Day 30 – Hills (Taylor Cove ON – Quetico ON)

Today’s ride was another 100+ miles in the Canadian Shield.

We started off the day seeing a bald eagle soaring beside us over one of the many lakes along the route. Those birds are huge! Unfortunately it dipped down near the water so it does not appear in the photo.

It was another day of hill riding (seemingly three up and one down). Today’s route instructions were the simplest to date. Ride 1 mile out top the main highway, turn left, ride 93 miles, turn right. There were very little services along the route, so we had to manage our fuel and fluid consumption very carefully.

Along the way we came across a number of First Nations villages with some very interesting names...  Try saying this 10 times quickly (or even once quickly!!!)

About 70 miles into the ride I took a 6 mile (round trip) detour into the town of Atikokan to get ice cream and top up the water bottles. Apparently the town was founded as a mining town, and when we got there, the whole “downtown” was torn up as they were redoing the main street. They did have some neat (and very large) mining equipment on display. I popped my bicycle into the shovel of a “steam shovel” just for fun. You can see the teeth of the shovel at the bottom of the picture to get a perspective on how big it is.

Our campsite for the evening was another provincial breeding ground for mosquitoes. I now have mosquito bites on my mosquito bites!  There were some pretty interesting mushrooms in the woods.  

Our crew was the galley crew for the evening so I had planned a special dessert “Bananas Faster” – a Bananas Foster inspired recipe. It was such a hit it was suggested that I write down the recipe for future Tours… Here it is!

BANANAS FASTER

Ingredients:

8 Gallons of Vanilla Ice Cream,
42 bananas sliced in half lengthwise, and then quartered,
3 cups margarine,
6 cups dark brown sugar,
2 teaspoons cinnamon,
2 teaspoons vanilla,
2 cups rum (optional, I supplied this myself)

Directions:
Heat two 20” aluminum frying pans over medium heat and melt 1½ cups of margarine in each. Add 3 cups of dark brown sugar to pan and mix with melted margarine. (Be careful not to caramelize the mixture or your cooking crew will not enjoy having to clean out the pans!) Stir in 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla into each pan. Add the bananas (1/2 to each pan) and cook briefly the bananas are well coated with the sugar/margarine and slightly softened. Remove the pans from the heat and place near the ice cream on the serving table.
Optional flambé: Fill a large ladle with ¾ to 1 cup of rum, and heat over the gas burner. Ignite the rum and flambé it onto the bananas/sugar/margarine mixture (be careful not to burn yourself or others during this process as the flame from the rum may not be visible).

Serve 1 scoop of ice cream in each bowl, and cover with the “Bananas Faster”.

Serves 42 hungry cyclists.

Note: Best planned for the evening before a rest day, or two evenings before, as it uses up alot of bananas which may go too ripe over the rest day.

It was a big hit, and despite bananas being a staple for energy during the ride, the entire batch was gobbled up - amazing what you can do with brown sugar, margarine, cinnamon and rum!