Philip and I cycled together today for the first time, to Peggy's Cove, the nearest land mass to the site where SwissAir 111 crashed into St. Margaret's Bay on September 2, 1998. We left the hotel at 9:30AM, and rode the 25 miles to Peggy's Cove in 1 hour 40 minutes. It's a very hilly route with a few short but challenging (for me) climbs, which winds past beautiful forested bays and fishing villages. Philip's sister Pam drove our car to Peggy's Cove and met us there.
From there we doubled back a few kilometers for lunch at Shaw's Landing, which sits on the bay in West Dover. The restaurant was purchased in 1990 by Ian Shaw, a very interesting and chatty Scotsman who was then living in Switzerland. His daughter was a passenger on SwissAir 111. We first met Ian at his restaurant in September 1990, and have eaten there every year since then that we have visited Peggy's Cove. Ian sold the restaurant about three years ago and moved back to Switzerland. We miss him.
Pam's son Matthew and his girlfriend Amber, with her two cherubic 8 month old twin boys in tow, drove in from New Glasgow to join us for lunch. After, we drove back towards Peggy's Cove to visit the SwissAir memorial, which was dedicated to the people of the St. Margaret's Bay community who rushed in their fishing boats to the crash site in the late hour of September 2, 1998 after hearing the boom of the plane hitting the water, and to the many who helped and comforted the family members of the crash victims who came to Halifax during the recovery operations.
In the evening Philip, Pam and I drove to the home of our friends Anne Martell and her husband Harry Cook, who live about a 45-minutes' drive from Halifax. During the year after the plane crash, Anne volunteered through one of the organizations that assisted family members, to place flowers for us at the Bayswater Memorial, where the names of the 229 passengers are inscribed on a large granite sculpture. We met Anne and Harry in 1999, and we visit with them whenever we come to Halifax. Anne has recently taken up cycling, and has promised that she and Harry will visit us in Baton Rouge on an auto-cycling trip, taking the reverse route that Philip and I just finished.
Robert's Ride 2010 has ended. It was a lot of fun. I love road trips that meander on country roads through beautiful scenery and local landscapes. There is always something interesting around the next bend.
Tomorrow, September 2, we will visit the memorial at Bayswater. There will be other family members of crash victims there for a memorial service at 11AM.
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