Motorcycle Monday: Discovering Canada in One Pair of Pants Page 4

Notes from my travel journal: Day 2

“easier ride south to Prince Edward County - 240 km.”

“scenic, hilly, cloudy, cool, 80%”

I can’t recall if the 80 per cent relates to the scenery, hills or cloudy skies, but I do know, after one last salute to Ted the Turtle [link to page 3], I had an easy ride south to Port Hope, a town situated on the north shore of Lake Erie, and then farther east to Sandbanks provincial park.

Though I wrote that I stopped for organic eggs at a secluded cottage north of Welcome and saw chickens, turkeys, dogs and Czech pigeons scattered about the yard and inside the kitchen, I cannot find one word about the cottage owner, a man who will forever live in my memory for all the wrong reasons.

I guess I was trying to forget we’d ever met.

It didn’t work.

One month later I mentioned in a weekly column that I had “a brief but scary encounter with the Chicken Man of Garden Hill,” and concluded, “I really don’t mind paying $1.50 for six fresh, free-range organic eggs. The man just needs to follow a dress code, any dress code.”

I wouldn’t have stopped for eggs if I’d been vacationing with my wife in our car, but when on my motorcycle my needs and goals change.

When alone I tend to pack very little (e.g., one pair of pants), travel a bit slower, follow my nose, get lost and take more coffee and photo breaks.

On this trip I had also decided in advance to stop at roadside fruit or vegetable stands to supplement the tiny amount of food I carried in my saddle bags.

So, when I rode through Garden Hill at noon and noticed organic eggs for sale I pulled into the Chicken Man’s driveway.

It pleased me to see a healthy brood of chickens and turkeys inside a fenced yard near a mature wood-lot and I confidently stepped onto a side porch and knocked on the cottage door.


Within seconds several black puppies raced across the newspapers that covered the kitchen floor, raising the alarm, and just as quickly a man wearing only his underwear and a smile that said he was happy to see me, opened the screen door.

“Come on in,” he said.

I hesitated, wondered where the sound of dueling banjos was coming from, and said, “Eggs? Half dozen?”

He turned and yelled, “Ma. Somebody for eggs.”

Ma shuffled in from the next room, nodded in my direction, waved me inside, continued to the far side of the kitchen and, while opening the fridge door and sticking her whole head inside it, explained why she had to charge me a buck and a half for six eggs.

Hey. Explain why your son is in his tightee - whitees at one in the afternoon, I thought.

I paid for the eggs and stepped off the porch.

Before I reached my bike Chicken Man walked outside and asked if I wanted to see a few rare pigeons from the Czech Republic before he cut the grass.

He had his pants on and my camera was within reach so I stayed for another five minutes and snapped a few photos.

I chuckled to myself as I biked south to Welcome and hoped my most recent acquaintance knew as much about chickens as he seemed to know about pigeons.

About 30 minutes later, as I repacked the Kelly kettle and matches inside a saddle bag, I felt my lunch of fried eggs on toast could not have tasted better.

.