Show Notes - Week of October 25, 2021

Greetings. Hallowe'en is upon us, and once again three-quarters of our family carved a pumpkin. The last quarter, yours truly, may do so tonight, but that will not happen if past years are any indication. Instead, here are the other three pumpkins for 2021.

Reading Pile:
Just one book finished this week, and it was a reread of a book from 2017. Book #38 for 2021 was "The Fire Chronicle" by John Stephens is the second book in the Young Adult series, "The Books of Beginning".

As with the first book that I read with my younger daughter earlier this year, this is an excellent book and is worthy of your time. Young readers in your family will connect with the memorable characters and the multiple story lines. Be warned however that the story is not always happy and that sensitive readers might have difficulty with certain parts of the book. 

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Cross-Canada Virtual Tour:
​I am going to change things up a bit with the cycling updates. Given the spate of back injuries and inability to cycle regularly, I have reverted to walking. The cross-Canada virtual tour continues, but it includes walking now, hence the change in title for this section.

In the tour, I have now passed Ignace, Ontario. According to the town's Wikipedia entry, it was named after Ignace Mentour, a key Indigenous guide in the region during the railway survey work. This is notable given how few of the locations on the virtual tour to date have been named after Indigenous people. 

Here is the updated progress chart. Next stop, Upsula. 

New Drinks:
I am also going to change things up a bit with the coffee and beer reviews. Going forward, I will combine them into one section, and the write-up for the beers will be shorter. I was finding it hard to do a review for the beers in Untappd and then copy that text here for this site. Hopefully this will lower the burden and remove the redundancy. 

One new coffee to report this week. The Columbian is a local roaster, and their beans are served at Krew Coffee in Lendrum. I have grown to really like this coffee but my coffee experience is still too limited to have the vocabulary to describe it. 

Six new beers in the past fortnight, bringing the total number of unique check-ins on Untappd to 826. From left to right in the image below: Coronado Orange Shandy 3.75; Nickel Brook Wicked Awesome IPA 3.5, Kozel Premium Lager 3.5, Railyard Pumpkin Spice Latte Nitro Stout 3.5, Annex Ale Profane Communion Black Saison 3.0, Brooklyn Lager 4.0. The winner this fortnight is definitely the Brooklyn Lager.