What's Up Next

This morning begins with a sigh, as most mornings do when I realize that I don't really have any trips planned in the near future.  For me the planning of a trip can be nearly as much fun as the actual execution, and it can keep me entertained for a very long time.  Unfortunately I don't really have anything on my radar at the moment.  I'm considering booking some time off around the end of January and trying to get one of these last-minute deals where you don't know where you're going until a few weeks from departure time.  It's apparently a very cheap way to go south in the winter, and I could certainly use a nice week in the sunny Caribbean by the time January rolls around each year.  The only downside to that is that it doesn't give me a plan to drool over for the next three months.  Oh well, sometimes cost considerations have to be made.

Given that I have no concrete plan for a winter getaway the only trip that I've got definitively planned is around the end of April when I'll be heading down with Jay, Graydyn, Susan, and perhaps others to attend the Minis on the Dragon event.  They've got a website (http://minisonthedragon.info/index.html) setup if you'd like the full story, but I'll try to summarize here.  The Tail of the Dragon, or simply the Dragon is a stretch of Highway 129 that crosses the Tennessee/North Carolina state line and in 11 miles manages to curve 318 times.  This makes it a mecca for motorcycle and sports car enthusiasts.  Every spring Mini enthusiasts converge on the Dragon to experience the epic driving and enjoy the company of fellow Mini fanatics.  For any of you that know Jay, you know he looks forward to this all year.

For me the trip will be less about the driving and more about the epic countryside of rolling mountains and dense forest that surround the area.  I'm hoping to get in some really excellent hiking, and may even camp for a night at some point.  Of course, as a licensed motorcycle driver I will be tempted to rent a bike and see what I'm made of on The Dragon, but I have a sneaking suspicion that what I'm made of isn't sufficient to emerge from the The Dragon with all my limbs intact.  Maybe I'll try to get some practice next summer and leave those 318 curves for 2011.

Of Mice and Money

Happy Tuesday everyone!  I was inspired for this week's post by some comments that my friend Corey tried unsuccessfully to make on an earlier post.  He e-mailed me his thoughts on the matters of carrying cash, and exchanging currency, and I'd like to share them with you:

"If you are in a part of the world that might be considered ‘dodgy’ and need to exchange currency, make sure that you have crisp, brand new US Dollars.  They have to be the ones with the seemingly large head of Andrew Jackson (if $20’s), the new 2004 format, and not creased in any way – you’ll get a better exchange rate and the bills are much less likely to be refused.  I’ve had crumpled bills rejected in China and Central/South America, and I got a better rate in Russia.  Actually, speaking of Russia, I got a better rate from the security guard at the hotel than the Exchange Booth – of course, caution is required when changing money on the street, both in ensuring that you get real currency and only exposing what you want to exchange.  There tends to be a group of 3 or 4 guys looking to change currency, and if you open your money belt with 100’s of US Dollars and only want to exchange $40, someone’s gonna be keeping an eye on you.

It’s something that people don’t think of before they travel – the bank tellers in Canada don’t really understand when you’re asking for crisp US bills and assume you’re going to use it for sniffing cocaine."  --Corey

I really thought that was an interesting point about the crispness of the bills.  If you plan on exchanging cash when you arrive at your destination it's well worth getting a few strange looks from the bank tellers to ask for fresh money.  I've found that having your cash exchange at your destination is sometimes the only option.  We tried to get some Yen in Canada before heading to Japan and were met with VERY limited success.  I really thought that Yen would be easy to come by, but I was mistaken.  You can imagine my luck trying to find Icelandic Krona before leaving.

In Iceland I was able to exchange some Canadian money right at the airport to get me started.  If you're dealing with an airport currency exchange you're not likely to run into any issues with Canadian money, but elsewhere Corey's point about carrying US dollars can't be overstated.  In a lot of places you can just pay in USD and not have to worry about exchanging your money at all.  It's a widely accepted, and sometimes widely sought after currency, and it's probably worth taking the hit on exchanging your money twice just for the security of having such a universal form of cash.

Generally speaking I would try to avoid situations like what Corey described where you're exchanging money at the hotel lobby.  The rate at the currency exchange may be highway robbery, but it's much preferable to being robbed.  That said, if you are in a comfortable situation and feel like you can change money securely it may end up being a major cost-savings for you.  You have to know Corey to realize that situations like that just tend to work out for him.  Which leads us to travel tip #510: "Carry a horseshoe securely in your rectum."

My approach has been to bring a bit of cash to exchange at the airport and then rely on ATMs to get cash as I need it.  This avoids the always unpleasant act of carrying huge amounts of cash around.  This approach is not without it's risks however.  For any new readers I'll quickly go over my well documented ATM debacle in Japan.  At the time I had a 6-digit PIN number, which is perfectly acceptable in Canada.  Having read the Japanese ATMs worked with Canadian cards I just took as much Yen as I could muster and decided to rely on the ATM system.  My first attempt to do so was, fortunately, very early in the trip and was done more as a test than anything.  The Japanese ATM system (and apparently this goes for most ATM systems the world over) will only accept a 4-digit PIN and was unprepared for the 6-digits that I entered.  The theory is that, expecting a mere 4 digits the machine just sent the first 4 digits of my PIN to my bank for verification.  Upon receiving an incorrect PIN from a foreign country my bank did me the favour of cancelling my card.  So let that be a lesson to everyone!  You can't always count on the ATMs, and if you'd like to make use of them ensure that you have a 4-digit PIN.

Unfortunately my mishap in Japan happened despite the fact that I'd called my bank to let them know I'd be out of the country.  Still, I don't in anyway look down upon this practice and in fact I strongly encourage it.  My bank has actually taken to warning people about the 4-digit PIN situation when they call about leaving the country, so obviously I wasn't the only person to stumble over that little technicality.  There are also certain security protocols, put in place for our protection, that they will set aside given the appropriate warning.  Another fun anecdote comes from a friend of mine who's parents were travelling through Europe without having warned their bank in advance.  Apparently they were in an area where many countries were intersecting and managed to use their credit card in three different countries over the course of one day.  You can imagine what kind of alarm bells that raises with the good people at Visa!  So, for good reason, they cancelled the card.  Had they been warned in advance this situation would not have come up.  This is particularly important because, as I found out in Japan, once a card has been cancelled there's nothing to be done about it until you return home.  A few simple precautions can prevent you from being stranded with a non-functioning card.

Well, all this talk of money reminds me that I should probably go to work and earn some of it.  Any other suggestions for safely accessing your money while abroad are always welcome in the comments section.  See you all next Tuesday!

Pictures From Killarney

Okay, I was home this weekend for Thanksgiving and was able to steal my Dad's pictures from our Killarney trip. I've posted a selection of them here for your viewing enjoyment. The long weekend sort of threw me off my usual routine, so I'm afraid that this Tuesday's posting is going to be a little light. I've started compiling something for next week though. For now, enjoy the pics:

This one's from Graydyn. He got a shot of Dad by the waterfalls flowing from Killarney Lake down to Freeland.

This one's from Dad, it's looking generally North-West from the banks of our camp. I love the colour and clarity of the water in this shot.

Here's another one from Dad on our first morning at camp. It's a similar point on the shore from the previous shot, just looking more North.

I don't normally post pics of myself on here, but I thought I'd throw in this one of Jay and I (and Gray, but he's almost perfectly behind me) just so you can see my awesome new hat.

I actually took this one from up on the Crack. I think it really clearly shows why they call this place the Crack.

Another one of mine. I don't normally like the composition on my photos, but I was quite pleased with how this turned out. Also from up on the Crack.

One last one from my Dad. These are some Mergansers (spelling? I don't know. They're ducks) that were hanging around our camp.

Okay, sorry about the short post, but it's already getting late and I don't want to keep you all waiting. See you next Tuesday!

Last Week's Mighty Adventure

First off, I apologize for not posting last Tuesday. I should have mentioned in my previous post that I would still be in Killarney on Tuesday and was therefore going to miss a scheduled post. Well, it's Tuesday again and I'm back in action!

So, as mentioned earlier I went camping two weekends ago with Graydyn, Dad, and Jay. We drove up Friday afternoon, stopping in Barrie for a pretty excellent burger. I wish I could remember the name of that place; there aren't many people left in the world hand-making a patty these days. At any rate, following our epic burger stop we drove up to the lovely town of Killarney. Unfortunately the best part of the drive, the final run along the Hwy 637 into Killarney was marred by some strange form of road repair that seemed to involve just covering perfectly good paved road with gravel. The road surface along many stretches was slick with gravel and we drove through a haze of dust kicked up by other cars. Not very pleasant for us, but far less so for the motorcyclists who frequent the road. I'm happy to report though that traffic and rain conspired to pack down the gravel into something resembling a road again by the time we left. I think that may be a driveable road again already.

We did our usual trick of staying at the lodge the night before camping so that we could start out refreshed. Our biggest departure from tradition came from our means of travel: we left the kayaks at home and opted for some rented canoes. Kayaks and Canoes each offer their own unique sets of pros and cons, and we got to experience each of these first hand on this short trip. The biggest benefit that the canoe offers is the ease with which it can be loaded for travel. Gear goes into drybags, drybags get thrown into canoe. It's just that easy. The joy of that becomes abundantly clear at the portages, which were a piece of cake on this trip. It wasn't too difficult to adapt to the different style of paddling either, with Graydyn and I managing to get into a pretty good rhythm within the first couple hundred meters. It really didn't take us long to get to our destination on Lake Killarney.

We decided on campsite number 16 which is at the North of the lake just as it begins to turn East and is on the Northern side of the Crack. It was a beautiful and very sheltered sight. Not one I'd recommend if the wind is coming straight out of the North, but aside from that situation you've got a lot of shelter on all other sides, which turned out perfectly since the prevailing winds were southerly while we were away.

After we'd setup camp we just chilled out around the campsite. At one point we attempted to go swimming in the stunningly clear waters of Lake Killarney... that way brief since the water temperatures were more than just a bit bracing. It was pretty refreshing though!

Sunday morning we got up, got ourselves fed, and got right back into the canoes again. We stuck to Lake Killareny, but paddled around to the portage into Lake Kakakise, which links up to the main hiking trail. We abandoned the canoes at the head of the portage and walked it, but even that was enough to make me have serious second-thoughts about ever attempting that portage with a fully loaded boat; it's pretty rocky, and there are some steep sections. Once we hit the main trail we hiked up to the Crack. It's a hike that we've done before, but it's no less spectacular the second time around. The leaves were in their fall colours and the sky was clear and bright, offering up stunning views of the surrounding landscape.

When we returned from our hike we didn't have a lot of day left, so we spent that time casually trying to fish. We didn't have any luck, but this wasn't terribly surprising since it's reported that all the lakes in that area were heavily damaged by acid rain and have yet to recover.

The weather report had called for rain the entire time we were to be out in the park, a threat that didn't materialize until Sunday night. It was kind enough to wait until we'd all got settled comfortably into our tents though, which I thought was nice. The rain absolutely hammered down all night, and showed no signs of lagging vigor the next morning. Unfortunately, as with my last camping trip, the rainy morning was the one where we had to break camp. As expected all of our gear was completely soaked by the time we had it all loaded into the canoes and set out back to park entrance. This is where we ran into the major downside of the canoe; it doesn't handle bad weather nearly as well as a kayak. You see, a kayak is a very streamlined and low-to-the-water affair. A canoe is open and subject to the will of the wind, and also takes on a lot of water when the rain gets hard, which it did. We paddled through quite the storm, and were all thoroughly drenched by the first portage. We managed to escape the park in one piece though.

The plan was to spend Monday night in Killarney, hang out around Killarney Tuesday, and then leave on Wednesday. However, the weather was calling for the rain to continue through Tuesday and so we made the decision to just spend Monday night and then leave on Tuesday. We just felt that if we were going to be held indoors due to the weather then there was no point in hanging around. It wasn't a big deal though since we'd already had a great trip.

Well, that's all the details for now. Unfortunately I really didn't take many pictures since my Dad had his far superior camera with him, and I thought I'd leave it to him, so I don't have any pictures to post right now, but I should have some for next week's post. Tune in next week for photos!