January 26/27/28, 2018

 MACDOWALL to CHOICELAND 18-03 VF

 18-03VF
Friday, Macdowall to  Choiceland

Friday:

Macdowall to the Muskaday Reserve to gas up (We are riding in very snowy conditions, beautiful new snow, visibility down to less that a KM at times). I see my odometer was reading 27 miles at Muskaday when we stopped for fuel. Then zigzagged stubble and crossed the North Branch @ Cecil Ferry. We zigzagged really good stubble fields NE to find the pioneer river crossing on the Whitefox. I was watching the countryside again this year for the location of an old "cemetery" as indicated on Provincial topographical maps of the area.

 Last year  we basically drove right by it likely on the way along the White Fox river. Then again we missed the grave site again on our 2nd day just minutes prior to getting on the Whitefox and do' in a little Formula One! It is amazing what you miss when you are "PUTTING THE WOOD TO 'ER!" Last year on a "wish" or a "by chance", I had hoped to stop at this Pioneer grave site at or about an odometer reading symmetrical with our country's birthday. OK the ride is on a new route and previous rides have one way readings short of 150 MILES so maybe we could hit this cemetery at some other equivalent such as the conversion of 150KMs being 93 MILES. Hey this is somewhat realistic, a shot in the dark never the less. LAST YEAR as we rode I saw the odometer roll just past 93 MILES. I did not see anything in my sites looking like a cemetery and we pushed on. At or about 94.5 miles or so we stopped to toast the Pioneers with a single shot in their honor. Little did I know that we had overshot the cemetery by about a mile and a half...really it was not until We watched the Saturday ride video  170404V   on the big screen of a flat TV did I see the cemetery out of my peripheral.

This year we would roll thru the whole trip thru the storm, stop in the shelter of some old log buildings for a quick fire and lunch then see the grave markers in the distance and actually drive right up to the location of this gravesite. My odometer read 105 miles (169 KM) as we rolled in to Choiceland.
At the Choiceland Curling rink, curling seemed to be pretty lively "Its Just a Game" OK! Yea if I'd know the other team was so serious I would of thrown much better rocks!

 

 MACDOWALL to CHOICELAND 18-04 VF

18-04VF
Saturday, Choiceland to the Forte a la Corne.

We will have a couple local lads come along with us today. They had looked at our maps and knew that the goal of the day would be to ride down to the forest border and possibly cross the Whitefox river into the trees. A beautiful bright sunny day with out a cloud in sight!

It is GO DOG GO TIME!
The Fort a la Corne Forest is calling out to us! It turns out this is going to be one crazy day from "Crash to broken down" we witness is all!

 

 MACDOWALL to CHOICELAND 18-05 VF

 18-05VF 
Sunday, Choiceland to Macdowall.

We enjoy a community breakfast 9AMish. We pack up and head out, deciding on the fly, inputs being snow conditions we find, river crossings, fuel stops and overall riding area country side, landscape and scenery conducive to some of the nicest riding conditions you could ask for. Man back into a cloudy day similar to Friday! We have our tracks to ride back on...when we can find them. Every once in a while we are able to spot our Friday tracks our in the open fields. We pick You'll notice not many photos were taken on the way back but there is lots of Youtube video that will get processed as time allows, just look for the links with a "V".