Campus Plaza Fire

An important part of Waterloo university life was lost in a fire today. Several businesses including the iconic Mel's Diner, a popular student destination, perished in a fire that started around 5:30 in the morning. While a week later, the cause of the fire is still unknown, the lack of a sprinkler system (not required by the city for a single floor establishments) definitely contributed to the damage. Other businesses of note included Sugar Mountain and a nightclub.

Happy Easter!

We spent the Saturday in the company of Heather's parents, Jim & Sandy. Our plan was to visit their family friends John and Lorie in London which is about an hour's drive. But before that, I took Heather to the Polish church in Kitchener where they held the traditional blessing of Easter baskets. We then returned the basket to my parents where we all enjoyed a filling breakfast serving of white borsht.

We arrived in London at about 1pm where we visited with John, Lorie and their family until about 5. On the way home we stopped at Subway for supper and then Rogers for some evening viewing. We went with The Hurt Locker and Old Dogs.

On Sunday we went to Cambridge again where the whole family went to the local park for some afternoon sun.

Daddy-daughter fun in the sun.

Then it was back to Waterloo where my parents hosted an Easter feast with my side of the family present.

Good Friday Ride to Port Dover

The weather-guessers had forecast great weather for the whole Easter weekend with temperatures reaching 20+C. Not wanting to waster this opportunity we settled on a Friday ride to Port Dover. This was going to be our first leisure ride of the season. The plan was to meet Janine and Hailey in Port Dover for lunch at around noon.

After the usual pre-ride ritual, we were on the road by 10am. As always, we stuck to the back roads. We made our first stop in Delhi in an empty beer store parking lot. While there, I texted our lunch buddies to see where they were. It looked like we were going to arrive in Port Dover at pretty much the same time. Still in the parking lot, a truck pulled and the driver asked us if we were looking for a beer store that was open. What was strange about that was that the driver of the pick-up was wearing a biker vest. On such a beautiful day, I imagined he'd want to be on two wheels instead of four, but I guess to him the thought of being on the road does not vary between the number of wheels on your vehicle.

As we were approaching Dover and Lake Erie, the wind got a little colder. But as we arrived in town, it was Port Dover at its best. That means motorcycles everywhere. Clearly, this town is a favourite one-day ride destination of many southwestern Ontario bikers.

Janine and Hailey arrived just a minute or two after us and we all parked in Powell Park. After putting our gear in Janine's van, we walked down to the beach for lunch at Callahan's.

The many beach-goers on an early-April afternoon.

The restaurant was quite busy as we were told to expect a 30-minute wait for a table. Luckily, we waited for no more than 10-15 minutes before being seated. But then the food took another 30 minutes before making its way to our table. While at the restaurant, we ran into Rose, who we know from Cyclefest. After finally getting out of the restaurant we walked down to the local lighthouse and a bakery before leaving town.

At the Port Dover lighthouse.

We left Dover before 3pm and rode to Cambridge. There we visited with Kim, Mike, Jolene, Heather's parents who were in town this weekend and Heather's friend Jessica. We stayed for a short while because after we got home we got into our car and went back to Cambridge for the rest of the night.

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