Buddhism and Beavers.

Aight. So. I'll start back at the third day... Two days ago.

6/5/13

So I have to embarrassingly admit that I stayed at a motel last night. My excuse was my laptop was dead and because I'm using my cell phone as navigation I had to plan routes, find out where I was getting wifi, charge my shit... etc. 

Any off to a late start I made it about 45 minutes down the road and realized I left my find me spot at motel. Back tracking's a pain but in this case I had to do it. One thing I keep repeating to myself to get myself to do things on this trip is "a stitch in times saves nine". Basically fix the problem now or its going to fuck you in the ass down the road... On that same vein I replaced my rubbed straps holding my gear on with ratchets.... Much tighter now. 

So it was a beautiful day and I was cruising the windy back roads of mid north western Quebec thinking "god damn this is just like Chile". When lo and behold I come across this MASSIVE Buddhist monastery. I passed it, whipped a u'y and came back to check it out. 

It was the craziest thing, there was sculptures and machinery everywhere. Big excavators, man lifts, weed wackers, a generator and golf carts. 

So I after wondering the monastery and I took off down the back-roads of Chile.... I mean Quebec and headed for Ottawa. When I hit Ottawa I stopped at this coffee shop for the wifi. While I was route planning I noticed some checking out my bike. I met Ande, from a tiny country in Europe that starts with L an speaks German. Lichen-berg. He too is riding his bike across country. He left from Sharon VT on Monday and was rocking a Suzuki Savage. Super nice, super cool dude. Hopefully we'll get to make a day of riding together.

Finally I left for a camp ground 65 miles towards Toronto. It was around 8 o'clock, it was getting dark and I was still 20 miles out of the camp ground, I pulled into a field. Pitched the tent, listened to the drone of a million frustrated mosquitoes and hope I wasn't awakened by an angry Quebexican with a shotgun.

Here is the route I took to Ottawa:

Here is the route of out of ottawa:

6/6/13

After sleeping fitfully and waking up halfway through the night to throw the fly on I got off to an early start. It was overcast and the riding was super tight. For the first two hours I barely made it over 30 miles an hour, the roads were so twisty. It was alot of fun. 

Then the motherucking beavers.....

So a little back story here about a week before I left on the trip I was out dirtbiking and crashed into a beaverpond and hyrdolocked my motor. Thanks to KTM's being totally fucking awesome, I was able to pull the decompression lever, kick it over, take of the air filter and idle it out of the woods. I resolved then and there to install a decomp lever on my bike i was taking on this trip. I ordered the parts next day air. They arrived, I pulled my gas tank to install and realized there was no mountain bracket. Oh well I figured I guess this bike better not go swimming.....

Fast forward to today, I'm following the route of set for myself on my phone, google thinks its a road. I'm heading down it and I see a familiar sign -  No exit. It basically means dead end. I'm like yeah, whatever and I continue. First beaver pond. Just about over peg depth, right at the bottom of my airbox. Stall once mid way, she fires back up I make it through no problem... 

Second beaver pond I plunge in and immediately realize this one is deeper. Now, side note; I say pond but it actually a road that is just cover by water... The road was there before these the beavers. How do i know this you ask? Well they wouldn't build the road underwater would they? ANYWAY, I'm thinking I should turn around as the water is well over my knees and almost washing over my seat. Then the air-box becomes completely submerged  she chokes, dies, hyrdo-locks. For those that don't know that's when water gets into your cylinder (where the magic happens) and basically stops it from moving. This is the kiss of death for lessor motors. I'm literally balls deep in beaver pond at this point. Luckily water makes everything buoyant so I'm abled to push the bike through to the other side. I'm stopped at the other side where there is a damn. I can't roll the bike up over the damn so i dig a trench through it and hoist it. Meanwhile there are 8 inch leaches swimming around everywhere. I fucking hate leaches...I take all my shit off the bike including gas tank and seat and try to pull the spark plug. The awesome KTM tool kit I bought for this this trip's spark plug socket doesn't fit in where its supposed too. I jam a rock up under the decompression actuator and kick the motor over with the assistance of the E start. She blows half the beaver pond out the exhaust and I reconnect the spark plug and Voila she fires right up. I keep all my bags off and do a recon mission down to the end of the road -  its some fun trail riding and I and I find the road, I race back to my stuff load up and take off. I have to admit I yelled "I win" rather jubilantly when I pulled off that trail and onto the road. I took these vids from my handlebars.... apparently they wont load.

Field stripped KTM

I'm soaked its all of 50 degrees and it starts to pour. I'm freezing, hungry, totally intimidated by the next 150 miles I have to ride to Toronto. Also my bike is in desperate need of an oil change. When you get water in your motor like that it mixes with the oil and that is no good. I pull in at a Walmart buy some oil and do an impromptu change right in front of the entrance. Some of it drips and the rain turns it into rainbows. I was going to take pictures but I wanted to get out of there before I got yelled at. I had my response fully planned if anybody said anything I was just going to be like "tar sands, bitch". I hit the road again and I don't know if it was just me but the bike felt allot happier with fresh blood in her.

Did another 50 miles or so of dirt roads and finally deaded in a one way. At this point I was more then happy to hop on the highway and bust out the last 100 kilometers to toronto. 

I got to Toronto and met up with Vanessa, she is an okcupid friend and we are 99 percent match, one of her partners came over and we drank Jameson and ate farm fresh elk and buffalo and asparagus I had picked up on the way. Delicious.  We went out for drinks, wandered little bit and came back. Then wandered some more and finally turned in. It was a blast.

Here is the route I took to:

Thats all for now folks and remember spay and neuter your cats and dogs.