Author: scott and becky

  • A brief visit to Ouidah

    With the conference over, we accepted an opportunity to visit Marianne in a village 90 km outside of Cotonou (northwest, near the Togo border). Conveniently, she was in Cotonou for other reasons, and we were able to share a taxi back with her to her home. Few people in Benin own cars, and there is…

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  • A winter S24O

    It is cold in Ottawa during the winter time. We aren’t so adventurous as our friends Friedel and Andrew who cycle and camp out on snow days. Instead, we trade in our bikes for cross-country skis.  We often head to Gatineau Park, since it’s nearby, and has hundreds of kilometres of ski trails. This year…

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  • Field of Dreams RAGBRAI – Day 7

    We decided that we would carry our gear the last day, so we didn’t need to find our charter at the end of the day – we feared that if we didn’t arrive in Dubuque on-time our gear might end up on a bus to Omaha. Carrying our gear also meant that we could sleep…

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  • A real soaker – RAGBRAI Day 6

    The weather was threatening when we woke up, so we quickly packed up our tent and got our gear loaded onto the baggage truck. Our first stop of the day was the cafeteria for breakfast. During breakfast, the first hints of rain fell. We were glad to have our rain gear with us. Just as…

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  • The “longest” day – RAGBRAI Day 5

    Today was the longest day of RAGBRAI according to the route maps, but for us it was only second longest. Because of our campsite locations, day 2 was longer. The day started out really well – We were riding fast and enjoying the company of many different cyclists as they passed us by (or we…

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  • Not so short, shorter day – RAGBRAI Day 3

    Although Day 3 was shorter than the previous two days, at a mere 109 km, it wasn’t as short as we had hoped and it got hot (over 40 Deg C at one point). As we approached Clear Lake, we were both very warm. Scott suggested jumping off the route and following along the lakeshore…

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  • The Grotto of Redemption – RAGBRAI Day 2

    Today was a long day, but the route was mostly flat, making it feel similar to yesterday’s ride. At about mid-afternoon, the sky clouded over cooling things off a bit. We were concerned it might rain, but fortunately, the threatening clouds went the other way, leaving us with a beautiful day for a bike ride.…

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  • Bikes everywhere! – RAGBRAI Day 1

    We awoke at 5:30 am to the sound of tent zippers. A surprising number of people were already out and about, but for us this felt way too early. The midnight fireworks left us groggy and tired, but we quickly packed up and had a small bite to eat. (We brought some granola with us…

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