Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Sorry for not updating yesterday. I seemed to be really busy. I'm not sure just what it was that I did but I seemed busy.

Not many sledders in Monday for the good conditions. Groomers were out Sunday night and Monday afternoon. One groomer broke down trying to groom the trail at the end of Lake St. Peter that goes over to Cross Lake and Madawaska. It will be a while before it is up and around again.

We made some new friends this weekend. Two very nice guys from Ottawa have found the sledding Mecca of Lake St. Peter but not without incident. The GPS is a wonderful thing as long as you don't believe it all the time. I don't remember his name (shocking) but he eats his wings with honey garlic sauce. Anyway he used his GPS to mark the shortest route from Ottawa. Although it marks a lovely drive if it was summer or fall not so nice on a dark and snowy winter night. This route takes you through every burg and hollow along the way. Needless to say that while making good time he still arrived after the diner closed. I reopened to make him wings and fries and set him on his way only to watch him leave in the wrong direction. As we were heading to Maynooth anyway we thought that we would catch up to him and tell him the error of his ways. Well it didn't take long because about 1 km up the road he was in the ditch after trying to turn around. A quick trip back to the house to switch the car for the truck and we had him out of the ditch and back to his original destination of White Pine Cottages. His GPS was telling him to drive 7.5 kms to Williams Lake Rd to turn around. Almost all the way back to Maynooth!!!! Now surely this thing would know that there was a road or driveway some place sooner but alas it did not. We had a good time with them the rest of the weekend lots of laughs and I am really glad you came along. I was in need of some amusement it has been pretty boring around here lately.

Just before ditch boy arrived we had a nice young lady drop in looking for directions to Petewawa. She had used google maps, another wonderful tool for travel or so you would think. It took a whole page in directions to get her from Maynooth to Barry's Bay because it turns her up Hwy 127 through Lake St. Peter, to Hwy 60 and around through Madawaska to get there. It seems that Hwy 62 through Maynooth is a county road for a few kilometers not a Hwy. So as not to send her down and "scary back roads" they direct her about 5o kms and half an hour out of her way. Good instincts though, she was smart enough to know that it didn't feel right so we turned her around and sent her back the shorter way.

Now these devices must be invented by someone very intelligent but sadly lacking in common sense.

Jim and Brian and the boys had a great weekend ride from this area over to Dorset up to Huntsville and back home on Sunday. They said that trails were great and every trail on the way home Sunday had been groomed up to perfection. Nice to hear.

We also had a couple in from Bellville that rode from Madoc I think, up here over to Barry's Bay then Haliburton and back here before heading home on Monday. They too said that they had good trails and a great trip.

Now with all the hysteria about tonight's impending storm it will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings. Man can City TV ever get excited. They sure like a good crisis.

I'll be back later in the week. If you have all finished shoveling out by then you will be able to leave you houses and life will return to normal.

Diane and Shamus are still doing a great job at the store and there is gas and other stuff all the time this year. Yea!!!

Cheers
Nancy

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will you have gas on the Feb. 11-12?
Last year we came up from Bancroft...very little gas..did the extra little trip up to the gas station...and it was closed. we ended up making it to Harcourt.
Thanks
Phil

Pete said...

Phil,

Like Nancy posted, the gas bar actually has fuel this year! (better management - aka - not the same people as last year).

Hope to make it in for lunch this weekend. Hope NOT to get any speeding tickets this year ;).

Pete