Wednesday was a pajama day for your writer! I got to stay in the lodge all day with the lovely Josie’, and write this blog all day! The rest of the Team left around 11:30am for a day ride on the local trails, and returned about 3:30pm.
They apparently enjoyed themselves, not nearly as much as myself, and did happen accross 7 moose, at different parts of their day. With all the recent snow accumulation from the winter storm that passed thru, the moose have been using the snowmobile trails to traverse their territory. They said it was amazing to see the moose move off the trail, and how deep the snow was, and they just trudged right thru it.
Good for them, they had a good day of local riding, without all the issues that have challenged this trip from Day 1. Apparently only Fearless Leader Craig was the one to get stuck more than once that day.
Dinner was around 6:30pm, and I saw everything from ribeye steaks with Frites (french fries) to baked spaghetti and garlic bread being served. After dinner happy hour progressed to about 9:30pm, as Josie’ kept the lodge open an extra 1/2 hour for our trail of degenerates. Moose Valley runs off a generator in the winter, a large one for the day, and a smaller one for the evening hours. In the summer months they run off of solar panels, and an inverter at night. Pretty cool place in a desolate area, one of everybody’s favorite stops along the trail.
Breakfast was scheduled for 8am local time. Local time is one hour ahead of Eastern Time, as we went east so far that the clocks jumped forward an hour. Departure is scheduled for shortly after 9am.
We shall see…
FrostBytes … Day 6, Thursday, January 24, 2019 It Was Like Riding Thru A Car Wash All Day!
Today started off on schedule, with everybody in the lodge for breakfast by 8am. The only thing hanging over the team was the weather. There was a light freezing rain falling from the overcast sky, and temps were projected to be around 37 degrees.
We had two paths to get to Domaine Valga, in St. Gabriel-de-Rimouski, QC. The short path is about 100 miles, the longer path is about 150 miles. We had planned on taking the longer trail, but with the freezing rain, it was decided it would be better to take the short path.
We were on the trail by 9:15 am, and fortunately the freezing rain, and warm temps started off as icing our helmet visers and windshields, but by our gas stop at about 60 miles in, it was just light rain, and the water just dripped off our raised visers, and the ice melted from our sleds. But before all that, the trails were groomed, and very enjoyable to start our day. We even had a moose on our trail about 5 miles in, that slowed our progress, as we gave it plenty of room to move at it’s own pace, and depart the trail when he damn well felt like it!
The trails were very nice all day, with a combination of woods with loose twisty trails, to long stretches with sweeping hills. A very enjoyable ride now that the Clubs have been able to catch up on their grooming activities. The only negative was the 685 times I had to remove my hand from the handlebar gauntlets, to use the rubber blade on my pointer finger of my left hand to wipe my helmet viser, like a windshield wiper.
We stopped at around 45 miles at a club relaise’ for a small lunch, since we had plenty of time, and the riders appreciated the opportunity to place wet gear around wood burning stove to dry a bit. Kevin even “borrowed” a Hefty garbage bag, punched a head hole and two arm holes thru it because his gear didn’t prevent the steady drizzle from penetrating. He was soaked all the way thru.
We arrived at our overnight stay around 3pm today, with an otherwise uneventful ride. Other than when Fearless Leader got stuck and tipped over in the deep snow, just off the trail, just before our lunch stop. (I’d hate to leave that detail out :))
Now everybody has dried out, some have showered, some have given their wet attire to the lodge staff to place in their clothes dryers to speed up the drying process. We have now all joined together in the lodge community room. Fearless leader and I are at the little counter top/bar doing this blog and the rest are around the wood burning stove, sharing their conversation and perspective on the day’s trail ride.
FYI: Today is our buddy’s HedgeHog’s birthday, we can’t light candles on his cake cus it would burn the lodge down, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHIL!!
Bye for now…
Stick
