April 15, 2014
Last Minute Panic - As Usual
We started the two week period since our triumphant entry about the camera deliberately and calmly. During the day we attended to necessary home and home office chores, and at night - we (Dodie) crawled around our draft route through the Bikeline books and on Google Maps, fine tuning it.
Also, we could both feel our conditioning (such as it was) slipping rapidly away. So we decided we'd better get in some cycling - any cycling. When you are on the road and have all the time in the world to think and dream, we told ourselves we would cycle far and wide around home. We would go over the "Malahat" (big hill) and go visit sister Karyn. Maybe we would sleep over down there, or hell, we're strong, maybe we would just have tea and zip back up the hill. The 100+ km would be fine, since we would have a hot tub at the other end!
So what did we do? Well first we didn't want to get our newly shiny Fridays dirty. So we would have to go on some of the fleet of older bikes just waiting for their chance as understudies. Nah, none of those fit quite right, or they have outdated shifters, or whatever. So we did what (to our embarrassment) we often do. we went out and bought yet another bike. This one would be shiny (at least for awhile) and have the right shifters and what not.
Not being totally crazy, we did not get one of the fine bikes on offer at our local bike shop. Rather we went to Canadian Tire. Canadians in the audience will now roll their eyes. Canadian Tire is only one teeny notch above Walmart. But the thing was actually pretty good for the money - aluminum frame with low low Dodie friendly step through, 21 speeds, and brakes, cranks, and derailleurs that did not look like they totally were stamped out of tin cans.
So now we were set for the Malahat, and Karyn's tea, and the Lochside Trail, and, and... Well, I'm not saying we went on no rides. For example, with just 12km round trip you can reach the Drumroaster Cafe from here. Great coffee and baking, but costly. We went quite a few times. The ride is just enough to set you up for a nice nap when you get back. And, we went downtown to look at bike stuff. Quite invigorating. We did find some stuff Ardell might like. Perhaps she will put it one her bike and go somewhere - unlike us, right now.
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Meanwhile, on the mapping front, the intrepid cyclists were tallying up the length of the European route. 3875Km ?? No way - we will do all that before lunch - or at least well before the Shengen folks kick us out of their borderless zone. So, let's build in some more Ausfluge (excursions. We got so into the Ausflug business that I had to ask Sandra for the plural form- one ausflug two ausfluge. No Steve, not ausflugen)!
Finally the day came to make the maps that we will actually carry on the bikes. What we will not carry is thirteen or more books, weighing about a pound each. (What, you say, isn't this blog subtitled Ten Bikeline Routes - yeah so we lied (sue us!).)
Our scheme is to select only the relevant maps, and not the text, that describe our total route. We scan these, and then print them, double sided - two or three maps per side - onto lightweight paper with a colour laser.
So that means really knowing which maps out of the books we need, scanning them, reorganizing into collages, and printing. This time we created 584 files (mostly .jpg) occupying over 30 gigabytes of space.
Anyone who has used a computer for more than a couple of months knows what is coming next: hard drive failure! Now if the drive had failed entirely, it could have been more merciful. We could just have jumped off the Malahat and put an end to it. But in this case, many or most files were intact. The only thing, when any program (including Scandisk) would attempt to open one, the computer would be thrown into a death spiral with the only remedy being a cold start.
(Before you put up a Guestbook entry extolling the virtues of backups, consider that all this data was created within a couple of days. Yes, a real computer centre would back up nightly or more often, but I am only a retired computer guy.)
By the time Sandra came skipping downstairs to check on us, we were mostly catatonic. We had no ideas. We just sat there, contemplating the fact that we had only about a day to get this all done. Dodie said ok we will not eat (ok - not cook) and we could use the saved weight to carry all the books with us. It was almost our actual fate. However, in explaining the problem to Sandra, she and we came up with some strategies and procedures. Sandra steadied our failed minds, and slowly we three went through the files, rescuing the good and flagging the bad. In the end, there were only about a dozen "bombs" among the many files. We found and repaired those.
After that, all we had to do was a re-run of the days before retirement - put in 16+ hours in the office. In the end, we had crawled through the route so much that we felt like we had cycled it twice. At one point, on screen, we arrived at Metz. Dodie said "Where do we go next?". I was not sure if this was a quiz or a real question. No matter. I was so fried, I wanted to say "Mosel" but could not remember the word. For the record, wanting to cycle the Mosel Radweg, from Metz to Koblenz was what got us started on this tour in the first place.
But now, it's all done! The maps anyway, and about 70% of the chores. So we are beetling it down to Kirkland, where about 1/2 the family is gathering for Easter. When we get back, there will be three calm (!) days to finish up, and then... we are off!
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