Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Well, we more than made up for our two boring days! :)Today was amazing in so many ways.
Firstly, we went up the CN Tower in Toronto, the highest 'man-made observation deck' in the world at 1,470-odd feet (147 storeys).It was mind-blowing.It was about the height I normally cruise at in the helicopter!
Ted-ted had a few beads of sweat on his forehead, and wringing wet hands.Dave was feeling 'a bit weird' (nothing new there).The view was as you'd expect, and made doubly great because Toronto is such a pretty, green, clean city.( Video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgswi1DHmDY )
We were back at the hotel picking up the bikes by 11am, and then rode the hundred-odd miles around to Niagra Falls in a blowing gale and freezing cold.We stopped half way again to rug up some more.
Niagra Falls was spectacular!We could see the plume of spray rising from the falls for 10 miles before we got there: we knew it was going to be good.And it didn't disappoint! ( Video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNE9Qy5pSz0 )
Signage was REALLY bad, so with no GPS we had to ride using the spray-plume where we could.We eventually found the falls, but then had to find a park.They can't really fence off a natural wonder so the way they make money is to charge EIGHTEEN DOLLARS per vehicle.When we arrived at the carpark that was charging this amount, we did a u-turn to try to find another park.Well I say u-turn because that's what two of us did, but Ted made it half way round the u-turn and did a dismount to the right.The only thing damaged was his pride. :)
We wandered along the lookout over the falls, taking hundreds of photos (Ted = 3) and creating google-homework for ourselves: what volume of water goes over the falls every minute, how much bigger are the Iguacu falls in Brazil, how many people have been over the falls, etc etc?We all agreed that Niagra Falls was one of the most amazing things we've seen, well worth the trip to get here.
Around 1500 we departed for Rochester, a place I used to travel to every month for work about 12 years ago, so I was keen to see what it was like now.I was also here for work a couple of years ago I went to a ribs restaurant, and it had a few Harleys parked out the front, so I thought it would be fun to go back there on the bike.And so we went to the Dinosaur Grill for dinner, and yes, we got to park our bikes right out the front.:)Tick.
It was a great place, all made of wood, tin roof, lots of people, a band…it was great lively place.And the ribs were some of the best we've had.
After dinner I excused myself to powder my nose, and on the way noticed some 'real' bikies at the bar, complete with leather jackets with "The Axemen" emblazoned on them.These guys were serious.
I suggested to the fellas that it might be a good time to go outside and smoke our celebreation cigars, but who else should be outside already smoking their cigars…yep, the Axemen.
Hoping that they weren;t the shooting type, I asked one for a light….and they turned out to be the nicest bunch of bikies we've met.It turns out that the Axemen are actually a club of motorcycling fire-fighters, about 600-700 of them across the country, and a number of them were meeting up in Rochester for a charity ride on Sunday.
One of them, Kim came over to chat to us as we were a) bikies, and b) smoking cigars, and it turned out that the Axemen had had their own cigars made and were selling them for a fiver a pop to raise money for charity!:)Disco Dave actually got his for free as Kim, who was about 50, took a shine to him.Ted and I had to buy ours.
We ended up chatting with them, and a bunch of other bikies, smoking cigars, telling them about our ride across the US, listening to their stories, and just being bikies.It was a fantastic unexpected experience. :) We are bikies!
Tomorrow we head east and then south along the Finger Lakes in upstate New York, into what we hope should be some early-fall scenery.
- comments