Day 02 - Upper Sandusky, OH to Sault Ste Marie, Ontario

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.