A trip into the past.

Today I rode my motorcycle to Cardiff, a small town where I lived in the mid 80’s. With no rain in the forecast for Saturday or Sunday it was the perfect time to go. I was planning this trip for a couple weeks but the weather never cooperated.

In the morning I woke up early for a Saturday, gave my motorcycle a wash and topped up the coolant fluid. Grabbing what I would need for an overnight stay I proceeded to Walmart to pick up some small items and to the my mechanic to take a look at the motorcycle’s parking break.

At Walmart instead of buying the items individually I purchased a small travel bag that included everything I needed except for the tooth paste. I will keep it stocked for and sudden overnight trips I take. It fit well in my trunk taking up a lot less space than purchasing the items individually.

After Walmart I proceeded to Corsa Meccanica to have my parking break looked at. Unfortunately they were closed due to a scheduled power outage in their building. Oh well, on to Cardiff.

The ride up there was very relaxing and I made good time on the highways. No sign of cloudiness or rain on the trip up or back. I brought along my rain gear just in case of rain. I decided to ware my leather vest instead of my riding jacket because the temperature was forecast to be in the mid 20’s. A lucky thing too because I would have melted in that thing. Only problem with the vest and a short sleeve shirt is that I now have a mild sunburn on my arms and face. I guess using spf50 just wasn’t enough.

The first stop when arriving in the area was to stop and visit my aunt’s, uncle’s and parent’s graves in a small town call Paudash near Cardiff. I found the church and graveyard with no problem. I also found the grave sites with little effort since I vaguely remembered where the ceremony was back in 95. The blackflies and mosquitoes were extremely annoying so I quickly took some pictures and a video and got out of there.

After leaving Paudash I proceed to Cardiff to see my uncle’s and parents houses. The road were all torn up due to construction work on the culverts for the past year and were now all dirt roads. A very bumpy ride and I was worried about getting a puncture. I only did a quick drive by and didn’t take any pictures. Maybe next summer they will have the roads fixed. Before leaving Cardiff I visited the local gas station to fill up and talked to the old man pumping gas about the state of the roads.

After Cardiff it was on the Bancroft to see the sites there. I did a quick drive around and had a quick look at my old high school and see what has all changed. I had lunch at a small fish a chip restaurant called “For The Halibut Fish & Chips”. I had their smallest portion of halibut and chips. It was very tasty. If and when I go up there again I will have a larger portion.

After Bancroft I headed home with a stop at Paudash again. This time I took some pictures of the United Church there the grave site is located. Then on to home. If I was too tired when I reached Peterborough, I was planning on staying the night. Fortunately I wasn’t too tired and proceed to home.

I made better time on the highways going back but all that was lost in Toronto when I met up with traffic jam after traffic jam. It’s strange that leaving I did’t experience the traffic jams but in the evening I would. Oh well.

Arriving at home I unpacked and then went out and did some grocery shopping. After that I went home to upload the pictures and videos to Google and shared them with my cousin John. He called me later and he was very happy and thankful for them.

Where to next? I don’t have any motorcycle trips planned yet but I am planning to visit local cemeteries in the Toronto area to take pictures for my family tree.