I made it to the shop a little early, and being a bit of a family run operation, they waved me down to the garage and they got to work.  I was a little surprised that they would take me since Ducati’s like to be different and the rear socket is a bit unique.  They were confident and sent me up to the main shop to have a coffee.   But it wasn’t long before the mech called the owner back down for some help.

Much like my previous experience in San Antonio, it doesn’t like to let go.  3′ breaker and 4′ unistrut only managed to torque the socket itself.  Mendy ate a sprocket and still wouldn’t let go of the back tire.  Not exactly giving me confidence about my emergency aluminum socket in my toolkit… Anyway, the internet was consulted, calls were made, tools were purchased.   It did take 4h, but they eventually got the job done.  And now, they’re geared up – so any Duc riders in the area, feel free to swing by Halifax Motorsports!

Since it was well after noon before I got on my way, I was starving.  The one thing I should have in Halifax is apparently one of their Donairs.  I dutifully made my way to Pizza Corner, before realizing that location of King of Donairs was closed.  Since I was downtown and found free parking already,  I dropped by MEC to pick up a few things before making my way back to Quinpool to visit KoD.

Halifax Donair:

Not my favourite Donair.  Meat flavour was similar to the ones in Barcelona, but the sauce was too sweet.  I was informed later that eating it with Mountain Dew was a cardinal sin and I was to try it next time with a Pepsi.

Up to the Halifax Citadel in time to catch the cannon firing competition.  Kind of entertaining to watch the chubby guy run between the gun and the ammo – looked like his pants didn’t fit and were falling down as he hoofed it back and forth.

Walking around, there seems to be a lot of pride in the fact that no one dared to attack the fortification.  I get the feeling it’s untested rather than undefeated.  Eventually, the British just pulled back and gave it up since they had more ‘important’ things to defend back home.  Big step in leading to the Confederation of Canada tho’.

I made my way down Young Ave – what could be a really big gated community in the middle of the city.  Nice area, especially close to Point Pleasant Park.  Nice little beach, if oddly situated right next to the container shipyard.  Similar to Portside Park back home, I guess.

Heading back to Bedford from the city wasn’t much fun – traffic.  I suppose it was rush hour, but I had kind of hoped there would be less of it.  On the plus side, my route took me past the Alexander Keith’s Brewery:

Didn’t go in or anything and traffic cleared up after the Dartmouth ferry.  I knew one of the bridges was a toll bridge, so I took the 2nd one – but that’s a toll bridge too.   Tons of fun trying to sort out  $1 in change, hold it without dropping it and get to the gate.  Then the machine didn’t like it.  I fished some rejected change from the return slot and tried again – no dice.  Fortunately, I had created such a line behind me that the booth operator just waved me through.

Back at the house, we had to come up with a plan for dinner.  Since I had ruined my friend’s plans for going downtown to eat a Donair, we opted for lobsters instead.  Giant fancy pool with a fountain for the lobsters to hang out in.

I suppose it is only expected that these guys are much friskier than the ones we have out west.  Not sure how long it takes for them to get shipped to us, but they can’t be anywhere nearly as fresh.  We also had to go pick up some things at the grocery store.  Guys being guys, we saw steaks on sale and added that to the menu.  Now it was Surf and Turf…  All meat, no veggies.    The corn was on sale too, and we briefly considered that but realized you’d end up with a dozen ears and so we gave up.  Meat and bread.

Back at the house, there were some adventures in attempting to boil water.  Normally, cooking a bunch of lobsters indoors tends to stink up the house.  If there was a propane tank, we’d go outside and use a cooker.  But all the tanks were empty and since the bbq line was hooked up that day, it was important we put it to use.  Especially since the girls were going shopping and we would have ‘plenty of time’.  After wrapping the bottom of a pot in tin foil, we tried to grill the water, then using the infrared broiler.   Succeeded in burning the tin foil(at least we saved the pot!) but couldn’t say it was a win.   Naturally, the girls came back to discover we had accomplished nothing – not even boiling water.

They did eventually get cooked on the stove top.  The four of them chilling out in a giant bowl:

I think after all these meals of Lobster, it’s finally starting to grow on me.  When comparing Lobster to Dungeness crab back in Vancouver, you would really have to get screwed over by your fishmonger to end up with a crab that’s less fresh than the lobster.  I think that’s really the deciding factor – eat local!