Chi cheemaun the first day

Now its Thursday. Problems typing with the point of my mint chocolate chip icecream cone.

Warroad minnesota

Sorry about lack of posts. Survival comes first. Were in Minnesota

Phone post 2

Trying to get  upright picture of bikes in garage at home.

Posting from my phone

This is my luggage

Getting Ready for the Grizzlies

Of all the ways to die I think I would most prefer not to be eaten by a Grizzly bear.  This morning the CBC news showed a bit of an online documentary about Grizzly bears.  It is only available online because it is interactive.  It was made with the assistance of the National Film Board (of Canada).

http://bear71.nfb.ca/#/bear71

I watched it, and I can see why it would win awards. It helped prepare me for the trip because we are going to be crossing Grizzly bear country a few times.

Grizzlies live mainly in the Rockies I think, but even though I have crossed the Rockies maybe 10 times, I have never seen one except in a zoo in Penticton.  Actually, that was a "safari park", and probably is not there any more.  In this "park", the animals were kept in by chain link fences.  The Grizzly charged us humans who were standing outside the fence watching, and we all ran away.  I don't think any of us trusted the fence to hold when the Grizzly rose up and grabbed hold of the fence and shook it. I would estimate, the one I saw was 12 feet tall.  But it says on the Internet that a Grizzly appears to a human to be about twice the height it really is.  So maybe the bear was really only 6 feet tall.  In that case I don't want to meet the tallest Grizzly ever recorded, which was 12 feet tall, and I guess would have looked about 24 feet tall.

From watching the documentary, I would guess that it is very important not to surprise a Grizzly with cubs.  Because they may charge you even if you are on a motorcycle.  So when we go through Yellowstone park on our motorcycles, I am going to take advantage of the hundreds of free mobile Grizzly bear deflectors called Winnebagos.  You just follow one of these deflectors down the road, and it will clear the road of Grizzlies for you.

Picture: Damage done to car by Grizzly  http://izifunny.com/2011/11/16/grizzly-wants-to-be-a-car-driver..html

Mike and Keri Go East

I found a blog written by Mike and Keri as they ride a scooter east across Canada, from Vancouver to Ontario, in 2008.  There are several noteworthy features of their trip.  They are both on the same scooter.  I mean one scooter, not the same type of scooter.  Next, this scooter is 49cc. Finally, they are also packing camping gear.  Not just a tent and sleeping stuff - cooking equipment and food as well.  And finally, to make sure they don't have it too easy, this trip takes place in September, not the middle of summer.

If you are interested, as I was, you might want to check it out at here:

http://scootercanada.weebly.com/index.html

You will see they did it in 11 days, while Lost and Burgie have set aside 15 days do do basically the same thing from east to west.  Obviously, we are not in a hurry.

I found it interesting to see how they had packed everything on the bike, what mechanical problems they had (if any). Looks like our trip could be a piece of cake by comparison, but we are not kids any more, so I could argue that we need more comfort.

Picture: Pulled over by the cops, Mike has his licence suspended, so Keri takes over the driving.  I guess a with a scooter under 50cc.  you don't need a special drivers licence.  Very useful.

D minus 7 and Counting....

We are now one week from our planned departure date.  I am in the final stages of planning,  Mary Ann is just starting to get her stuff ready.

One of my jobs on the todo list was to buy a $40 "USA Roaming Combo" for my Koodo smartphone.  But maybe there is a better way.  I have decided to wait until I get to the USA and buy a SIM card with a prepaid "Pay as You Go" plan.  The SIM card simply pops into my phone and turns it into a T-Mobile phone. The Koodo USA Roaming Combo reduces the price of each megabyte of data from $3 to $1.  So if I used a total of 30 megabytes of data in the USA my total cost would be $70, with the plan, $90 without.  But sometimes I use more than 30 megabytes.

My new, and I hope better, plan is to buy a T-Mobile SIM card in the USA. T-Mobile sells the Samsung Nexus S (this is my phone, which has an unlocked SIM card), and according to the T-Mobile web site, I can get a US-based SIM card for $6.99, and a prepaid plan for $2 per day.  Which means each day I use the phone I am charged $2, giving me unlimited calling and data at 2G speeds.  No mention of a minimum, so I will ask for $30 to start.  That plan suits my kind of use better, as I don't have incoming calls on my old number, and even if I needed incoming calls I would simply give out my new phone number by email.

Another job on my list is packing the tire pump. I will spare you the horror stories of gas station air pumps. So I have to choose between my big floor pump, or my tiny emergency tire pump.  The emergency pump is difficult to use, so I wanted to bring the floor pump.  But I discovered a new type of pump I have never seen before.  It is a slightly larger compact pump that converts to a floor pump, and even includes a pressure gauge.  It's called the Filzer Mini-Zee pump for $28, and I bought one at Mountain Equipment Coop in London (where I get a lot of my camping stuff).  The only tricky part is that the locking lever on the nozzle is "up" for locked and "down" for unlocked, which is the opposite of every pump I have ever had for the last 40 years.  But apparently this is the new standard, as it's the same system on the floor pumps sold at Canadian Tire now.  Anyway, the Mini-Zee was able to easily pump up my motorcycle tire from 30 to 40 psi. And of course the built in gauge makes it very convenient to use - but it's so small I need reading glasses.

Now we're heading back one last time to MEC in London for some pants, T-shirts and socks.  I know we can get all those things in Kitchener, but Mary Ann wants a pair of womens' zip-off cargo pants to pack for the trip.  (Long pants that have a zip-off section to convert to shorts).  They used to sell those in Kitchener, but apparently they have gone out of style for women and so they are only sold now at adventure outfitters. Now even Mark's Work Wearhouse doesn't carry them, and we used to shop there a lot for this type of stuff.  They have renamed themselves as Mark's (dropping the Work Wear House) and have moved more into fashion clothing, which I suppose has a better profit margin.  By next year, I hope we will have an MEC store in Kitchener. Once you get used to shopping somewhere, you are kind of addicted.

Now that I don't need to carry a huge floor pump, I decided to also leave behind my equally huge folding camp chair, as they were both to be packed together.  Instead I got another Alight Monarch camp chair.  Two of those chairs pack into about half the space of one big folding camp chair.  They only have two legs, and you can fall out of them sideways, and backwards if you're not careful. But if you can stay upright, they are comfortable for hours.