Planes, trains and automobiles

That's the fitting title of the current exhibit at the Dorval Museum.

It's fitting because Dorval is home to Montreal's Trudeau international airport, so named for our former famous Prime Minister. I had occasion to meeet him briefly in his retirement back in 1997. It's weird to think that I personally met someone with an aiport named after them.

Dorval is also host to a stop on the trans-continental railway, and it's the automobile that made Dorval one of the metropolis' early bedroom communities.

I've been living on the West Island for more than twenty years and only recently became aware that Dorval had a museum. It's on Lakeshore Blvd. which is my usual commuting route.

There's something about scooter commuting that invites small digressions. I chalk it up to a number of factors:

• The pace is a little more leisurely.
• You are connected to the path you follow because the sounds, sights and smells are experienced more intimately than in a car.
• It's somehow easier to stop and check things out because the scooter is small and so manoeuvrable.
• You tend to take more quiet routes where there are more interesting things to see.

The Dorval Museum is a case in point. I had noticed it during my commutes, tucked away along the lake, a stone's throw from the Forest & Stream Club.  I have a previous post on the club that you can get to by clicking here.

Thursday morning I took a few minutes out to explore. I parked my Vespa at the back of the empty parking lot where there's flagstone path leading to the water's edge.

The museum is only open in the afternoon so I peered through the window for a glimpse of what this tiny museum might have to offer.

I was a little surprised to find a moped in the museum, although finding a lifesize plane, train or even automobile would have been shocking. That serendipitous find dovetails nicely with the two-wheeled theme here.

I made a mental note to pop in sometime this summer to see what else this little gem has to offer and find out the story of that moped.

Forest & Stream

I don't know about you, but those words always evoke a soothing feeling of peace and idyllic harmony for me.

I usually picture a quiet leafy forest of tall trees with a lush undergrowth of sunlight dappled ferns, and a pristine stream babbling its way over a bed of water-worn rocks and bright pebbles.
The Forest & Stream Club in Dorval evokes its own soothing feeling of peace and idyllic harmony, but on the banks of the mighty St-Lawrence rather than a mere stream.
Sitting on a picturesque point that juts into Lake St-Louis, the Forest & Stream Club stands in stark contrast to the tumult and frantic bustle of Trudeau international airport just a few kilometers away.
The airport, bathed in jet fuel laden air, accompanied by the incessant roar of jet traffic hurtling down its sizzling-hot, bone-dry runways, and the Forest & Stream Club, its antithesis in every meaningful way.
It’s just one more feature of the scoot commute that begs to have its picture taken on a beautiful morning on this second day of summer.

Twists and turns

The very best riding moments are deeply satisfying.

There's something about twisting stretches of road, particularly well-spaced S-curves, that can be counted on for that kind of satisfaction.

The portion of the commute that follows Lake St-Louis through Pointe-Claire, Dorval and Lachine has a fair number of those twisting stretches.I tried to capture a few photos of them this morning.It's the physical forces flowing through the bike and the rider that make those curves so much fun. For the Vespa and my current skill level, the magic equation seems to be somewhere over 50 km/h, with a decent lean into the turn, and then shifting the lean one way, then the other, as the S curve rolls by.The antithesis of the graceful S-curve is the awkward slow, sharp L-turn, often in cramped quarters, sometimes jerky, always risky, never pleasant. Bonus points for fumbling the controls on the turn indicator and inadvertently flashing the high beam. Even more points if it's a trifecta and I hit the horn button too.

As great as the S makes me feel, the awkward L-turn is unsettling, undermines my confidence, makes me curse my lack of skill, and makes me vow to return to a parking lot to practice.