There really is something very enjoyable of being able to cross things off a To Do List. Although for awhile during the process we seem to add two new jobs for every one crossed off.

Being able to cross off things already done provides a maybe false, but still reassuring, sense of achievement.

A hundred years ago when I had a particularly stressful job I really got solace from lists. Often like Toad I would put things on them I had already done just to get the pleasure of crossing them off

That book! My first wife and I both loved that book, and read it countless times to Shawn. I’d forgotten all about the list though. Wake up, check!

There is a lot of Youtube now about how to open a Ritter square, but our favourite used to be Alfred Theodor Ritter from the current generation of the family business, doing the demo. Alfred has long Beethoven style hair.

Ritter comes out with an amazing variety of new flavours annually, but like you we have traditional favourites. One great thing about the Waldenbuch store was that they were selling the failed experimental flavours for super cheap!

I wish Dodie had gotten the purple pants! It would made rainy days even more fun! You still have time for a last-minute purchase.

I am enjoying your pre-tour ramblings on different topics. Keep it up...but you only have three more days!
As for Ritter Schokolade, of course I know it. I used to devour a whole square, (as they are not bars for those who do not know Ritter Schokolade) on my way home from an exhausting day in geriatric care. My favorite was Trauben-Nuss, raisin-nut.

Actually, the lens I take travelling is a 14-150 zoom (equivalent to 28-300 FF angle of view) so that's not quite 11x. With an interchangeable-lens camera, you can choose different lenses for different purposes. If I really wanted to photograph birds, I have a zoom with much longer reach (not the $10,000 one!) but then I'd need a tripod and I'm not carrying either of those on a bicycle.

For your purposes, that Nikon seems like a good choice and I hope it's okay. On some cameras, the tripod mount is sort of sacrificial...

Musing along..if and when Canada becomes the 51st state, what language will be spoken? French or English? Or both?
And, regarding the unfortunate man on the street who did get help.. That scenario rarely has a positive ending here. There are too many “winos” and drug addicts who refuse the help they so desperately need.

Bravo. A lot of fundamental principles that I grew up with and lived by - like the rule of law- seem to be evaporating. But Canada, as one of the best countries in the world, has always been there. If that evaporates, the meaning of life is going to be under threat.

Clearly those Lumix 30x zoom models are lacking in weatherproofing, in a way that has them all die sooner than later. But of course, there is no way to really use a film camera any more. That Olympus E-M1ii has a large (well, micro 4/3) sensor and consequently only 4x zoom. It's hard to capture the castle on the hill with that. Included in the line up of Scott cameras was a Lumix LX-10 - that's a 1" sensor and 4x zoom. It is still working, but Scott revealed that he had run through a few of these too in the past.

I think I will use this space to do some whimpering: today we went birding at Cowichan Estuary, along a snow covered path. I was carrying the Nikon on the end of a monopod. I had just exchanged pleasantries with some passers by about how slippy it was, when I slipped, wrenching the pod and camera. When I got home I saw that the bottom had been ripped almost out of the camera! It still sort of works. No time before Tuesday to buy another, since none are in stock on the Island! We have slapped a ban on birding on any further trails now before we leave!

Thank you for this post. Just today a good friend proposed a 'random act of kindness' on my upcoming trip. He is donating a sum that I will use somewhere for someone. Like the line in the movie Local Hero, he said, "You'll know when you see it." Meaning... the opportunity will present itself and I'll see it when it does. I jumped on board and added my sum to his and will possibly enact another kindness moment.

We will show the world what it means to be Canadian.

Let us know if you find a reasonable alternative. We hope to be cycling in the Yucatan, just south of the Gulf of MEXICO!!!! next winter.

Mapstogpx has been a lifesaver for me at times. However, as Google has decided it's not enough to be wrong for lack of better data but to be wrong to placate an ignorant tyrant, I'll be looking at alternatives that might also need the converter.

My experience is that, although the distance component of a route will be quite accurate, the actual elevation gain can be very different from that predicted by whatever software you use.

The most astounding occurrence I recall is our ride from Marina di Pisa to Castelnuovo di Garfagnana (https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/italy2020/marina-di-pisa-to-castelnuovo-di-garfagnana/). My RWGPS route (edited to start and finish at our pre-booked lodgings) predicted 84 km and 1173 m climbing, not a day I was looking forward to. As I opened this route in the route planner today so I could overlay my actual track, which shows 88 km and 511 m climbing, to check whether we had somehow gone around a mountain, the original route changed its climbing prediction to 1007 m. We did vary a bit from the plan, but no big climbs were avoided. In fact, I remember wondering, as the km to go dwindled, just how steep the last part was going to be.

And "actual elevation gain" is dependent on the device used to record the ride. As I wrote in my summary page from that tour, we rode together but somehow, while I climbed 29,364 m, Al climbed an additional 2628 m or 9% more. We were pretty close riding to Castelnuovo di Garfagnana since his Garmin measured 512 m.