Stan, a homeless man, has taken up residence in this former industrial building and has tens of thousands of square footage at his disposal to live and ... collect things. What does he collect? Anything and everything. This particular room ("room" is used loosely here, the room is the size of a warehouse) contained literally thousands of bicycles and bicycle parts. In that sea of bikes sits this chair. I like to think of it as Stan's throne. Does Stan ever sit in it and look over his kingdom?
If you have ever watched the BBC's Top Gear you may be familiar with the opening credits of that show, which feature silhouettes of the three co-hosts. I can't help but be reminded of that every time I have a look at this image. Maybe it's further enhanced by my experiences with the hilarity that inevitably ensues when these 3 fine gentlemen get together...
The golden evening hour sometimes yields colours that are unexpected and almost unnatural. Living in Toronto, we aren't used to seeing this much blue in the sky and water; instead, these are colours we are accustomed to seeing in exotic faraway locations. Yet, on this particular night as the sun set these are the colours that we were privy to.
Welcome to the organized chaos that is Stan's place. Stan has taken up residence in this former industrial building and has tens of thousands of square footage at his disposal to live and ... collect things. What does he collect? Anything and everything. Thousands of bikes, empty cans, magazines... all in organized piles.
Despite the fact that photography is a hobby I continue throughout the year, I've generally only posted photos to accompany our travellogue. After some consideration, I'll try and share some of my other non-travel work as well. In other words, don't be surprised to see some regular photographic updates!
In late October, we had packed up and ventured off to Montréal with a couple of friends. Our friends were going to see a concert, so we all thought we'd make an entire weekend out of it.
We left on a Friday morning, and arrived in Montréal in the early evening. Our friends headed off to the concert, while Cess and I spent the evening in Old Montréal. Having never spent any significant amount of time in Montréal, I could immediately see why everyone says Montréal has a very European feel to it -- it does. The architecture, the layout of the old part of town, and the overall atmosphere are certainly very reminiscent of European cities. We wrapped up our evening with a dinner at Garde Manger, a restaurant owned and operated by Chuck Hughes, of Chuck's Day Off fame. The dinner was excellent, albeit, a bit on the pricey side when you consider what type of food you're getting. Regardless, we had a great evening.
The remainder of the weekend was spent doing various touristy things. The two highlights were Pikolo Espresso Bar (awesome coffee and pastries) and Jean-Talon Market. The latter is one of Montréal's largest open air markets and is extremely impressive. In short, it puts Toronto's St. Lawrence market to shame. Jean-Talon is much larger, has a much better variety of products, and in most cases, the products are much better priced. Between the four of us, we loaded up on 10lbs of peppers, about 15lbs of tomatoes, and other various goodies.
It's safe to say that we would definitely like to go back again. Even just to experience the market!
Several weeks ago, we made plans to ride down to Pennsylvania with a group organized by BMW Toronto. This would be a Saturday to Monday trip. We were looking forward to closing out our riding season with some nice twisty roads and colourful scenery. We were going to ride down with a friend, Darlene, who we were also going to share our accommodations with. I made some chocolate pistachio biscotti and packed sandwiches for our lunch for the ride down. We were even going to surprise another friend of ours who would be travelling with the main group when we would all eventually arrive at the hotel.
We met up with Darlene on Saturday morning at a gas station near our condo. We filled up and headed to the border. It was a balmy 8C and the air was "wet". As we rode towards Buffalo, the wind picked up and it started to drizzle. Just after Grimsby, we stopped to put more layers on. We were freezing. As we layered up, we pondered continuing on or turning back. Although Darlene said she'd be fine with turning back, we decided to push on towards the border.
So we continued on. And it started to rain in earnest. The riding conditions just became miserable. Matt and I were ok with riding in wet weather, or cold weather, but not both. We stopped again when we were no more than 10 km from the border. We donned the rest of our rain gear and then we all decided that we were going to abort the trip. We knew the forecast for the rest of the day in Williamsport called for 90-100% probability of precipitation and would only reach a high of 11C. In other words, it would be miserable for the entire ride. Seeing as we do touring on our motorcycles to have fun, and this was definitely not fun, there didn't seem to be any point in continuing onwards. And Darlene agreed.
We turned around and headed to the nearest Tim Hortons to warm up. The Tim Hortons we arrived at happened to be just outside of Niagara Falls. It took us all a few minutes to take off layer after layer after layer once we got inside. I'm sure it was quite the amusing sight. Once we unlayered, we got ourselves some hot beverages. Matt informed the ride organizer by email that we had decided to turn around, and Darlene called the hotel to cancel our reservation. We were all prepared to pay a penalty for such a late cancellation. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that there would be no penalty at all. We joked that we should take the money we saved and go to the casino to try and make more ;) We didn't; instead, we stayed at the Tim Hortons long enough to warm up and then headed home to Toronto.
On our way home, Darlene parted ways with us as we neared Toronto. Since Matt and I live downtown, and she does not, there was no point in her following us all the way downtown. By this time our fuel reserve lights had been on for a while. Matt and I debated stopping for gas or pushing on towards home. Well, didn't I run out of gas on the highway. Matt had to leave me to fend for myself on the shoulder of the highway and continued onwards. He'd come back with some gas for me as soon as he could.
Lucky for me, I ran out of gas on a section of the highway that had a fairly wide shoulder. I parked my bike as far away from the moving traffic as I could. To kill some time, I snapped a few shots with my camera. Then I stood on the shoulder and ... ate a sandwich. Why not? I was hungry. ;) After finishing my sandwich, I stood near my bike and just watched the traffic go by. Not a single person stopped to check on me. But the weather had vastly improved since we returned from our trip to the border. The sun was shining and the wind had died down a bit.
Eventually, a car did stop. But not to check on me. The driver got out and walked around his car, looking at it intently. He eventually walked over to me and asked if I had a cell phone he could borrow. He needed to call his office to let them know that he would either be late or not in at all; he needed a tow. Oh really? It turns out that he was drinking his coffee and somehow started choking on it. While this was all happening, he managed to swerve into the guardrail before regaining control of his car. I didn't go to inspect the damage to his car, but he certainly had fresh wet stains on the front of his t-shirt. I dialed his work for him and let him yell into my cell phone while I watched. It amused me greatly that he walked up to me, like I was standing on the side of a normal road at a bus stop, and asked to use my cell phone. After his call, he thanked me and went back to sit inside his car. By this time, Matt had arrived with some gas for me. He emptied the container into my tank and then we left.
While we were staying at the Penfield House, I found a magazine that featured the Penfield House ... and 3 other properties that were FLW designed and also available as rentals! We will probably attempt to stay at the other properties in the future.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012 at 11:48AM 
