I forgot to attach one picture yesterday; it is the Trans Canada Highway from Bob’s perspective:

Not a lot to see; it’s a tree-tunnel through the tundra. This morning it was 55 degrees with mist in the air.  We traveled 200 miles to Sault Ste. Marie with a nice stop along the way at a Tim Horton for sweet rolls and coffee (decaf for Bob).

The weather turned sunny and warm at the locks at Soo.  It was great fun again to see the ships go through the locks:

Oh, by the way, here is what Bob did at the Lock:

For some reason I was tired all day today.  Getting up before 7:00 AM really sucks; I stayed up late last night with a great novel by Joel C. Rosenberg (spy thriller stuff). Oh well.  Good nap. Nice locks. Lunch, then ice cream; what more could you ask?

Fifty miles to the big bridge; $4.00 toll; high winds; hairy crossing; just as you get use to leaning into the wind you get behind a tower and nearly fall over from lack of wind; then past the tower it hits you again.  RV’s were warned to go 20 MPH because of the wind; 18 wheelers were going slowly as well.  We made it safely.  Then on to Petoskey for the night.  Andy is getting really good at talking the price of a room down.  Bob did it last night and saved $30; Andy saved $50 tonight; it’s a contest!

Today is what Andy calls a ‘travel day.’  That means we leave at 7:30 AM and ride all day because there are no stops nor is there time for stops.  The goal:  get out of Canada.  Was it met? No siree bob.  Rain off and on made it hard to make time or distance.  We got as far as Sudbury, Ontario, still 200 miles from Sault Ste Marie.  Oh well, this is why we have extra time built into the schedule.  Tomorrow we reach US soil God willing.

Andy’s luggage rain cover did not fit over all the side bags of his luggage and the sissy bar as it was intended to fit.  So we pulled it as far as it would go.  Both of us knew it would blow off; the wind pressure on stuff is very strong.  My job was to bring up the rear, stop when it flew off, and wait for Andy to realize that I had stopped.  There is the key part about which I commented early in the morning, ‘Yah, 5 miles down the road!’  It happened.  I went back for the cover and could not find it. Then I waited.  Andy realized within 5 miles but got confused about what route were were on and looked all over for the correct route and me.  Meanwhile, two sets of bikers stopped to offer assistance to Bob; they were told he was OK and just waiting for a friend to find him.  After 30 minutes, Bob travelled as far as he could back in the original direction, but when he came to an exit, he had to stop and wait again.  At last–there he was.  Both of us felt bad, but we had done what we agreed on:  The person in the back stays put until he is found.  It worked; both of us were safe, and the day went on — in and out of the rain.

OK day.  Safety is the issue in the rain.  We praised God for that safety at lunch and dinner.  Rest is now the order; tomorrow looks to be clear all the way.  No pictures today; should be plenty tomorrow.

This was an agressive day similar to past tours.  Lots of riding and very little stopping happened on this day, but the trip was great.  We rode up just below the St. Lawrence River.  One had to know to look for the stop of the day; it was the Eisenhower Locks.

We hit it just right; a Copenhagen ship was just entering on the low side to be lifted up and out up river while another ship was waiting to go the other way.  The second picture shows the ship being raised.

The kids just wanted to be in the picture (we had made friends with them watching the boats).

From there we went on up into Canada at a very small border crossing on a two lane highway we had to search for because it was not marked.  Then we sort of felt our way North and East to Montreal until we began to see some road signs.  Road signs are scarce and in French; so it got difficult to navigate.  But we found our way into the big city and promptly got lost downtown.  How we got out of there we may never know, but we did escape the clutches of that city-monster toward the West.  The only picture in the city is of the large central train station:

We then had a big decision: home via Vermont, NY, PA, OH or home via Toronto, Hamilton, and Port Huron, or home via Ottawa and Sault Ste. Marie?  Sault Ste. Marie won. We love the Upper Peninsula and the big bridge (we are Michigan boys after all).  We should be near or in the States tomorrow.  Night all; 11 hours on the road today was enough for these two old grumps.

Rain while riding is a fact of life; one stops, puts on rain gear, keeps going, and arrives relatively dry. Ah, there’s the rub–arrives where? When one has no destination, riding in the rain makes no sense.  So here we are in Watertown, NY, virtually on the banks of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River in a Quality Inn with rain, rain, rain.  A real all-day soaker, a toad strangler, a gully washer, a pain in the pitute.

I have been known to teach creative problem solving.  Can you guess what we did?  Bingo. Rent a car for a day and enjoy ourselves on the shores of Lake Ontario at Sackets Harbor (sorry, no pix) and  at Boldt’s Castle on Heart Island in the St. Lawrence.  Yes we have pix.  George Boldt owned the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in NY City and many other properties; he was super rich in the Guilded Age at the turn of the 20th century.  He loved his wife, Louise, and wanted to give her a special gift for Valentines Day.  So, he began to build her a castle.  She died; he quit.  It sat for years in disrepair, but now is being restored according to the original design.  It is largely finished except for the 3rd and 4th floors

.  One starts at the Boldt Yacht House and takes a boat to Heart Island and the castle.  Enjoy the pix:

The boat ride was short:

Shuttle to the Island in the rain.

And the castle was spendid: 

Just up the road a piece from where we spent the night was Watkins Glenn–famous for two things:  the State Park with hiking up the Glenn (whenever Andy and I hear the word ‘hiking,’ we tend to take a nap until the thought goes away) and the Racetrack.  So up the mountain we went, 4 miles from downtown in the middle of dairy farms, overlooking Lake Seneca was the racetrack.

We got in free with directions to the open grandstand, and cars were running lickety split!  Sportscars:  Porsches and Vets, etc.  Wow!  The sound was great; the speed was fun.  It took them 1.5 minutes to circle the track (not an oval, friends–a squiggly track).

We stood at the top of the grandstand a long while just soaking in the atmosphere; then we moved on up Hwy 14 N along the West side of Lake Seneca.

Saw another big accident in Geneva at an intersection; got by it OK.  Not far North we came upon Lake Ontario, and at Oswego, where they were having a large festival downtown with bands and food tents and parades, we went up to Fort Ontario at the mouth of Oswego River.  We actually stopped and toured the Fort!

We learned about the history of the Fort from colonial times between the British and the French, through the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, pre-WWI for training, and WWII to house Jewish immigrants from the camps in Europe.  Our minds were on overload, but it was fun and somewhat sobering to think of the hard times for the troops living here.

This young man was turned on to military history as a Boy Scout; then he travelled to over a dozen re-enactments across the country (including Shiloh in TN).  He was full of information about the Civil War; get this, he is now 20 years old!  Good kid.

The rest of the day was slow through small towns that seemed to be about 5 miles apart from each other.  But we made it to Watertown, NY for the night.  Hooray for Pizza Hut!

Beginning of the National Forest on Hwy 62

The day began on a beautiful sunny morning (7:00 AM) in Meadville, PA.  We drove southeast on 322 through Franklin, then up to Oil City, PA, through the Allegheny National Forest, and on up to NY on 62.

Once again we were in beautiful farmland on a two lane highway with very little traffic, except an occasional Amish buggy, with farms like this one on both sides.

Small towns in mid-America are sometimes very beautiful just like this one.  I have no idea where it is.

Lunch was in a great little diner in Kill Buck, NY (at a place Andy actually passed, stopped, turned around and drove back to–something he has not done on past tours!).  Lunch was memorable: Andy, cheeseburger & chips; Bob 3 Texas Hots (for $3.00)–hot dog with Texas chili and mustard.  But after lunch was the adventure of the day.

 Just up the road from the restaurant there had been a wreck–single car, driver being put into an ambulance, girlfriend OK, power poles down across the road.  Bad news.  This road is part of a detour from I-86; so it had all the interstate traffic backed up for miles.  No one was going to move for several hours!  A friendly EMT suggested a local route around the crash.  We took it, and did not even get lost–even with Bob leading which usually gets us lost!

Back to the tour with prayers said for the young man on the stretcher.  Very little traffic, great run all the way to Corning, NY for the night.  Yup, that Corning of Corning-ware fame.  Night all–great ride!

Day two started in Charleston, WV at 7:00 AM for Bob and in Ft. Wayne, IN at 6:00 AM for Andy. Both had a great ride to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. I drove right past the Pro Football Hall of Fame (if I had not been under time pressure to meet Andy, I would have stopped for at least a picture). Andy travelled across Indianna and Ohio to our destination. Both rode in very cool temps in the early morning –50’s abd 60’s. But it was warm by noon–bright, sunny, perfect.

Now for the good part: the tour has begun. We took out a map and pointed at the general direction East that we wanted to head and started riding through the real America that few people take the time to see anymore on two lane highways through small towns and farmland galore. Obama eat your heart out–you have never seen this. Doesn’t matter what state you are in. The only difference is farmland or prarie, mountain or desert. The spirit of Route 66 is alive and well on two-lane roads, thousands of miles of them, all accross the country.

Three pix worthy to be posted are the duo in the parking lot of Bob Evans in Cuyahoga Falls, a shot of Kent State University (we drove through it all), and our Put Put Scores for the day–because for the first time in years I won, and I do the blog!

OK. So I know this is going to sound weird, but here goes. The first day was a nightmare again. Remember, last year for the first day and a half we tried to get my bike to start? It turned out to be thousands of little tiny ants and their eggs in my starter switch. This year I heard strange noises, stopped to check it out, and discovered that I had no rear brake.

I got directions to a bike dealership that was thankfully only 20 miles away up Lee Hwy (US 11) in Wytheville, VA This is where I was going to turn off I-81 on to I-77 anyway. Found the shop, explained the problem to the mechanic, and he went to work right away.

Imagine my shock when he said the brakes are OK, I had lost the rear axle nut and was ‘lucky’ the back wheel had stayed on at all! The brake disk had wobbled and pushed the brake calipers back. He found a nut and fixed it. Total cost $24.54. Total cost in worry and fear? Not able to compute. Wait till I talk to the last one to change my rear tire!

It is working fine. I had some rain along the way on I-77, and I had my usual panic attack in the two long tunnels just above Bluefield (we can discuss this later), but I arrived safely in Charleston, WV to spend the night. Andy and I will meet tomorrow just above Akron, OH at noon (just 210 miles for me).

The pix are start and finish–driveway to motel parking lot. I was in no mood to take pix at the dealership in Wytheville, VA.

God is good; He must have something else He wants me to accomplish in the future because I still have a future!

Today was a travel day with few pix.  We started in Texarkana, and Bob finished for the night in Jackson, TN while Andy finished for the night in Mt. Vernon, IL.  Yup, the trip was essentially over, and we headed for the barn as Andy says.  I remember reading John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie in which he decided when a cross-country trip was finished, it was time to head home as fast as possible.  We finished a little early because that feeling hit us after the Bush Library in Dallas.  It was just over–great trip–once in a lifetime trip, but it was over.

The first pix is just for fun. I’ve always wanted to take a picture of an 18-wheeler being towed as if it were coming at me in the same lane.  This was my chance.  Then I snapped Andy peeling off on I-55 in West Memphis, Arkansas; next pix are Memphis.  It is good to be back on the correct side of the Mississippi!

Tonight I watched Bryan College soccer on the internet as they defeated St. Andrews University at home 2-1.  And I am watching Michigan beat Notre Dame.  Go Blue!

Some random thoughts on the trip:

7300 miles safely travelled 

We saw moose, elk, cows, pheasants, coyote, bison, and other wildlife near or on the road.

Montana likes to fix 10 miles of road at a time and put the traffic on gravel.

It rains in Seattle.

The Pacific Coast Hwy was worth the trip.

Andy and I, at age 68, still have it–we just keep forgetting where we put it.

My niece is beautiful and blessed with a great family; my nephew is a riot (130 MPH just to show us a little speed).

We have seen Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, Hoover Dam, and the Grand Canyon–all free on a lifetime sr. pass. Hah!

There are 11 motorcycle fatalaties a day in the US; we were not part of them–yet.  Safety is an illusion provided by the devil.  God controls our destiny, and there must be something that he still wants us to do with our remaining days.  We will never be reckless, but neither will we be fearful–God controls our lives, period.

Nothing in the country is as beautiful as within a 150 mile radius of Dayton, TN.

I love my wife for understanding me better than I understyand myself.

This was Bush Presidential Library day, and it was worth the effort.  We agreed that this stop was one of the best of the trip.  A few of the pix will show some of it; we both sat at the desk in the Oval Office for instance.  And there is a shot of real steel beams from 911.  The rest is self evident.  Lunch was a great BBQ sandwich in the Cafe 43.

We hit the road at about noon and travelled to Texarkana for the night in time to see Serena Williams win the semi-finals at the US Open. The shot of the highway sign for Mt. Pleasant is for you, DK; so close to home in Omaha, TX! What a day.