with the families and called it quits about 2:30 or so. We didn’t have to pack up because we were heading home on Monday morning so we spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach.
Ride Trois
The Papa clan returned from the lake at about 6:30. Rob looked around, and said, “We got time for another spin??”
We were back on the trails in 15 minutes, It would have been quicker, but I forgot my riding gear at the campsite, and had to drive back.
We ended up at the hills that kaw said were off limits. I didn’t see the signs telling us to keep out :worry:. We blasted up and down for a couple of minutes, then Dave told me that he had seen the sign, and we better get out.
We rode until dark.
Rocky Raccoon
We went to sleep at about 10:30 on Sunday night with intentions of rising at 5:30 to begin the journey back to the states, with a stop at Niagara Falls. The Canadian wildlife, it seems, had other plans.
Around 11:30 my wife woke me saying that she heard something out side the tent. Aparrently, she felt it was her duty to wake me and put me between whatever it was and her. Being the dutifull husband, I put on my shoes and proceed to unzip the tent. I don't think I'll ever forget what happened next.
As I got out of the tent I could definitely hear something rummaging about at the edges of the campsite. I had no flashlight(in the truck charging) so I slowly walked a tentative step or two towards the sound. As I approached, I heard what could best be described as a pissed off cat/lion hisssss!!! If I wasn't so dehydrated from the earlier ride, I'm sure I would've soiled myself. Anyway, I grabbed the nearest thing, a baby crib, and slammed it into the ground near the noise. The result? More, Louder pissed off sounding wild animal noises. Since I still could not see my oponent, I asked Rob to hand me his flashlight. One problem,
Rob was still asleep.
I asked again, more urgently, nothin'
I yelled for him . . . nuthin'
(anyone else seeing a theme here?
I shook the tent!!!. . . nothin'
I shook the tent, screamed his name!!!!!. . . I think I heard him breath heavier for a moment then.. . nothin'
Finally, I was able to wake him and ask for a flashlight. he produces a flashlight and proceeded to shine it out one of the windows of the tent. . . in the wrong direction!!!.
I said, "Rob, I need the flashlight out here so the I can see whatever it is that is growling at me!!!!!"
I guess the noise was enough. By the time my helpful friend had gotten the flashlight in hand, the animal was gone, or was he.
I shone the light up into a nearby tree, and there he was. A raccoon. I called him Rocky. I actually started singing the song, well, at least a bar or two. Rocky didn't enjoy the fact that I had spotted him, and his retreat, and climbed higher into the canopy. Stalemate.
Please bear in mind, that I have a 12 hour drive ahead of me that is supposed to commence at 6:00 in the AM. So I do the only thing I can at this point. We put everything in the cabs of the pickups, I re-lit the fire, settled down in a chair, and sent everyone else back to bed. Once they were in the sack, I popped the top on a remaining barley pop, and stoked the fire in hopes of keeping the native critters at bay.
15 minutes go by, and I hear a rustling behind me. I jumped farther than I ever have on a bike! It was Rocky's buddy I named him Boris. Boris stayed on the outskirts of town. He never ventured in the site, but he made sure that I new he was there.
So, there I was surrounded! What was I supposed to do now. I could only think of one thing. . . Drink heavily!
One US hour goes by.
Rocky at this point had climbed back down to his first hidin spot. Boris had drifted off into the darkness, and couldn't be found. I popped open another adult soda, and stoked the fire.
I musta dozed for a minute or two, 'cause the next thing I knew Rocky and Boris had both given me the slip. Figuring that I had won this round I popped a celebratory beer, and swaggared my way to the tent, marking my teritory on the way( wink* if ya know what I mean.*wink).
Let me tell you, it wasn't 15 minutes after my successful retreat to the tent then Rocky and Boris were back! I didn't care at this point, and as long as they didn't wake Paula, all was well with me. At that point I was beerly,uh barely awake, ummm, I mean I was tanked, errr popped, ahh pooped! yeah, I was sleepy.
epilogue
I want to extend an big thank you to FLYIN_KAW for putting this trip in motion. The trip was waaaay too short, but very enjoyable nonetheless. It was a pleasure meeting Scott, and MRRMX. We will have to ride again soon. To everyone who made the trip, family members and friends. Thanks for making it a boatload of fun for us.
And thanks for not making fun of our Yankee accents too much, eh?
Hey, was this the first Multi-National DRN ride held in Canada? We might have made history here.
It was Definitely the first DYDR MN ride!
things that I learned in Canada:
They really do say eh, hoser, and nob(sp?);)
I like dollar bills more than dollar or two dollar coins
They don’t know what ice coffee is
One US hour = two Canadian hours. must be a metric thing
Fresh water oceans would be a very cool thing.
Canadian campgrounds take themselves way too seriously
I’d go there to ride again in an instant.
PS- James, although we didn't get to see the whales, we did make it to Niagara Falls. However, You forgot to mention that there were two Route 3 off of the 24. We ended up on Regional Route 3 instead of Kings Route 3( why do I feel like I’m playing chess when I’m talking about roads in Canada?)