12 Days to Departure

May 2015

Hélène's bike taking a break halfway up the hill.

• The training continues. We are fortunate to live close to the foothills of the Laurentian Mountains and have quick access to hilly and scenic terrain. As of today, we have reached our minimum goal of 1,000 km with still a few more days of riding planned. We averaged an elevation of 857 m on each our training rides. 

The view halfway up the hill.

• Our Saturday ride on May 9th started in Thurso, QC which is the birth place of a very famous Montreal Canadian player; le Numéro 10, le Démon Blond (the Blond Devil), Guy Lafleur. The Town of Thurso put up a impressive bronze statue that really captures his prowess as a hockey player. The team responsible for the work was lead by an Encadreur(e)! friend of ours, Jean-Raymond Goyer. Jean-Raymond is a well known Quebec sculptor who also collaborated to the statue of Maurice Richard, located in Jacques Cartier Park in Gatineau.  As coincidence would have it, Jean-Raymond is the individual pictured with his thumb up in the Encadreur(e)! link. 

  

  Le Diable Blond (Thurso, QC)

• Meal planning and kitchen equipment has also received much attention. We found during our Gaspe trip last year, that much time was wasted walking down the grocery store isles trying to decide what we were going to have for supper that night. Now Hélène has come up with yet another 'list' that greatly facilitates 'on the fly' meal planning.We can now hit the grocery stores with the speed and efficiency of two bank robbers: in quickly, grab what we need and out even quicker. We are still working on improving our slow as molasses get away! We will include the list under 'Equipment'.
• We made some of our own condiments from recipes found in the book "Ultralight Backpackin' Tips" by Mike Clelland. We now have jars of Powdered Pesto Sauce and Spiced Olive Oil. We have tried both with pasta and found the combination to be yummy. This book is full of awesome tips and should be on every one's bookshelf. 

  

  The kitchen 

• To cut down on the time and fuel needed to cook, we made 'insulating cozies" for our pots. Some of our our foods will continue to cook inside the

  

  Pot cozy (top) and
  kettle cozy (bottom)

  cozy when the stove is off and also keep the food warmer. When shopping we now pay much more attention to the label cooking time on the package.

Not as much fun as pedalling

• On Sunday May 10th we had two interesting and unusual encounters but we we will save the details for next time.