Costa Rica 2007

We met up with Mike and Joanna from Toronto again.

Trying my hand... no luck.

Our American friends.

A Jesus Christ lizard.

Monkey Head Island

July 2007

Terri and I loved Costa Rica so much in 2006, we decided to return to a different resort. The first day we arrived we ran into Mike and Joanna, the couple from Toronto we had met in Costa Rica last year. No planning, just coincidence! We took a boat tour with them and I tried deep sea fishing but didn't have any luck. Unfortunately Mike and Joanna were on the end of their vacation and headed home after two days with us.

We took another tour through the rainforest and saw monkeys, crocs, lots of birds and the 'Jesus Christ lizard'. It is named that because it basks on branches on the shore near the water looking for food, but if it sees danger coming it takes off running on long legs and big feet across the water! We also went on another canopy zip-lining tour and both of us tried different methods - Superman, upside down and Tarzan. 

One day Terri and I went on a four wheel drive tour through the area and one of the things we saw was a deserted beautiful beach. We decided to return there the next day to swim and hang out. There was an island just off shore separated from the beach from a narrow band of water. We decided to swim to it. It was not a great decision. We both got caught in the current trying to get to the island and Terri in particular was swept further than we wanted to go. It was scary and we had to struggle to get there. We explored the island a bit and then headed back, a little better prepared for the current. When we got back to the beach where we had left our towels we found someone had helped themselves to our cameras!! All the photos from the week were gone! We went looking around for anyone and found a small village just behind the bushes along the beach. We naively just wanted the memories cards back. We were really bummed and we were really stupid and trusting. Lesson learned the hard way.

The last couple of days we hooked up with a young American couple. we had fun with them and shared a fish they caught deep sea fishing and did some body surfing with them at the beach. They were nice enough to lend us their camera so we could take some photos in and around the resort.

Port Dover, July 13, 2007

Me, Terri and Paul at his place.

Friday, July 13, 2007
For over 50 years motorcycles have been converging on the small town of Port Dover on the north shore of Lake Erie. It all started when a couple of buddies invited some of their motorcycle buddies to town to watch the lastest Friday the 13th movie. Since then it has grown into a very large event. It only happens on a Friday the 13th which obviously doesn't fall at regular intervals and not always in the warm weather. The rallies in the winter months are very small, but the ones that fall in June to September are mega-events and overwhelm this small town of 7000 people. The locals either find ways of making money from the event (renting camping or parking spots, selling souvenirs or food, etc.) or they clear out for the weekend.

It is mainly a motorcycle, fashion and leather show, where all the bikers from within a days ride, can show up in one town and check out each other's bikes, girlfriends and accessories. There are bars, eateries, stalls selling all types of motorcyle paraphernalia and on one occasion Steppenwolf was hired to play (but that turned out to be a bust).

As well as all the bikes and bikers, I have seen Santa Claus ride in, an older biker walking around town wearing nothing but a thong, different motorcycle gangs including the Hell's Angels, (and lots of Ontario Provincial Police Bike Enforcement Officers), and at least one wedding at the event.

My buddy Paul lives just out of town, so in order to avoid the mobs on the actual day, I ride down from Toronto on the Thursday night. I have attended the event several times and have always had fun.

US Bike Trip 2007

Somewhere in Pennsylvania.

From the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The Natural Bridge tourist trap.

Grandfather Mountain swing bridge in North Carolina.

The highest elevation on the Blue Ridge. From here it was all downhill, luckily....

Great Smokey National Park.

The Children's Holocaust Memorial at Whitwell Middle School, Tennessee. 

The authenic era suitcase full of apologies to Anne Frank sent from a German school.

Point Pelee National Park, the southern most tip of Canada.

July 6-12, 2007
Terri and I undertook another long drive from Toronto through the States of New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and back into Canada through Detroit. On the way home we visit Point Pelee National Park (the most southernly piece of Canada), Port Dover to see the annual motorcyle assembly that occurs every Friday the 13th, and Paris to visit friends.

The main purpose of the ride was to travel the Shenandoah Parkway, just west of Washington, through the National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway that traverses the summit ridge of the Appalachian Moutains for 469 miles from Charlottesville, Virginia, all the way to the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee. These two highways offer stunning visas from the top of the mountains out over the valleys on the west or the east side, or sometimes in both directions. The road is through a national park system and allows no commercial truck traffic, has no stops signs or traffic lights, or billboards, gas stations, wires or poles for the whole length. Fuel stations, towns and restaurants had to be accessed by leaving the parkway and driving down to the valley. We saw numerous deer along the road and lots of birds as well.

En route we stopped at Grandfather's Mountain where we had a great hike across a swing bridge and over to the summit. It offered great views over the moutains.

It was raining and damp when we reached the high point of the parkway at an elevation of 6053ft (1845m). Stopped for a photo and saw a man trying to do up his convertible sports car before it turned into a bathtub. I told Terri that the good news was we had reached the summit but the bad news was we had no gas and were well into reserve! So I decided to coast down the road to the nearest gas station. After we got started I turned off the bike and we rolled downhill making engines noises at speeds up to 60km for almost 10 kilometres to the town of Asheville, North Carolina.

From there we road to Gaitlinburg, an incredibly touristy town and the entrance to the Great Smoky National Park. We enjoyed the scenic drive and the views in the park before continuing on through Nashville and Chatanooga to Whitwell, Tennessee.

This is the home of the Children's Holocaust Memorial that I had read about and of which the movie Paperclips was made. Basically it is the story of how the children and teachers a middle school undertook an incredible project that was started by one student asking "What does six million look like?" The reference was to the millions murdered by the Nazis. They decided to collect one paperclip (a symbol worn by Norwegians to represent missing neighbours during the occupation) to represent each murdered person.  Eventually their project spread world wide and they wound up with millions more paperclips than their goal and they decided to make a memorial. With the help of two German reporters they located and shipped an authentic railway car used for the transports to Auschwitz during the war. The car is now located on the lawn of the school and houses some of the paperclips and other memoribilia that was sent to them. One piece is an authentic suitcase full of letters written by German students apologizing to Anne Frank and the other Jews for the way they were treated.

We arrived in the summer when the school was closed but we found the memorial open with a sign that read please come in. It was a very moving experience and an amazing memorial in basically the middle of nowhere.

When we left we rode north back through Kentucy, Ohio and Michigan along some freeways and secondary roads through farmland. When we crossed back into Canada we rode to Point Pelee National Park, which sits on a pennisula into Lake Erie. We walked along the beaches and through the marshes before settling in Lemington for the night. From there we rode onto Port Dover... the next post.