June 23, 2008: 447 miles, from Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, USA to Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
I woke up at about 8:00AM to a wet morning. I’d forgotten to cover my bike with the tarp, so my nice "Alaska Leather" sheepskin seat cover was soaking wet, but a few brisk swipes and most of the wetness was ejected.
Mike had not had such a good night, as, together with my snoring, his very minimalist mummy sleeping bag with built-in head fly screen proved to offer less than zero protection from the rain, so he declared that he would try to find a Walmart somewhere on the road today, to buy a nice, cozy dome tent like the $26 "Ozark Trail" tents that Jaryd and I were using.
I strolled around the campground with camera, determined to record our progress for the blog, and so here are a few pics of the Soo Locks campground, looking over the canal near the locks, where the ships move up to a different lake level.
So we packed up slowly (well, Jaryd and I are not the fastest packers in the world), and I’m sure that Mike is biting his tongue because he’s so damned quick at it, but being the gentleman he is, he never said a thing and patiently waited for us to finally get going, on our way around Lake Superior to our next stop at Thunder bay, Ontario.
But first, we had to cross the border into Canada after passing by the Locks, and getting somewhat lost on the way back to the I-75. We crossed the border without incident, and headed out on HGWY-17 to Thunder bay. We were a little chilled from the dampness, and so stopped to don some more layers. Jaryd added his rain suit over his riding jacket, over his fleece jacket, over his T-shirt!
The weather soon cleared-up, however, and we were treated to the most magnificent, sublime, road and scenery overlooking Lake Superior on our left.
Mike’s bike…loaded but nowhere near as stupidly overloaded as my own bike!
Jaryd and Yours Truly!
and Mike….
After leaving the Lake shoreline, still riding on HWY-17, we stopped at the little town of WAWA for a late breakfast, at the ubiquitous but always reasonably good Tim Horton’s fast food place. There, we met a pair of Harley riders, father and son, who were riding back to their home in BC. The father (sorry, I did not record his name) was a real interesting guy, and when we told him about our plan to ride to the end of the Dempster dirt Highway in northern Canada, we told us about his own trip to Inuvik on the highway soon after it was opened in 1979, on his little 1969 Honda motorcycle. He carried no spares and arrived at Inuvik after nearly 500 miles of very treacherous and rough roads with his tires worn out and shredded, and he had to wait a week for someone to truck a tire up to him from the Yukon.
We said our goodbyes after demolishing our Ham and Bacon rolls with doughnut and coffee and then joking with them that we’d pass them somewhere on the road. They roared off into the distance at quite a speed, as they were trying to get to BC in two days. That would take some serious riding!
The rest of the trip was uneventful, other than the beautiful scenery whenever we were close to the lake, and we arrived in Thunder bay at around 8PM. We found a Walmart on the GPS for Mike to buy himself a decent tent, and then had quite a ride to get to the Happy Lands campground, arriving just before they closed the office at 10PM.
We pitched the tents and glanced at our tent "neighbors" to find that amazingly, it was the pair of Harley riders that we’d met in Wawa when we stopped for breakfast many hours earlier! We had not discussed where we were planning to camp, and I thought it pretty amazing that they’d chosen to stop in Thunder bay, and then also chosen the same campground of of probably hundreds of facilities in the area, and that we were allocated the tent spot right next to them!
They were obviously a little tired, and so we didn’t spend much more time with them, after we pitched camp.
After pitching camp, we headed out on the bikes to find the restaurant that we passed on the way to the campground, and had a bite to eat before returning to check over the bikes – chain, nuts and bolts and oil level. The oil on my bike was a little below half, after being full when we left, so this indicates the stress these little 650cc motors are in, hauling such heavy loads at highway speeds for hours on end.
After topping up the oil from my supply of 3 quarts I was carrying with me, and checking Jaryd’s bike (he’s was OK), I dived into bed for a nice long sleep.
Tomorrow, we’re on a way to Winnipeg, Manitoba. I take my GPS into the tent to work on a route, although the choices are always fairly limited in these fairly unpopulated parts of the continent. You’re basically stuck with whatever road happens to connect two towns, as we would find over the course of the next few days when crossing the flat, flat, flat, straight, straight, straight roads of central Canada. Eugh!!!!