Our trip to Glacier National Park. We'll travel through Canada and visit their Waterton Lakes National Park enroute to GNP. On our return we'll travel south along Idaho, visit northern Utah and roll through the Rocky Mountains.
We were anxious to see Lake Superior today and after fueling up, got on the road at 8:20am. Temps in the 60s brought out my heated jacket, Rob was ok without. We expected to gradually warm as the day went on. Our first views of the great lake were just a few miles outside of the city.
As we made our way around the lake, temperatures plummeted to 52 degrees! We were getting colder and I spotted the Agawa Bay Rock park area, which is in Lake Superior Provincial Park, a location I found through Google images online with great scenery. We parked and found the trailhead. The trail was really cool, rocky and filled with evergreens. Climbing over boulders we reached the water's edge. This area supposedly has ancient rock drawings but we did not see them. No matter, the view was awesome.
We were already behind schedule and still with 350 miles to go after our
quick hike, so we got back on the road without haste. The swarms of
mosquitoes also urged us on (they're bad here like in Alaska).
Soon after, Rob cleverly spotted a black bear at the forest edge! He pointed at the bear so I could see him, and the bear promptly looked at us and bolted back into the woods. We were a safe distance on the road, but close enough to see its facial features. Exciting! This all happened too fast to get a pic.
Not much further down the road it started to rain. We stopped to put on gear. Rob thought he would be ok without rain pants and gloves (I learned my lesson on a trip in June to always put on all of the rain gear when the chance presents itself). Right when he said he hoped the rain would not get worse, it did. But only for 5-10 minutes. We stopped again down the road and Rob put on the rest of his gear, and soon thereafter, no more rain.
We made it to the town of Wawa where Rob wanted to see this Big Goose he had been telling me about. One greeted us at the town's edge (he seemed most official) and two others randomly around town. This goose was in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of completing the Trans-Canada Highway. It was nearly Noon by this time, and we had made little progress all morning. We got a quick lunch, and hit the road in uncertain skies.
The rest of the day the temps were only about 62 until we were just outside of Thunder Bay where the temps creeped up to the mid 70's. We rode close to the lake and inland at times, and were up in elevation at many points. Many small lakes appeared around corners, each with a different view. We saw a lot of moose signs, but no sign of them, despite our hopeful glances in each lake.
At one gas stop, a gentleman on a motorcycle approached me and indicated he was concerned about more rain ahead. He was hearing impaired, but we had a nice conversation--he expertly read lips and understood everything I said. He typed on his phone that he was from Massachusetts, but works at Dulles Airport for United Airlines as a mechanic. Small world! He and his adult daughter were headed to the Sturgis bike event that begins next week.
Back on the road, the majority of our route offered views of dense evergreen forests, either aspens or birch (we can't tell), and many views of the lake. We also passed two recent mishaps at different points in the day, with vehicles completely in the ditch and demolished, we suspect from either driving fatigue or distraction. It is a very long route--450 miles from the "Soo" to Thunder Bay alone.
About an hour outside of Thunder Bay, the scenery became briefly dramatic with red rock walls carved for the highway.
The only other wildlife today apart from our black bear, was one chipmunk, one groundhog and several huge black crows. We also passed through a very stinky area that Rob guessed was the result of a paper mill, but did not see any operations from the road.
A quick video of one of the vistas we saw as we crested a hill.
Tomorrow we continue west along the Trans-Canada Highway through the Lake District and into Winnipeg. Perhaps we'll see moose tomorrow.
Cooler temps and sunny blue skies greeted us this morning for our departure. As we were prepping the bike, two nice older gents from New Jersey on BMWs chatted with us. They were returning from the BMW rally in Billings, Montana. Their bike front fairings were covered in bugs, always a sign of a good trip out West! One of the men has a 2001 Goldwing at home with 300k miles on it. He told Rob that our Wing is "just a baby" at 116k miles. Ha! He initially approached us curious about the car tire that Rob has on our Wing. They chatted about tires, front suspension and all manner of Goldwing parts. We got on the road at 8:05am.
Traffic was relatively light and without incident, but with quite a bit of construction underway. We went through about six major construction zones the entire day. Our route took us up near Toledo.
We passed into Michigan.
For some reason the state highway dept of transportation wants big trucks to drive in the left lane. We managed to stay at speed and maneuver around traffic ok. Rob also dodged blown truck tires in the middle of the road, no thanks to this guy. This photo was taken at 55 mph, yes, he knew his tire was flat and kept on going.
We stopped for lunch at Subway, near Bay City, MI. Our lunch conversation consisted of me trying (halfheartedly) to convince Rob to let me drive the Wing on this trip, he just laughed. Interesting Michigan billboards kept us entertained on straight interstate 75: Reminding us to brush our teeth twice a day for two minutes (cannot be done while on the bike), something about Kermit the frog being a Hollywood star, various inspirational retirement home community ads (lots of friends here--albeit of the elderly sort), casino ads galore, knee and hip replacement and home same day (as if!), famous turkey meals and kind words from Ben Franklin.
Our excitement about reaching the Mackinac bridge was slightly stifled as we waited for construction traffic for at least 30 minutes.
Finally on the bridge, it worked in our favor with slow speeds that allowed for great picture taking and the luxury of driving at reduced speeds to experience it. It is an impressive structure.
We rode on the open grate lane, so I could see down to the water. Cool! Its website said it can move 35 feet in extreme winds. Although very windy today, we could only feel movement as big trucks went by us in the opposite direction. It bounced the Wing somewhat.
Once across, we stopped at the bridge park for the best view of it. It is a very nice park area with pretty flowers.
Back on the road, we drove a few miles to the International bridge and to the border crossing. We are officially international motorcycle travelers!
The border guard seemed supremely annoyed by our wanting to enter his country (Rob says this is their tactic), gestured to me to remove my helmet, and made Rob dismount to tell him the license plate number. Which he did not pay attention to while Rob was speaking and had Rob repeat it after he had already forgotten the numbers. So Rob made up some numbers and the guard dutifully typed them into his computer. Lesson learned, boys and girls. If you want something done right, get out of your comfy chair and do it yourself.
A few more questions about transporting booze, drugs, guns, tasers (yes, he asked us that), fireworks, clothing made in sweat shops, our position on whether the Canadian Women should have won the world cup....(of course they should have, Mr. Guard, sir) and if we had any tobacco or tobacco-like products (we don't think he meant beef jerky) the guard begrudgingly allowed us to "move along". So we did! We arrived in Sault Ste Marie around 5:30, found the place to exchange US dollars for "funny money", and got to our hotel. Our room was complimentary upgraded to a big suite. We walked a mile up the road for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and headed back. Tomorrow we spend the day riding around Lake Superior.
HOT! Today was hot! The morning started off with some light fog which provided us welcome cover from the sun.
Our trip over the mountains through WV and MD along US 50 was uneventful. Traffic was very light save for the three or four construction zones we went through. US 50 through WV and western MD has quite a few twisty bits that can be quite fun!
We stopped for lunch in Clarksburg, WV. By this time the temperatures were climbing into the upper 80's. After lunch, we broke out the cool wraps which really help. It is like having a little A/C blowing on your neck and chest.
We crossed over the Ohio river near Parkersburg.
We made our turn north around Athens, OH and traded US 50 for US 33.
As we entered Columbus, OH, we decided that we would make a quick fuel and rest break once we were on the North side of Columbus. We couldn't afford to take too long at the stop as we were tracking a line of thunderstorms to the west that were pushing east.
We didn't want to get caught in those so with only about 50 miles to go, we fueled up, refreshed our cool wraps and pushed on. We heard on the radio that most of the country is in a heat wave, no kidding!
North of Columbus, the scenery changed from the familiar wooded hill sides to wide open farm lands.
Looks like corn is still king. Speaking of kings, we saw a Dairy King earlier in the day passing through a little town in WV, just down the street from the Dairy Queen.
We arrived in Upper Sandusky at around 5pm and before the rain....which it turns out decided to not fall at all!
Tomorrow we will continue north into Michigan and cross the famous Mackinac Bridge, which is the longest suspension bridge (between anchorages) in the western hemisphere and 16th longest in the world. If we are successful in crossing the bridge, we will then head into Canada and attempt to answer all the deep and probing questions by the border guards as to why we would want to visit Canada.
Tomorrow we will begin our 3 week epic ride to visit Glacier National Park. It has been a little over a year in the making. Reservations have been made, the route decided, the bike prepared, and the luggage packed. The only thing left is to get on the Wing and go!
Over the next three weeks we'll ride about 6,500 miles, visit five of Canada's provinces and 14 US states, and have a lot of fun. Tomorrow's forecast promises to be a warm one so I'm sure we'll be making good use of the neck cooling pads. We may decide to get an earlier-than-planned start to get some early miles in before the heat sets in. Once we make it to Canada (on Day 2), the temperatures should be cooler. First stop: Upper Sandusky, Ohio.
