On the Road Again...Just can't wait...

O-Cup #5 goes to Elliot Lake - July 28-30 Road Trip

www.chicoracing.com

www.cityofelliotlake.com

www.dunloplodge.com

If you are ranked 6th in Ontario in Sport Male 40-44 you can't let your competition get those extra platinum points while you stay home and have nice weekend with your wife.

Lesley every so often looses her mind and thinks it might be okay to travel north of Hwy #7 for a little adventure and to explore the beautiful north. It is almost a patriotic duty. The two combined decided it would be fun to go to Elliot Lake and see what the retirees are doing.

Here's a little inspiration for the trip...maybe some Neil Young or Gorden Lightfoot playing in your mind to set the mood.




After 7 hours in the car the first stop was to check out the men of Elliot Lake. Lesley found this one to be a bit stiff and not much into conversation.



We moved on to find our home for the weekend - Dunlop Lake Lodge. This is a view from their newly built deck. Notice the sun is shining in this picture.



Here is Brad doing his usual pre-race training. Brad read in the paper on the way up what some Jack Daniels and beer did for Floyd in his amazing Stage 18 come back in the Tour de France. He thought it couldn't hurt if he tried it. Brad didn't try putting testosterone on this private bits. We'll need to find a good Spanish doctor to do that.



This is Lesley enjoying the view after dinner.



Saturday started with a pre-ride. The course was too hard for Lesley. It was either all rock or some wierd spongey trail with too many dips and bumps. I did part of and then went in search of raspberries and found some but I had to be careful eating the local food. This will be self-evident in the next picture.

The skies opened up and it poured rain so we went and bought some chips and ate them at the fire tower which was enclosed with fog. Check it out in the Elliot Lake website if you care. To kill time in the afternoon, we drove up to "Denison House" based on one of the blue and white provincial signs. Here is the history of the house www.denisonhouse.com

The wierd thing is here is the sign on our way up the driveway.




Here is what is behind the sign. Doesn't this tailing pond look inviting? This one wasn't screened off. They had more that you couldn't even get close to.



The other interesting thing which I'll have to check out is that it looks like they laid out a subdivision with roads, driveways and drainage swales but we saw no evidence of building foundations. The Denison House was occupied for the weekend so we didn't get inside.

This is our sunset view from Dunlop Lake Lodge.



Sunday morning was the usual O-cup drill. This time though we had to have breakfast at MacDonalds because that was the most agreeable food you could get at 8:30 in the morning. In the picture below, Brad is the red jersey. This is at the Dufour Ski Hill. I kept getting the name confused with that sad refugee camp in Africa. That wasn't the most P.C. thing to do.



This is Brad after his first lap. If you look closely, you will see his hand ready to take a new water bottle from his wife but he came up empty handed. You will have to scroll down to see what was occupying her mind.



The most exciting thing was watching the weeds growing. Isn't golden rod a sign that fall is coming?



I did manage to show up to cheer Brad in his last dash for the finish line. This was not a podium finish. Brad placed 7th - still hanging on to his 6th place ranking in Ontario, Sport Male 40-44.