The Vanishing Point: Saint John, NB Taking another look around the old hometown

Saint John, NB, the city that instilled a lifelong love and appreciation of Bruce Springsteen music.

Fort Howe. It's cold.

A skull appears on the melting snow of the West Side bluff at Reversing Falls.

Irving Nature Park. Face masks provide a little extra warmth.

Walking the beach on the east side of the causeway to the park, just for the sake of going somewhere I've never been before.

That's the end of it.

A completely random lobster pot.

The original home of Saint John radio, now abandoned.

Urban decay.

Urban facelifts.

The beautiful second hand bike I bought last autumn needs a new tire. The rubber seemed thick enough when I bought it. It must have been the original tire from 1998. I've never seen a tire wear out like that before.

One problem quickly solved at Hayward's Bike Shop. From left to right, that's Danny Vallis from my old high school, Ken the proud owner of this cool establishment and myself

Found a tiny piece of Mexico in the downtown core.

This used to be a cinema with a red velvet carpet. My parents dropped my brother and I off for a cowboy matinee one afternoon and I was traumatized by the trailers for the upcoming Halloween double feature of The Vampire Lovers and The House that Screamed. Now it's a furniture store that nobody goes to next to a newsstand that doesn't really exist.

This tree along the Lakewood trail definitely made a noise when it toppled.

Joe and friends rocking out for the love of music.

Moosehead Light, sometimes referred to as sober up beer.

This empty lot on Waterloo is where Joe's old apartment once stood back in the 80s, the scene of many good memories. It burned down along with other tightly packed buildings last October.

The last time I was here, I went on a big apple picking expedition that left no time to explore the Sea Dog Cove Nature Preserve. It's been on my bucket list since.

Waiting for the ferry.

The cold wind was ferocious on that ferry. I was told they had a shelter for pedestrians but I was afraid the bike would blow over if I didn't hang on to it so I suffered it out.

This is the place, about 3 kms in and out.

Feeing attached to my Saint John bike, now with kevlar tires, having put so many kms on it, I decided I needed to bring it back to Mexico with me. Joe had a rare day off work and volunteered to drop it off in his hatchback at Hayward's Bike Shop for flight approved boxing. And then we had the rest of the day to hang out. Like all of my friends, Joe has a job and can't go out to play whenever he feels like it so this was pure gold. We hadn't been on any kind of hike since the Partridge Island adventure the previous November and once again Joe came up with a trail I'd never taken before. the Hampton Ice Caves.

The expedition begins along the old Hampton Road.

I appreciate it when hikers leave gloves and mittens at trailheads for their owners to find.

A rutted road leads straight ahead. It splits at one point. One split follows along the tree-line and the other goes into the woods. Go into the woods.

Google maps was a bit ambiguous way out here and we probably wasted 20 minutes trying to figure out whether we had made the right choice at the split or not.

Straight ahead.

Time to head left but Joe is not convinced.

That looks like ice ahead to me. Even a few weeks back, these seasonal caves would have been magnificent but, even with just the remnants of Spring, they're still pretty cool. Guilty. Premeditated pun.

Joe plans a safe descent on the slippery slope.

In the peak of winter, this all one solid wall that people can crawl behind. You need to wear sketchers to get there. It's a long way down and a hard landing if you fall.