Full disclosure – this one is a mix of three different days though two of those were ticking off small boxes I happened to be walking near.
Saturday I went down near Yonge and Eglinton to get a much-needed haircut. Looking at the app I saw that I had somehow in all my travels, never gone on Roehampton just east of Yonge. A very quick few steps in with the app recording and it was done. Not much new to see here as I’d been all around this block before and only just missed it. I have a feeling late in this project I may be doing a bit of this, going and catching one or two here and there.
As you can see, I did fill in a block surrounded by four others so that gave me an added bonus. I only just noticed that a quick walk east would’ve gained me another. I won’t make that mistake – and it might be a bit of an undoing in a few days…
Just like I did on Sunday. Sage and I went out to do some errands including a visit to Canadian Tire at Bessarion Station. I remember when Bessarion was a bit of a joke even prompting a member of the Toronto comedy community to pop up there for a visit and film a “documentary”
So much has changed. The free newspapers (3!) available there are no more. It’s all online. But they’ve also added a bunch of new Condos (just a big field of dirt in his video) and even a really lovely new community centre along with the Ethennonnhawahstihnen branch of the Toronto Public Library.
To get the first square I needed only step out of the station. Boom. Then it was off to Canadian Tire. As you can see in the middle of this map, I didn’t turn off my tracking in the store. We wandered around quite a bit!
Then as you can see, instead of walking back to the subway, I headed east to the next subway station to get one more square. No time to catch that one above it – too bad as it’d be another bonus.
Then it was off to the mall to get groceries at T&T Market – a huge Asian supermarket. I needed to get lime leaves, Thai basil and chillies for dinner later in the week. (Last night’s dinner, in fact: Thai red curry chicken and vegetarian tom yum (hot and sour) soup – exquisite!). We had to walk to the other side of the mall to get another square. But I do seem to be leaving stragglers everywhere to come back for. It’s OK, Iqbal Foods, the Indian supermarket I go to is in the square in the bottom right of the photo so I’ll get that later.
Monday was Thanksgiving in Canada and with no commitments including no Hindi class (I usually have that 9:30-12 on weekend mornings) I had ample time to get all the things done including a longer ride. I saw on the map that there was a destination I’d never been to just about 20 km away and made a loop. Then, thanks to a Firefox plugin I was able to overlay the map with my missing squares and tweak the route even further to add a few more, including one of the larger squares (about 1.5 km x 1.5 km) that was a massive straggler I’d been meaning to get for a while.
Full disclosure: I really didn’t want to go. I’ve been trying to cut down on coffee and I am low on enthusiasm. It sounded really great to just sit and read, nap or watch something. But I also haven’t been out that much and if I know one thing I know that getting out the door and enjoying a bike ride can change my attitude. And truth be told, on this day, Sage had to remind me of this. It seemed to take forever to get ready and I’d just get out the door before having to walk back down the hall to grab yet another thing I forgot to bring. Finally, I had everything. (OK not everything – when I got on the road I realized I didn’t have a multitool so if any issue happened with the bike I’d be walking to a bus stop – fortunately nothing came up).
In the end, though, I got moving and as usual I could feel my mood and enthusiasm improving. A challenge hit when I got on the northbound Don Trail, though, when I saw that there was a “trail closed” sign. Did I think about heading back home right then and there? After all, it’s a sign that I should be home, right? Yes, friends, I thought that. But then I remembered: not all closures are created equal. Some mean the trail is impassible. What this meant was this:
There had been a big rainstorm a few weeks back and it looks like it washed out the bridge. As you can see, when I got there there were already people on the bridge and crossing. So over it I went and it did not collapse into the river.
Onward I went to the north and I decided to try a new tool. While I’ve used my Garmin bike computer for many years now, I found a new “data field” (like a screen/app). I was able to swipe right from the screen that shows my distance and speed and get this:
I can see my progress and nearby squares! Blue are squares I’ve picked up in previous trips, green are brand new ones I just picked up, red are ones I haven’t yet been to, and green with blue squares inside are ones I’ve visited before and revisited today.
This really made the trip fun and a bit addictive. Since I’m already trying to focus less on speed and more on fun, I left the computer on this screen. The computer would notify me if a turn was coming up so I didn’t need a map. And so if I saw a nearby red square coming up, I’d turn and go a little out of my way. This mostly took me to visit the back sides of suburban office parks and light industrial areas that were mostly empty for the holiday. Other times it took me to the edge of a park a bit away from the path I was going to follow. You’ll see in the map below how much meandering it caused. (Or you can look at the full detail of it all at Komoot)
Speaking of Komoot, one of the best parts of the app is that its routing engine has settings for the type of ride you want including “Fastest”, “Best”, and my favourites “Quiet” and “Scenic”. Choosing a quiet route meant lots of time away from cars on paths through the forest and it also means seeing cool things like this – it was so striking that I had to do a u-turn to go back and see it.
I’m not sure what kind of mushroom these are but I laughed when Sage responded to my sending it to her while I was on the road: “pani puri”. They are a bit more ‘toasted’ than a pani puri but especially those with the hole in the top also make me think of it. Imagine deer eating them – with a bit of rainwater inside.
It’s not just about seeing interesting places, sometimes I see interesting things too.
Yes, a literal interesting thing. This is a 1970s era Volkswagen Thing. I’ve only seen a few around and I’m a huge fan of them.
Finally, after a few more kilometres of mostly forest, I ended up at my destination:
Not far north of Canada’s biggest city, in the suburb of Richmond Hill is the David Dunlap Observatory. After a youth obsessed with space it was cool to see an observatory like this in person. Too bad it’s no longer in use.
Just to the south of the observatory down a very bumpy gravel and broken asphalt path was the park associated with the observatory in which you can find a scale model of the solar system. It’s not well marked and the planets are scattered and only visible once you’re literally standing on top of them. I can now say that I rode my bike to Jupiter.
I liked that each of the planets had detailed info about them on it. It brought back childhood memories of the time in about 1978 when I sent a letter just addressed to “NASA” at Cape Canaveral asking for loads of info about planets, rockets, stars, and so on. Long after I forgot sending that I received a huge manila folder from NASA filled with photos, articles, small posters. I think whomever got my letter went down to the info centre and just took one of everything. I was delighted! (That year I became drunk with power of letters. I also got info and a signed letter from Jimmy Carter and even a signed postcard from Robin WIlliams and Pam Dawber with a still from Mork and Mindy.)
After that it was off into suburbia again to grab a few stray tiles before getting back on a path off to my next bunch of tiles. Along the way I saw a beautiful pedestrian/bike bridge.
Unfortunately my route didn’t take me over it. I’ll be able to visit another day – especially if I missed any nearby tiles!
But you know how I feel about it, right? It’s…
It wasn’t all quiet streets, there was a bit of busy-ness as well as my route did take me zooming down Yonge Street. On the plus side a large portion of it had a separated bike lane and it was all downhill meaning my speed was higher. Higher speed makes it feel less stressful as cars pass at a lower relative speed and the time spent on the busy road is shorter.
Before heading home my route took me to Mill Pond Park. I’d been there before on the south side but this time I approached from the north side and saw more of it. At this time of year it was especially busy with people out enjoying the holiday, the nice weather and the foliage. A perfect storm for a busy park. Luckily I was in no rush to get anywhere and could proceed at a jogging or sometimes even walking pace. If I were out for a fast ride I wouldn’t be on a gravel park path, would I?
Getting home was a challenge for a few reasons. With this being one of my lowest cycling mileage summers in recent history hitting nearly 75 kilometres was slow toward the end. But what made it more difficult was that blasted screen. Every time I thought “I’m on my way home now, no more stops!” there would be “just one quick detour then I’m done” right down to grabbing to more just a few km from home.
Here’s most of this ride’s map The green is the new large square I picked up – but check out all the little blue ones! There are a bunch of big green ones north in Newmarket. If I didn’t meander so much on this one the same distance would have bagged those. But then would I see all this other stuff? This will be my struggle going forward. There are still a bunch to get nearby in little pieces that will make big swaths of Toronto complete. But then I don’t go far from home in one direction. The problems of a mundane explorer.
And for those who like a video, here you go. Lots of autumn views in this one:
Now this week’s challenge is balancing wanting to get out on the bike to grab a few more of these with the thought of sitting in a warm bus on a cool day reading a good book on the way to work. I’ve got three going at the moment:
The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence Before It’s Too Late The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI How to Think About Artificial Intelligence Before It’s Too Late by Cory Doctorow – Simultaneously upsetting and angering and reassuring. I like his point of view and it’s especially interesting to see this topic covered by someone with his background in media, privacy and copyright as well as his being a science fiction author. So far so good.
Exit Party By Emily St. John Mandel – Her book Station Eleven was published in 2014 and was about a worldwide pandemic. Six years later we had a real one. This one was written with a couple of different visions of dystopian America in there, was published in 2026. There is some playing with multiple timelines which makes it interesting but I won’t say more. I’ve already said too much. Please don’t let this one be as prescient as the last.
An American Childhood An American Childhood By Annie Dillard is a nice cozy antidote to those two. Annie Dillard was born in 1945 and this is about her life in Pittsburgh in the 1950s. No dystopia to be found anywhere which I appreciate very much.
What about you all? What new explorations are you up to? Let me know – I’m off to have some of that red curry chicken
