Sun at last

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Day 2

Wide awake at 0600. I NEED to find some decent coffee (this will be an ongoing theme for the next 6 weeks). Weather is still wet but heading to uncrate the bikes as soon as JJ emerges from his pit

Slo

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Day 1

Well we're here :) the flight was delayed an hour as a luggage trolley overheated under the plane - it felt like it was getting a little warm. This disappointment was offset, however, by JJ's charms and the glory that is, his BA gold card. So business class flying it was. After stuggling through 8 hours of champers and not unreasonable cuisine, we arrived in the fairmont royal york. And this is the view from our bedroom window. I guess it MUST be toronto

Slo

On the way to the starting point

Don't know the details about awaiting for the plane (and amount of alcohol involved) but I would like to announce that the adventure has begun - as I write this words Slo and JJ are flying over the Ocean, to Toronto. I can't decide between being melancholic in empty house or being excited that in a few days I'm going to take my part in this adventure too. But being a woman I can (easily) be melancholic and excited in the same time.
So now, fingers crossed, we shall start hearing some road stories (soon).

Last minute checks / panic

Why does technology fail you, just when you thought everything was going swimmingly? 0900 flight to London tomorrow, taxi booked, checked in online and ticket printed. Went on to the Canada flight and.....well, after been taken through the passport details, and security checks, choosing seats, halfway through the check-in procedures, I am kindly informed that online check-in is not allowed on this flight. Now, I've never visited Heathrow's latest and greatest, but the dark clouds of bad omen seem to be taxi-ing up to Terminal 5 as we speak. Just as well we only have carry-on luggage.

Not that I'm paranoid, but the triple-checking of all things that I know that I've already packed and checked (twice) continues......

Final call for Mr Slo........

dicontomy

Between tango and Canada. We've got some great milonga teachers (Gabriela y Eduardo) visiting Edinburgh and the classes are great - but Monday with the enticement of flights to Canada is now looming large and is a big distraction. And G is ready to go to the milonga now and giving me the evil eye .....

Shipping

Just received the shipping details from Giles at JamesCargo. So I guess we'll be going now. Bikes are due to arrive Monday 1530, we're due to arrive 1830. We may be the worse for wear - or more probably beer, so are planning to pick the bikes up Tuesday morning. After several espressos.

I've got a busy weekend, there are visiting tango teachers (milonga) so a bit of running about for that, then early flight down to London on Monday to meet up with JJ and spend a couple of hours causing damage to the BA lounge bar at terminal 5 :)

The photo is of Loch Tay as we headed west on the north road - brilliant weekend (Glenshee, Lecht, and Loch Tay) first over night use of the GS.

This is also a test posting from email.

Slo
perception seldom has much in common with reality

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Luggage

JJ raised a valid, if not late, topic for debate prior to departing: pants

That is, not "Pants?" and definitely not "Not pants" , but rather "How many?"

Now, there is much anecdotal evidence from those who have travelled before, regarding the number of underthings required for any sized journey. I remember seeing an interview with one Sir J Saville that he only ever travelled with one pair (the ones that he wore) and that he would wash them every night. Now wearing a pair of faded (and in all probability damp) kecks, is not really my idea of valhalla. And I cannot say that I want to be blogging on a daily basis, for the next 6 weeks, about how clean I managed to get my boxers and what deturgent I use. So, I'm definitely not only packing one pair......

What about paper ones?

Zero minus 5 days - setting up the blog

This will look pretty bare until I figure out how to do things - and some imagination would also help.....

Firstly I should start with a brief synopsis of the blog:

About 18 months ago I received a text from JJ, he was in a pub in Switzerland, with a mate, and they had this great idea to do a 6-week, coast-to-coast across Canada. I wasn't privvy to the exact conversation, but I can guarantee that it was alcohol fuelled :) My obvious response to the text was "Yeah, why not? So does that mean you're going to sit your bike test JJ?".

18 months later, JJ has passed his test, and, after a slight hiccup, my bike finally arrived at JamesCargo for shipping to Toronto. JJ was slightly more organised.

So, after a couple of changes, the current line up looks like:
JJ on his R1200GSA

With me, Slo on my R1200GSA accompanied by the beautiful G (for 10 days)

Here's a short video of the first stage of my GSA's journey to Toronto.

Our plan has always been not to plan a route, just start on the Atlantic side and head west until we ran out of road, but with G coming for 10 days, some dates had to be fixed. Additionally I discovered Canada's only malt whisky distillary, so that's an obvious detour (just so happens to be on the Cabot Trail too :)