August 8, 2008 - Friday - Day 39
USA/MEXICO/CANADA
DOUBLE CROSS COUNTRY
& THE TRANSCANADA HIGHWAY
-- OR BUST - SUMMER 2008
Miles Today - 321 / Total Miles - 9,313
Sault Ste Marie,Ontario,Canada - to Mattawa,Ontario,Canada
(-staying at the Valois Motel -)
(Ontario)
- THE WIND AND THE RIVER -
I was probably only ten minutes away from the US border before leaving town. It had a tug on me, but I knew my journey led elsewhere.
After running and packing up, I sat on the little picnic chair outside the room while eating my banana and sliced up orange that I got yesterday. Across the highway a street performer was doing his bit on unicycle and pogo stick, and with juggling balls. It was a clear and crisp morning and the sun was shining brightly. I was late again, and after a gas stop, I was out onto the highway by 10:30am.
For pure riding enjoyment - piercing through the nice cool morning air - it couldn't get much better than the beginning part of this day out of Sault Ste Marie!! The roads, the weather, the sky, the traffic - everything was 100%!
This morning there were straight flat roads with sight-lines to the end of the world
The posted speed of 55mph (after conversion) on these roads is a joke! Nobody goes 55. Unless you're old, or enfeebled, or way too overly cautious, or a straight arrow who follows rules without thinking, there's no reason for it. In fact, going 55 would be unsafe, unnecessary, and ridiculous. Aside from getting better gas mileage or sightseeing, there's no reason to go 55 on these roads.
There was a young teenage girl at a morning gas stop pumping gas. I told her that in 9000 miles she was the first female to be seen with that job. I asked her if she liked her freckles and she said she never noticed them. I said that as a photographer I liked people who had freckles because it helped me focus better. We both smiled at that.
At the same stop a mostly toothless fellow out of a mobile home came up to me and wondered about and worried about whether my yellow mc jacket made me hot. I said what I usually do when people ask me that, “I've found one of the secrets of life,” I said…. “YOU DON'T THINK ABOUT IT!” And we both laughed, but he pursued the subject and I mentioned that it was pretty cool to me here today. He looked incredulous and stated clearly in Canadian accent, “Why I think it's pretty fricken hot today.” I said that it must depend on what we are used to! He agreed to that and headed back to his rig. I kept my second jacket on under my yellow armor and got back to the highway.
I finally stopped at a Tim Horton's. They are a large chain of restaurants here in Canada and I'd been told I would just HAVE to try one. They seemed like a Subway with specialized coffees. The meal was good. And speaking of Subway, they are just about in every single city, little town, and tiny hamlet. It amazes me to see one wherever I go here. They are like Starbucks back home, like mushrooms in a damp environment - EVERYWHERE!
A woman in Horton restaurant said hi to me. I gave her a quizzical look of non-recognition, and she asked if I wasn't the one back in Terrace Bay (which was 600+ miles ago). She said she was a woman behind the counter there. I wasn't sure to which counter she was referring, but she did look a bit familiar.
There were a few road construction spots this day. Most were not bad or too inconvenient, but the one around 1:30pm had cars and trucks lining up for miles and miles on both sides of the road repair job. Even after I skirted down the shoulder about a half-mile, the wait was still over 45 minutes. We were way out in the middle of nowhere with nothing but trees other than a trading post store just down a-ways.
It was a little like a frustrated party atmosphere. Folks got out and sat in folding chairs. One woman just left her husband and started to walk to wherever the front of the line was. I shouted over, “Figure it's just faster walking, eh?” She grinned and nodded.
I even dozed on the bike for about five minutes. Then I made friends with the Frito-Lay truck driver behind me, and told him he should open his truck for everyone in line. He wouldn't do that, but he did get out of his seat and go into the back of the truck and bring me a bag for a buck. But it was salsa, which I don't like. He went back for a different bag. As he was standing in the back of the truck and I asked for plain ones, he said, “There's not such a thing as 'plain ones' in Canada.” We both laughed. Eventually though he did find an original Tostitos. The salty chips were delicious as I gobbled them up out there on the highway.
The fellow in the car in front of me said this mess was all because of the company hired to do the job. It was supposed have been done in June he said.
I figured that everyone SHOULD have made friends with the Humpty-Dumpty truck driver a couple vehicles in front of us - then all would have enjoyed some ice cream in the building heat of the wait under the sun.
Backups like that are little bit like life itself, aren't they? You go speeding along unknowing of what's ahead. Yep, there it sometimes is - slowing you down, rocking you off schedule. It was there, but sometimes you just don't know it until you reach that point. As often as not, it's NOT there, but sometimes it sure is.
I'm glad I wasn't on my way to shoot a wedding, that's for sure. As it was I just relaxed, took pictures, and chatted with folks. I sat there so long though, I could feel my beard growing.
After we got going I counted fifty cars waiting in line on the other side.
Despite the morning calmness the wind picked up in the early afternoon. I fought with it all the rest of the day as it would huff and puff on the Vulcan from various directions as the road turned. It took a bunch of concentration to keep going forward without incident. I couldn't imagine doing this on a lighter bike. The buffeting was intense at times, especially when the big 18-wheeler rigs went by on the other side of the two-lane road! And most especially when there where two or three at a time that were passing me or that were barreling down the roadway in the other direction.
My familiar “Highway 1” signs have morphed into “Highway 17”. The Transcanada numbers will change a couple more times as I make my way through Ottawa and Montreal in the coming few days.
Bob, the owner of Bob's Husky Gas Station, stopped me as I was heading into pay. He said right out, “That's a great color for a jacket. It can be seen! If my buddy had a jacket like that he might still be around.” I asked him what happened, and it was a truck-motorcycle accident that got his 56 year-old friend killed. The fellow had been a safely instructor for eighteen years! It apparently was a situation where a more visible motorcyclist would have made the collision a lot less likely.
A bit later I asked Bob and his friend about those stones that I mentioned in this space yesterday…. the ones on the outcroppings along the roadway. they both were well aware of what I was asking about. They said it was the Inuit Indians that began that, and that they are supposed to be figures of a man. They are so well constructed and placed and balanced, that the stones often stay just that way for more than a year. Bob said that the stones are to signify, “I was here.”
Around lunchtime I was thinking back to Mary's fakin'-bacon sandwiches that you may remember she made for me. (And that I went fifty miles out of my way for….) That was 14 days ago on Day 25, and a little shy of 5,000 miles down the road on the other side of the continent. But even another country and so far away, I started to drool at the thought of that lunch, and I was surely wishing there was something like that around the next corner here in Canada. But alas, Subway, Taco Bell, and Tim Horton's don't carry that menu item.
Everything is metric here in Canada, of course. Much smarter than the US system, that's for sure. Well, I've decided that to get more time out of our days, that we should go metric time-wise, too. For starters, that'll give us 100 minutes in an hour and ten days in a week. I think that's the answer to our not-having-enough-time problems. I've been espousing that for years, but no one pays any attention to me.
I've been really careful about always keeping the gas tank full. Today, one stretch was 111 miles between stations.
Spied a vanity license plate today, “SHZ HOT.” I wondered if the guy was being really proud of his girl friend's looks or his snazzy car?
Heading into North Bay, I got two thumbs up and a peace sign from two young ladies in a pickup truck. And right before that, at around 4:45pm, the Nomad celebrated it's 10,000th mile.
There were some farms this day as I rounded the northern fringe of Lake Huron. I liked the bright red farmhouses as they sat on the dark green grass, against the stark blue sky. And there were lakes, too. Not as many as yesterday, and unlike yesterday, a bunch of these lakes had homes around the shoreline. I noticed that more and more as I traveled east and closer to the population centers
On the way into Mattawa the very first motel advertised 'Free Wireless Internet' but I kept on going. I went all through the maybe two miles of town, and stopped in the last motel. They had internet, but only in the dining room. So with a quick pickup at a Subway on the way back, I went to the first motel. I was about signed up when I asked if the wireless was working okay (a question I've learned to ask), and sure enough it wasn't. Not working at all. So….. I headed back to the first place which was located right on the Ottawa River, secured a room, put the sandwich in the fridge for breakfast, and headed over to the dining room to get a signal. I had a window seat just overlooking the beautiful Ottawa River. While having a delicious salad, and a baked potato smothered in mushrooms - and then a piece of blueberry pie - I got all the day's accumulated emails caught up. One was from a family from my old neighborhood, who coincidentally are headed up right to this very area - but tomorrow. And it looks like I'll miss them by a day!
On my way out of the restaurant I was stopped by a middle-aged couple who had read the sign on the mc. They wanted to know all about the trip, and I was happy to share details with them. The woman said she had been coming to this restaurant/motel by the river ever since she was a little girl.
I cleaned the Nomad. This despite an email from friend Derick at my mc dealership. He suggested that I should just let the bike get dirty so it looked like it had been on a trip.
There was a gorgeous sunset over the river.
Then, back at the room, without the being on-line time, I got right to work on the journal notes and some other projects.
I'm hoping most of you are also checking out the photos. There are usually quite a number that go along with the day's text. To view photos from today or the whole trip, you can check out
http://www.photostockplus.com/home.php?tmpl=45&user_id=42473&event=196141
Also, you can check out the past day journal entries by going to joelperlish.com, and clicking on the appropriate trip down at the bottom on the left hand corner. Do this by hopping over to http://www.joelperlish.com/blog/blog.html... and/or you can just email me back and I'll put you on the daily send list. I especially recommend days 10, 12 (the sandstorm day!), 14 (the most nostalgic day), 32 (the best day) and day 37 (the most dangerous day).
