Free to Just Ride: Good Morning Sunshine

Yesterday was a great ride...despite the rain!

We took off from Marathon early heading out on Highway 17, still undecided on whether we would take the scenic route along Lake Superior or the twisty route along the Route 129...several factors were being heavily weighed. Rain was expected to start early along the lake and later through the inland route, inland route was a little longer, and what views or experience we were looking for.

In the end a stop for coffee, helped us to make a final decision that Route 129 was going to be our course of action.

We stopped at Wawa which was the junction for both routes. Wawa is the home of the big Canada Goose and it has a story, much like a lot of small areas. This particular small town has some links to New Brunswick, specifically Sir James Dunn...first to the goose though...

A young man by the name of Al Turcott moved his young family to Wawa when he took a temporary job in Wawa to help construct a crushing plant at the local mine. He so fell in love with the place he opened a store there and settled permanantly. When the government started planning the Trans Canada route through Lake Superior region, he was so concerned that it would by-pass their town, that he and a group of businessmen got together and came up with the idea of the giant Canada Goose as a tourist attraction and secured the route through their town. He went on to build "Fort Friendship" on the banks of the Michipicoten River not far from the old Hudson Bay Co. Post. He is buried there next to his Fort overlooking the River. The "Friendly Fort" also has several panels honoring people who were popular in the area or honored for making their area popular including one gentleman who had a pet moose. Sir James Dunn and Lady Dunn each have their own panel honoring their contributions to the area. Sir James' work with Algoma Steel revitalized the area and the mine in Wawa was "reborn" The house they built at the top of Helen Mountain, called the Eagles Nest, is now a designated historic property. The hospital is named after Lady Dunn and they once toyed with renaming Wawa to Jamestown, but that didn't fly...much like the Goose (pun intended). The Goose and the Friendly Fort are right at the junction of Highway 17 (TCH) and Route 101 and a very popular stop along the way.

So, we begin the ride down 129....so far the day has been cloudy but cool. Perfect for riding. We figure this route will take us about two hours...what we didn't expect is that it would be two hours with no stops and no bathrooms.....about 50km down route 129, the rain also started. This doesn't bother me or Larry too much as we are not what you would consider to be fair-weather riders. The adventure, and yes we have given this portion of our trip adventure status, came in many ways...first of all logging trucks. I hate passing by or around logging trucks and I normally announce this as it happens to poor Larry on the other side of the intercoms. I have a recurring nightmare of a log truck spilling it's logs as I travel by it, doesn't matter whether it is car or bike. Now I know intellectually that this is just silly, however it does manifest itself only when in close proximity. Today, instead of announcing my dislike, I decided to change up my declaration by asking..."have I mentioned how much I dislike logging trucks"....followed of course by the statement of my dislike, vocabulary of which I won't share on this blog. About a third of the way into the route, we spy an OPP car with it's lights flashing so we of course slow our pace...as we came upon what we initially thought was a traffic stop, turned out to be a logging truck, turned over on it's side, with his load spilled everywhere....what was worse is that it was in the ditch on our side of the road but clearly had been travelling in the opposite direction....the nightmares continue.

One of the reasons for also taking this route was to avoid about 30 kms of construction. There was some construction on this route as well but limited to the bridges they seem to be replacing everywhere in Ontario...we came upon one such construction area to a stop behind a truck pulling a trailer and a boat...yes towing both one behind the other. As we were directed to proceed, we followed only to find ourselves in a muck hole....now, sand and muck are not great things to ride through on a motorcycle and there is only one way to do that...keep the throttle on it no matter what! Larry was the first to enter it with me closely behind him. The flag person offered no warning at all. As soon as Larry entered the muck his only words were "OMG Cindy!". I just said "Keep going"...at one point the truck in front of us came to almost a full stop and I had to pull up beside Larry..we finally got on solid ground and waited for the truck to make it's way through the zone as it travelled very slow and we had no idea what was ahead...lesson learned. Next time we will wait for any vehicles to move ahead first! I will say that this was my first time through this kind of terrain and I am thankful for reading Motorcycle Mojo and a weekly motorcycle show which covered trail riding...I knew what I had to do! Larry was extremely proud of my skills so that was an added bonus!

Other than that, the only other adventure was getting to a bathroom through the rain and twisty roads without peeing my pants....which I fully accomplished. Never so happy to see the Trading Post at the end of that run!.

The rain continued on and off. We stopped for supper and kept on track for Sudbury arriving around 7:30 p.m. and having travelled 755 kms! We got to the Super8 (this time it was pretty Super), checked in and started to unload the bikes. When I came out for the second load there was a group of men all around the bikes...I hesitated in the vestibule until I could assess what was happening and then realized they were a group or team. As I came out the doors, I was greeted with a lot of smiles and hands with cameras. Turns out they are a Mine Rescue competitive team from Columbia. They were taking pictures standing beside the bikes. One gentleman in very broken and limited English pointed to me and the bike asking if it was mine...as soon as I acknowledged it was, he excitely pointed at the bike and the camera asking if he could sit on it...which I happily obliged. He threw his leg over the bike, put his feet up on the pegs and gestured for his friends to take his picture, followed by another request by one of the other team members....while this is all happening, Larry comes out for a second load and sees me and bikes all surrounded by about 10 guys....the look on his face was priceless and I could tell he was doing the same assessment as I did only he was already through the doors. I looked up and laughed and smiled at him, took him a second but he quickly understood what was happening as well and obliged a couple of guys the same photo op. They were genuinely happy and very courteous. As we came back into the lobby they were all on their phones, I expect posting pictures or sending them to friends.

A small bottle of Baileys from the Trading Post and lots of wet clothes strung we called it a night and headed for bed.....today we head for the border....good morning Sunshine!