Anniversary Ride

Before anything else, Heather and I would like to congratulate my brother Greg and his fiancee Tina on their engagement Friday night. And that was just a week after they moved in to their new house. Very exciting.

Now, onto today's events. It was this Saturday one year ago that Heather and I, with the help of Heather's parents, picked up our new motorcycles in Newmarket and rode them for the very first time. We decided to revisit Newmarket and make the same ride again. However, the Suzuki dealership wasn't on our list of places to visit, as last year's experience wasn't the best. Today was all about riding.

It was mostly an overcast day, although we did encounter very short periods of sun, but also rain. The ride to Newmarket wasn't very exciting until we reached Orangeville. Coming down a hill on a side road just outside of town, I spotted a police cruiser behind us. Not long after, its lights were flashing and we were both on the shoulder looking for our documents. According to the officer that I was talking to, they caught us going 80 km/h in a 60 zone. I argued that maybe it was because we picked up some speed going downhill. He replied that we reached that speed even before then. While the two 30-something officers retreated to their cruiser to check our records, Heather and I huddled on the side of the road and tried to make sense of the situation. 15 minutes later the officers came back with a warning and a series of questions related to our vests and specifically to the meaning of various patches and to the clubs we belong to. Heather and I found those questions somewhat strange as they didn't relate in any way to our alleged excessive speed. Regardless of that, we thanked the officers and continued on our way.

From Orangeville, we went down Hockley Road to the Hockley General Store and enjoyed one of their signature giant cookies. We finally arrived in Newmarket at about 11:30 and once there we filled up on gas before proceeding to the Leon's parking lot which is across from the Suzuki dealership. The parking lot is where last year both Heather and I spent an hour or two practicing before heading out on the road for the first time on our new motorcycles. Of course, this year's experience wouldn't have been completed without doing a lap on the loop behind the Leon's warehouse.

Once we were done with Newmarket, we continued East to Uxbridge. We went to Uxbridge to find a quiet place to have lunch and to start our MOAZ (Motorcycling Ontario A to Z) quest. The place where we ended up was a sports bar called Jerseys. We each had a sandwich with fries and then proceeded to finally make our way home. Of course, I made sure that our route included Bradford. That is the place where last year Heather dropped her bike at a red light on an uphill. Given her experience, she deserved a second chance. Coincidentally, we encountered a red light at the same spot, but this time Heather got the best of the hill and got through it without a problem. Bradford 1, Heather 1. After Bradford we headed towards Highway 9 and then went through Orangeville (this time without incidents), Fergus and Conestogo before arriving home shortly before 5.

Ten minutes later, we were on the road again (this time in a car) to Greg and Tina's housewarming with a detour at the local The Bay where we picked up a little housewarming gift. The rest of the night was spent relaxing with my family. Overall, it was another long day but also another great day.

Heather standing between our motorcycles.

SEASON STATS
Today's trip: 364 km
2009 goal: 8,500 km
2009 to date: 470 km (5.5%)
To obtain goal: 8,030 km


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WATER TOWERS

Easter in Sudbury

Easter weekend is here and we decided to spend it away from home, away from work and away from other things that keep us busy these days. As the previous post mentioned, we chose to spend the weekend in Sudbury. And since our moving services were no longer required, we set off on our way pretty much right after work on Thursday evening. The 5+ hour trip was uneventful and we arrived at our destination at 11:30pm. We stayed up for a couple of hours before finally turning in to bed.

Friday was a very relaxing day as it pretty much consisted of watching TV and a couple of movies. But things finally picked up on Saturday. Today, Heather and her dad, Jim, took me on a little excursion to Science North. I was very excited since I've never experienced it. After grabbing a quick lunch at Arby's, we went to Science North.

We each bought an admission package which included all the exhibits at the science centre plus a feature at the adjacent IMAX theatre. We also got lucky as there was a display with the as-yet-to-be-lit olympic torch inside and we managed to get a quick picture taken with it. The Science North facility has four floors of very impressive exhibits. The highlights included an entire floor of animals (snakes, frogs, a beaver, a porcupine, and some very exotic insects), a room full of butterflies, a bush plane 4D simulation (I assume the 4th dimension was FUN), and a bed of nails.

After walking through the entire science centre and a quick visit to the gift shop, we went to the IMAX theatre to see Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk, a film about the history and the future of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon region. The scenery of the vastness of the Grand Canyon was breathtaking.

Once we got home, we had supper before settling in for more movies including the new Jim Carrey feature, Yes Man. Funny, funny stuff. It's hard to believe that the weekend is almost over and we will be heading home tomorrow morning. Happy Easter, everyone!

Heather holding a baby chick which later dropped a little surprise

Gift Registries, and Beauty and the Beast

This evening Tom and I went to see a play at Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate (KCI). The play, Beauty and the Beast, was put on by students of MacGregor Public School. Tom's co-worker Janine and her husband sat with us - their daughter Hailey was a member of the play's choir ensemble. With the exception of a few microphone and sound issues - the play was really well done...it sure could give the broadway production a run for its money!

Yesterday Tom and I went to The Bay in Waterloo to start the set up of our Wedding Gift Registry. We had an appointment set for 6pm and made it on time despite the early April snowstorm brewing. After some forms were filled out and rules relayed to us - we were given a scanner and allowed to explore the store. One would think that being given a scanner and the opportunity to scan whatever one's heart desires to be then received in the future as a gift would be a piece of cake. No so in our case. It took Tom and I at least a half hour to scan even one item. There is just so much selection and considering we have already lived together for a year and a half, we found it a bit difficult to make decisions on what we would even want to receive as a gift. We spent about 2 hours at the store and developed a reasonable list of scanned items - but we'll definitely have to make a few more return visits after we have had a chance to review the catalogue that The Bay provided us (so that we don't get too scan-crazy!). We headed home feeling a sense of accomplishment only to realize that we had forgotten our Wedding Gift Registry package and the contract we had signed. Not to worry as we will be able to pick it up on a return visit to the store.

This is a short week at work and we are both very exciting to be making a trip to Sudbury to visit my parents over the long weekend! We will be heading up north early Friday morning as Thursday has been reserved for the purpose of helping Tom's brother and his brother's girlfriend move into their new home on Thursday...I am sure they are very excited to move into their new home and from what we have seen of the outside of the house - it looks great!!!

The wedding gift registry in the process of being updated.

Spring, We Hardly Knew Ye

Winter's back, but hopefully for not too long.

Elmira Maple Syrup Festival

About a year ago, Heather and I attended our first Elmira Maple Syrup Festival. Thanks to great weather, the 2008 version of the festival attracted a record number of people. It would take almost a miracle for this year's version to match that number. But like it did last year, the weather played a major part in this year's festival.

Just as last year, we wanted to go early again this year. However, it was a great surprise when we woke up to temperatures hovering around the freezing mark, a steady stream of blowing, cold, hard snow and fairly high winds. Nevertheless, we were picked up early in the morning by our friend Janine and her daughter Hailey, and we were off to Elmira.

No more than 20 minutes later, we were walking the streets of Elmira. Our first stop was the pancake tent and as opposed to last year when it took us nearly an hour, we were having pancakes within 5 minutes of arriving at the tent. We didn't stay long, though, because we wanted to keep moving plus the winds were so strong at times, we felt the tent move and we didn't want to wait for it to come crashing down.

Once we were done with the pancakes, we did a lap around the vendors and about an hour after arriving we decided to head back. We felt the weather just wasn't going to improve any time soon. After dropping me off at home, everybody else went out on a wedding related shopping trip that, as it turned out, was unsuccessful.

Heather and I, then went to an open house, purely for browsing purposes, picked up new windshield wipers and a DVD and returned home to finish off our day by watching more than a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother.

Heather with a stick of a deep fried Mars bar.