This entry is regarding the K-W Walk for Haiti January 30 2010, here is the old entry for reference.
The walk is done, and what a fun day it was! The day started off with me waking up to the thought of how many of the Haitians may not enjoy half the things that I get to enjoy in my, by Canadian standards, modest breakfast of bun, cream cheese, tomato and Hungarian sausage.
That was when I got a big smile on my face and started to get really glad about the event that was about to take place today. So after enjoying a quick Turkish coffee I got on the bus and managed to get the right connections to get to Kiwanis Park on time. Yes I said on time, something rare for me. The 20 minute walk from the closest bus station was a welcomed reminder of the beautiful areas surrounding the park, which I haven’t had the chance to look at up close in quite a few good months. Once I arrived, I noticed the Grand River Trail Map was still at the same place where I saw it the first time I ever found my way to Kiwanis Park, sometime back in 2003 or 2004, during the peak of my marvelous trailing career, way back in highschool, when I earned the nickname, “the Trailmaster”.
After a little while, a car pulled into the Kiwanis Park Parking lot and I knew it was someone who came for the hike. Well …other than that no other cars had reason to drive in there, other than people coming to walk their dogs there, and the car had no dog in it, as well as the driver waved at me as he drove past me. It was my old friend Florin D, whom I had known since high school and hadn’t seen in the past year. It was a very pleasant surprise seeing he had come. We talked for a bit, remembering old times, then quickly realized it was getting close to 12:45 and nobody else had showed up. To my disappointment we ended up being the only ones doing the walk, but nonetheless it ended up being an awesome experience.
This is the two of us at the edge of the woods in Kiwanis Park
I will keep things short, so we can get to the photo viewing sooner. The walk was amazing, I had never walked that trail before, it used to always be by bike and to be honest I thought that walking it would be a pain and that it would feel like very long. It didn’t though. Instead it was very entertaining! Well… until I started suffering of dehydration due to my excess of Turkish coffee before I left home and my lack of drinking enough water and not bringing a bottle with me. But we solved that problem promptly stopping at a gas station and getting some water, something to snack on, a chocolate bar and some beef jerky I believe Florin got, and of course some more caffeine for me, a Red Bull since I hadn’t had one in a few years actually. Now I remember why I hadn’t had a Red Bull in so long. My body doesn’t seem to deal with it well. Nonetheless it managed to keep me awake for the rest of the trip.
So Florin and I continued our trek speaking in Romanian (we are both Romanian) and reminiscing childhood events, all kinds of childhood adventures that he had had and all kinds of childhood adventures that I didn’t yet would have liked to have. Florin told me about how in early gradeschool he had a friend. A (friendly) street dog who reminded him of a lion, hence his name, “Lion” who would join Florin every morning at 6am for a walk to the river side and occasionally defend Florin from other street dogs. The way he told the story and described that dog made me think of my old German shepherd. *sigh* What can I say, dogs rule!
As I had assumed, we arrived at Bingemans at around 5pm, from where Florin’s dad kindly picked us up with the car and gave us a ride back to Kiwanis from where Florin drove us back. This was today in a nutshell. I shot a few pictures on the way, and I will post them shortly, after I take a well deserved nap. I feel like after a long workout and I believe my feet got a few blisters. Alright I’m done complaining. Old gramps’ Stefan is going for a nap now. Check out the photos below!
Once again Florin, THANK YOU so very much for coming out today and for your generous donation to the people of Haiti. I would have to say that in spite of many of the people who signed up for the walk not showing up, the K-W Walk for Haiti was a grand success! Also a THANK YOU goes out to those who didn’t manage to make it to the walk but donated anyway from home through the Internet on the Canadian Red Cross web site!
Here’s the K-W Walk for Haiti google maps map, updated with the photo locations, just in case you’re curious:
View KW – Haiti Walk, Jan 30 2010 in a larger map
Florin posing for me as I was testing the lens
Florin was very excited about finding …whatever it is that he found there. It looked like a marble stuck inside the stem of a plant…
The first exciting challenge was the thrill of walking through private property as the Grand River trail went through somebody’s field at that point. Not exactly the regular thrill seeker’s scenario, but we made the best of it.
Our second exciting adventure was walking down to the river shore. There we found a rather large number of geese …who, afraid of me shooting them, since I had my camera quite visible, all flew away. O well …no goose dinner that day I guess.
Walking back to the main trail from the river shore
I especially like this area in autumn when the corn field is ready for harvest and you walk through a long hall with really tall corn on either side. This panorama shot would have not been possible then I guess.
Some people sharing the trail with us
Right after we passed the special Scouts Canada trail.
gotta love these!
At Bridge street…
A daddy giving his kids a ride! Awesome idea!
And eventually we arrived at Bingemans!