Stormy weather

 Yeah, I disappeared for a bit. It's been a tough few weeks.

The storms haven't just come from the skies

Tuesday, July 6th - as I'm at my desk, partway through another 12-ish hour day as I race to try to get things done before we go away on holidays, I get a message from Tank telling me he's trying to leave work in Mississauga and the key won't go into the ignition of our car. I manage to arrange a tow through CAA, but they can't give the Tank a ride due to Covid restrictions, and I'd have to be there to pick up the rental car offered with our coverage. A coworker is kind enough to drive Tank all the way home (the guy lives in Brampton, maybe 15mins from the warehouse, but did an hour and a half of extra driving - I'm so grateful for people like him!), the car is towed to our dealer in Cambridge, and I spend some time crowbarring the ignition cylinder out of our old parts car (because it's almost impossible to get the parts to even rebuild it due to the vehicle being 13 years old). 

We pick up a rental car (our for 48hrs) on Wednesday morning, drop the ignition cylinder off at the dealership, and Tank heads to work. I get a phonecall around 10am: the good news is that the ignition went in without a problem...but the bad news is that the tow truck driver CRACKED THE HECKIN' OIL PAN when he hooked up the car. Replacement cost: about $900 all in (parts, labour, oil change + tax). I get a written estimate from the dealer, contact CAA, and begin the process of filing a damage claim.

Not bueno.
(Photo provided by dealer for damage claim)

While I'm out running on Thursday afternoon - just after Tank left work a bit early, as we had our 2nd Covid vaccine doses scheduled for that evening - CAA calls and requests photos of where the car was parked before being towed, and where it was left at the dealership. I didn't actually put it together until we were headed to the vaccination clinic that this could be problematic: we only had the rental car until early Friday morning, and Tank didn't anticipate going to work on Friday as he'd been kicked pretty hard by his first vaccine dose (and his employer offers up to 2 paid days off for vaccination side effect recovery). We were on holidays the following week, so it would be a week and a half before Tank was back at the warehouse. 

At least we were on our way to full immunity!

Because we couldn't afford to have any suspicion cast on our damage case - and the tow truck driver claimed he had a photo of our oil pan already leaking when he hooked it up, according to my representative at CAA - Tank ended up driving all the way back to the warehouse to get a photo of the spot where the car had been parked all day prior to the tow.

A little wet from the earlier rain, but clean as a whistle.

Friday morning brought some good news: I wouldn't need to get photos from the dealer to show where our car was dropped off, as the towing company had dropped all objections and agreed to pay for the damage. I suspect the pic of the "already leaking" oil pan provided by the driver either a) didn't match our oil pan (found on the internet), or b) showed parking stall lines on the pavement, which our dealer's lot has but clearly do not exist where the vehicle was parked prior to the tow. In any case, the towing company contacted me directly, requested the written estimate, and confirmed they'd send a cheque to pay for it in full. Our dealership also let us know they would have a loaner vehicle for us Saturday morning that we could use through the following week if we wanted, so at least we could have a car for the weekend before we left for our holiday, as the oil pan needed to be ordered and would hopefully arrive and be installed before Friday, July 16th.

Unfortunately, Friday also brought horrible side effects from our vaccinations. Tank felt generally miserable with body aches and chills, but I got the joy of intense headaches that felt like being stabbed in the brain dozens of times per minute and just. wouldn't. stop. I hadn't taken a painkiller since I broke my wrist back in 2012, but Tank actually ended up riding his bicycle up to the convenience store around 3pm to pick up some extra-strength Tylenol (as we had nothing in the house to which I wasn't allergic) just to give me a bit of relief - I'm so grateful for him! I couldn't really work, though, as I could barely even see properly all day due to the pain; I spent most of the day whimpering in bed, unable to get comfortable or fall asleep due to the stabbiness. The Tylenol reduced things to a manageable level by about 4:30pm, but my coworkers told me not to worry about getting anything done, and just to rest up and enjoy our vacation.

We were up early Saturday morning to pick up the loaner car and hit the farmers' market, to which I most assuredly DID NOT run. The headache had come back upon waking, so it was another Tylenol down the hatch to try to keep it under control. By Saturday afternoon we were on the mend, though, and got out for a bit of a walk.

Discovering some lovely new-to-us paths through a local wetland

Through all of this - since the ignition had gone - we had begun looking more seriously at buying a newer vehicle, as our is (as previously mentioned) getting a bit long in tooth and closing in on 400,000km on the clock. We'd been idly talking about it for a few months already, but this felt like a big push toward trying to accomplish it before our hand was forced and our options ran out. This, of course, just added even more stress, but between my amazing mum making us an incredibly generous offer and a lot of furious research and comparison done through the end of the week, we were able to set our minds a bit at ease and put everything on hold until after we returned from holidays. 

By Sunday evening I finally felt sufficiently human to go for a run, fortunately after all the rainstorms had passed.

And then we got ice cream, because dammit I was on vacation.

Oh, so I'd rather forgot to mention that - while camping at Valens over the Canada Day weekend - we'd discovered that one of our 14-year-old thermarest sleeping pads would no longer hold air, so I'd ordered a replacement (not having been able to source one locally) that we hoped would arrive before we left. I got out for a quick run around the neighbourhood on Monday morning, the new sleeping pad arrived, Tank returned the loaner car to the dealership, and we got the bikes loaded up for a week of touring.

On what was supposed to be a very rainy day, but which turned out to be beautiful!

We didn't roll out until 3:30pm, but we didn't have that far to go, either. This was the Tour de 200: my bike was still showing an FI warning light (despite running really well since I got the front cylinder's injector wiring figured out back in November 2019), so we were going to camp at 3 different Ontario Parks that were all within our free CAA towing radius of home. First stop was Port Burwell - on the north shore of Lake Erie, and only 118km from our driveway.

Roadside stop to check that I hadn't blown a turn.

We had a great ride down under blue skies filled with puffy little summer clouds, and arrived around 5:30pm - we were even able to convince the park warden to drop off some bags of firewood at our campsite for us! Unfortunately - as we learned within moments of entering the park - there had been rain about every second day for the entire month to date, resulting in Port Burwell Provincial Park turning into a mosquito-infested swamp. 

This was the entrance to our campsite, which was more than a little sketchy with a heavily-laden bike

We made it in safely, though, and got camp set up. There was a beautiful background noise of falling water in the ravine off the back of our campsite - we could just see a small waterfall (that maybe only existed because of all the recent rain) through the foliage, so went to try to walk the ~1.5km Ravine Creek Trail that evening. We noped out after 50m: the intense mud and more-technical-than-expected terrain was no place for our motorcycle boots, and the mosquitoes were practically a solid mass in the air.

RUN AWAY

We went back and made a fire instead, dousing ourselves with plenty of repellent and fogging the heck out of our site with mosquito coils.

Just generally making the best of things

We hadn't brought that many coils with us, though, and had not packed a large enough dry bag to hang all of our attractants (food, cooking utensils, toiletries, etc) off the ground to keep wildlife out of them without getting rather soggy in the rain that was predicted for, well...basically all day. So, we had brunch.

With Tanker's amazing camp coffee

..then mounted up and rode our motorcycles into the tiny town of Port Burwell itself in search of supplies.

Parked in front of the Marine Museum (closed due to Covid)

We walked out to the end of the pier

..then back up the hill to check out the HMCS Ojibwa, but only from afar.

We were able to more or less accommodate our needs at the eclectic Red & White Food Store, but I had a new issue to contend with: the neutral light on my bike was staying on in every gear, though it would sometimes flicker if it wasn't actually in neutral. Still, she seemed to be running ok, so I hoped this wasn't the beginning of the end of our tour. We rode less than 5km the whole day, parking the bikes in some actual sunshine when we got back to the site, and heading out in trail shoes, trousers, and lots of bug spray to check out the Ravine Creek Trail and beach trail in the park.

The bugs weren't quite as thick as the evening before

We got a bit of light rainfall, but it was nothing like the washout day we'd been told to expect when checking weather (then quickly putting my phone back into airplane mode to conserve battery power, as we'd have to rely on powerbanks and perhaps plugging in at a comfort station here and there for the whole week).

It wasn't a great day to lay on a beach, but not bad for skipping a few stones

The neighbour at the site next door - who had an SUV - had offered to go pick up some longer-burning wood at $5 per massive bag, which we gratefully accepted. I'd been able to get change for my $20 bill when we purchased ice on the way back into the park, so we got a fire going when we returned from our hike.

I'd added some extra guylines to the tarp that morning, as security against the predicted rain

It was mostly clear - and even sunny at times - into the evening, and we hoped things would dry out enough that we'd have a clear shot out of our campsite in the morning, as the rear wheel of my bike had slipped sideways a little in the mud as we pulled out earlier in the day to head into town. For once I actually made dinner before dark (which helped a bit with the swarms of mosquitoes - legitimately the worst I've ever seen in the frontcountry!), and we enjoyed our meal by the fire, listening to thunder approach and then fade away again without a drop. 

My favourite kind of storm when camping!

It wasn't until about 10pm that a massive blast of rain blew in, dumping buckets of water and chasing us under the safety of the tarp. Our fire was sufficiently hot to keep burning, and we did actually get a bit of a break with only a few drops falling so we could sit and enjoy it for a few more minutes..

In our GoreTex jackets, that is

..but the rain quickly returned, and seemed to be settling in, so by 11pm (quite early for us) we were brushing our teeth and turning in for the night. We still had half a bag of firewood left as there was no point in adding any more, but we dropped it off to our neighbour (who was staying through Friday) after breakfast and loading the bikes up again the next morning.

Wednesday was always going to be the tricky bit: it was our longest ride of the trip at about 350km, and included a ~40min blast up the 400 at the end of a lot of complicated overland travel. We actually had a great ride! My navigation worked reasonably well; I blew one turn, but we ended up in a spot where we were able to stop to re-supply food and drink (had only brought enough to last the first couple of nights from home) and knew a pleasant way to make the rest of the journey. I'd had no trouble rolling out through the slippery mud at the end of our site, and my bike seemed to run great the whole way - even the neutral light issue resolved itself as we pulled away from Port Burwell, though when we made a final fuel stop before hitting the 400 in Barrie I noticed a weird thing where she'd idle really high in 1st gear, but not in neutral.

We arrived at our destination as evening settled in, and stopped at the gate for a moment's celebration at achieving our furthest point from home successfully.

WOOP WOOP

We stopped again at the gate to check in, still with the weird high idle in 1st gear, but no problems re-starting after shutting down. We convinced a couple of park staff kids in a side-by-side to meet us at the park store so we could pick up firewood and ice for them to deliver to our site, then rode down the hill to the store to make our purchases. Emerging, we were engaged in conversation by the park warden about our motorcycles, as she was in the market for one that would have a low enough stand-over height for her comfort. We needed to get going to set up our campsite before dark, though, and went to saddle up. Ignition on, fuel pump cycled up as normal, hit the starter button, and...nothing. Try again: same thing. Check the kill switch: flick on and back off, with no improvement.

Well...heck.

The warden was kind enough to let us unload everything off of my bike and into her pickup truck to drop off at our campsite for us, while Tank rode his bike to the site to meet the kids with our wood and ice. The warden let me know my bike would be safe as the park store would have security cameras on it 24/7, and then she very definitely did not give me a ride to our campsite, as that could jeopardize her job due to Covid protocols. She was very helpful and kind, and I would hate to see her get in any trouble, so I definitely made the more than a kilometer trip to the site in my boots and leathers not in her pickup truck. Yep, that's it all right.

Tank had arrived at possibly the smallest frontcountry campsite ever.

We got camp set up, discovered that the firewood needed a lot of hand-holding in order to burn (after having been spoiled at Port Burwell), and made a plan. I'd get my bike towed home: we were (as CAA let me know) 224km from our house, but our package gives us ONE tow per year of up to 320km as well as the usual 5 tows of up to 200km (hence the "Tour de 200"; no further than 200km, or in this once case less than 200mi). Tanker would ride his bike home, and we'd call Cambridge Centre Honda to see if he could pick up our car if it was ready, or get a loaner so he could come back and pick me up, as we had booked 2 nights at Six Mile Lake. We had until Friday at 2pm to figure out how to get me and all of our gear out of there.

Yes, we brought 2 different tarps, as rain had been in the forecast for every single day of this trip.

There was one minor issue: special weather statements were popping up over the entire province for major storms set to arrive Thursday, bringing strong risk of massive downpours, large hail, damaging winds, and even conditions conducive to tornadoes. The odds of these powerful storms increased into the afternoon, and none of this did sounded bueno for sending my husband alone on a motorcycle across a couple of hundred kilometers of mostly open fields.

His bike is awesome and his riding skills are above reproach, but I'd worry every single second

I got up early to call Cambridge Centre Honda to explain the situation and get them working on SOME kind of vehicle for Tank to pick up asap, then we had coffee and breakfast as quickly as possible before stripping everything unnecessary off his bike, loading up his rain gear, and sending him on his way by 10:30am. He had a second pot of coffee all ready to go on the stove, but I could feel the weather approaching and told him I wasn't kicking him out - I was trying to keep him safe. He rode off, I did dishes, put on my hiking shoes, then I called CAA to set up the tow just as the first thunderstorm rolled in.

I got absolutely hosed - enough to wet through my GoreTex jacket and make my shoes squelch - walking up to the front gate to let them know a tow truck would be arriving, then strolled back to the park store, having been told it would be a 45min wait. I wandered around inside for a bit (the young ladies working were kind enough to let me hang out while it poured), then walked back up to the gate to pick up a garbage bag (to make a dry spot to sit on a soggy picnic table outside the store) when the rain tailed off a bit, and got invited back inside when it picked up again. Eventually, I got a call from CAA letting me know it would be more like a 90min wait, so I walked to a comfort station and back again, and just cooled my heels. I heard from Tank, who'd made it about halfway home, and then watched as a giant pickup pulled in towing an enclosed trailer. I thought to myself how nice it would be if my bike could ride home in that, all safely out of the weather...and then the driver hopped out, wearing a set of reflective-banded work trousers, and yelled over to me "Is this the bike?"

..and just like that, off she went.

I was grateful for the sympathetic, confident, professional manner of the tow driver, and that we'd had a bit of a clear break to load up my bike. It didn't last, though; as I began the 15min walk back to our campsite, the skies opened again, soaking me once more. 

Not much of a beach day.
Heck - not much of a beach just then, more of a flat of quicksand.

With little else to do for awhile, and not wanting to try the few little trails in the park until I knew Tank was safely home, had a vehicle, and was heading back north (cell reception was a little patchy, but not too bad at our site), I waited around under the tarp. The couple with a toddler and an infant across from us were packing up, and the father offered me a bag of firewood as they were leaving a day earlier than planned (possibly due to the fact the infant had done little but scream since we'd arrived). With little else to do and a break in the rain, I started a little fire to try to dry things out a bit.

Including some wood for use later, standing at the back of the firepit.

Tank messaged to let me know he'd made it home safely, and without even a drop of rain! I called the dealership again, and was able to get a loaner car set up for Tanker, plus a ride in their customer shuttle to pick it up. We hoped he'd be able to make it home again before the tow driver showed up with my bike, and it worked out ok in the end; he apparently had time to gather a bit of extra gear he was going to bring up in the car to make our trip a bit more comfortable, and then my bike turned up and was safely tucked away in the garage...after having passed through Barrie around the time an EF-2 tornado struck! Definitely grateful for that enclosed trailer, not to mention for pushing Tank to get on his bike and ride as early as possible.

With my husband now hitting the road again in a 2020 Honda Civic Sedan with a huge CIVIC CLEAROUT banner pasted to the windshield, I could finally relax a bit and stop worrying about connectivity; I'd killed one of the 3 powerbanks we'd brought along keeping it charged while I made phonecalls and sent messages, but we had the other 2 still fully charged and would now have a vehicle with a USB port. I was just thinking about heading out for a hike, when the worst thunderstorm of the whole trip came down right on top of me!

I hunkered under the tarp, but the gusting winds carried spray in under it, so there wasn't a dry spot to be found. I didn't want to give the rain an entry into our tent by trying to dive inside, so I just put on my (almost dry by that time) GoreTex jacket again and sat at the picnic table while the storm raged around me. It lasted about 15mins, then just as quickly as it had come it faded away, and the skies broke into sunshine!

You can't make this stuff up.

I lingered a bit longer to make sure the storm really was done, while variable clouds raced across the sky. I'd learn later that no less than six EF-2 would be confirmed around the province.

And you know it's been a nasty rainstorm when a small hawk sits up in a tree trying to dry out its wings!

Once I was sure it was done storming, I stuffed my GoreTex jacket and nalgene into a bag, then set off in my still-soggy trail shoes to try to see some of the park. We'd chosen Six Mile Lake to camp at on this trip for a few reasons (proximity to home, available campsites when we were booking), not least of which was having been here previously for some motorcycle rallies but without ever seeing much of the park or even its namesake lake. I was determined to fix that, though I knew the trails would be awash; I also had nothing else to do until Tank returned, and the storm had put out my little fire.

The ~1km point-to-point Living Edge Trail connects to the David Milne Trail and Marsh Trail

I had expected things to be wet, but hadn't necessarily expected the trail itself to be a waterfall.

Yet there I was.

Kind of glad I hadn't tried changing into dry socks..

While it was still quite overcast and squelchy, it was lovely to see some classic Canadian Shield landscape.

Even if it held puddles.

There was a really neat boardwalk in the middle, too.

Which splashed a bit as I walked across it.

I'd noped out of the David Milne trail (which led to the Marsh Trail, which I'd had no intentions of even trying as I'd heard reports it can be impassable even in dry weather) because it was even wetter than the trail I was on from what I could see...though the second half of the Living Edge Trail proved much more flooded than the first.

With streams literally flowing over it

Pretty little rill...through which the trail passed.

Ummm yeah.

Even the beaver dam had flooded over!

Up to my ankles.

I declined to hike the trail in the other direction, instead walking through the campground roads back to our site. When I arrived, it was almost 6pm and starting to cool off in the wake of the storms, so I tried to find some wood that hadn't been too badly sprayed by the torrential rain and started another little fire.

I didn't figure I'd ever get my shoes dried out, though.

Tanker arrived back at our site in the loaner car around 8pm, just after I finished prepping ingredients for dinner. The skies stayed cloudy, but no rain fell for the rest of our stay; Tank was astonished to see the park road still flowing with water in places, as he'd had no rain all day long! We eventually rolled into bed after a long, stressful day - poor Tank had done close to 500km of driving between motorcycle and car, while I got soaked and worried. We made the decision to carry on camping as the next park was basically on our way home anyway, though Saturday was predicted to be a washout day. 

Meanwhile, Friday morning brought stunning blue skies and sunshine!

We got the campsite packed up by around 1:30pm after a solid breakfast and finally having that second pot of coffee Tank had prepped the morning before (we'd put the coffee billy in the trunk of the car overnight), plus another pot for good measure. Then, while the sun shone down, I finally went and jumped in Six Mile Lake.

Or at least waded in.

Then we were on the road to Earl Rowe - another park we'd camped at previously, but only in the group area (across the road and well away from the main park. I hadn't even known there was a lake there, but I was determined to jump in it as well, and finally go for a run as they had a decent network of trails totaling about 12km.

Arriving in cloud - we'd lost the sun just after leaving Six Mile Lake

We'd stopped in Alliston for supplies for the remainder of our trip, made simpler by the fact we now had a cooler (one of the things Tank picked up at home; we use drybags full of ice to keep things fresh when on the bikes, but it's far from a perfect system). The gate staff were kind enough to let us do a drive 'round to pick out an available site, as the one I'd booked for us (the last site available in southern Ontario for Friday & Saturday night when I was making reservations!) didn't really have any good trees around to set up a tarp, and there was supposed to be quite a lot of rain. We eventually found one, got registered on it, picked up firewood, and set up camp.

Somewhat ironically going from one of the smallest sites I've ever seen to one of the biggest

Dinner by the fire again, but hardly a star to be seen through the high cloud. 

Still nice to be dry

We awoke to heavier cloudcover, taking our time over breakfast and coffee, then I finally got kitted up and threw on my miraculously now-dry trail shoes to go out for a bit of a look 'round. I headed up the Lookout Trail, then followed the rest of the Rainbow Run Trail around the lake.

You can see for quite a long way from the top of the Lookout Trail, but there's not a whole lot to see

Pleasant pine forest

South end of the lake

The Resource Trail at the far side

A couple of neat boardwalks cross the lake in its middle

Not sure who decided the trail should match my tubular bandana, but it was a fun find!

Back to the site after about an hour and a half of exploring, I told Tank I'd seen people out in the rental pedal boats while I'd been running, so after a snack and changing out of running kit we drove over to the park store to see about securing one - we were surprised they were on offer what with there still being a pandemic on, but were stoked about getting out on the water! Unfortunately, we were told that the last boats had gone out about an hour beforehand, as due to Covid they couldn't re-use lifejackets on the same day.

I was a bit disappointed - it was actually my birthday that day, and I felt a bit denied - but figured that while I was right near the beach I'd get in post-run dip anyway.

Being careful not to get any water in my mouth or nose, as the beach had been posted for bacterial contamination due to the rain runoff

After a good toweling off and a quick parking lot change, we picked up more wood and headed back to our site again where I started a fire and Tank made us Jiffy Pop. 

Which I always delight in trying to make look like an alien egg when opening

I may also have had a beverage or two.

It was my birthday, and this little can of sparkling wine said "Live for today" on it

Despite the dire forecast, we never received a single drop of rain all day.

I'd added extra guylines to the tarp again and everything.

As a matter of fact, the sun finally came out not long before setting.

I'll take it.

We had a nice fire, burning off the rest of our wood before turning in for a relatively early night. The sun persisted into the next day, warming things quickly while we had coffee and breakfast and tore down camp.

I changed out of long sleeves just after this - it was only about 9:30am!

We had camp all packed up by 11:30am, and while we'd thought about trying to rent a pedal boat again before we left, we both agreed we were just kind of...done. So, we went home, arriving by around 2pm and doing all the unpacking and washing up that a week-long trip entails.

Back to work Monday, I've been putting in huge hours again to try to get everything caught back up; it seems things were a bit busy while we were gone, so some of the things I'd been told would be done while I was gone had to be pushed out, so I've seen a lot of my desk and very little of the sun all week. We did receive the cheque from the towing company, but the dealership tells us the earliest estimated arrival for the new oil pan is now next Monday...or possibly not til after Civic Holiday weekend. So, we really have no idea when we'll have our car back.

I did finally get out for a run in daylight (as opposed to 9:30pm) on Wednesday, because I had to run up to the bank to make a deposit for work, and they close at 6pm. Not long after returning to my desk, Karma - our kitty who just turned 18 a couple of weeks ago - had a seizure while laying in his favourite spot in my office.

He has been doing much better since the following morning - pictured here snoozling happily in the same spot Thursday afternoon.

And after all of that - with my Garmin telling me that I've been losing fitness due to a couple of weeks of quite minimal running, and exhausted from the long hours and stress - I suddenly have a 6 hour race on Sunday. On one hand it'll be nice to see everyone, especially now that I should have full Covid immunity (as of Thursday evening), and pleasant to go meander around on some lovely trails through the woods again...but with a broken bike, a broken car, and a somewhat broken kitty, I'm having some real trouble generating much enthusiasm about the whole thing.

Then again I was stoked for the motorcycle tour/my birthday trip, and we know how that worked out for me..

If we don't get our own vehicle back until week after next (which we're told is a possibility), we won't even be able to bring my paddleboard or Tank's kayak out to camp with us at Darlington...which we'd specifically booked to get some paddle time in. 

When it rains, it pours.