Dad slept in more than I thought he would since he was gradually getting away from his pre-trip norm of long hours at work to put me through college, pay too many bills, and then gallivant off to a month-long trip to Alaska. He had to continue to suck it in and push onward for years, but he did so and as always certainly earned more of my respect in the process, just as my mother had earned doing the same. Now he was relaxing a bit.
We began our Canadian experience by Windexing away the swarms of American bugs that became permanently elongated on our windscreens and helmets. I noticed they were building up a fairly thick solid layer behind the rearview mirrors, and the bugs were starting to make a strong showing on the shin area of my pants and poopysuit. We were rolling bug death machines.
Mosquitoes started to form swarms around us for the first time too. We must have officially arrived up north, since it was infamous for this. Once I put on my helmet, my sealed spacesuit was complete and I didn’t care if there were swarms of pterodactyls around my head. I knew that I confused some of them when I would remove my helmet. They would follow my beheaded “head” to wherever I set the helmet down, finally recognizing the meager nutritional value of fiberglass and coming back for the rest of me.
While I was suited up in my armor and waiting for Dad to come out of the bank where he was exchanging American paper for the more colorful Canadian variety, a woman appeared and gave some local insight. She recommended that we delete the “t” from our “Alaska or Bust” sign. Now that’s a thinking lady.
After a few miles into the meat of the Trans-Canadian Highway and a few miles out of Sault Ste. Marie, I realized that this Canada stuff was getting real interesting real quick. The scenery/sights along the road were amazing. It was nature’s natural, not a park-like natural. The dense, lush trees were so many different shades of green that they reminded me of the sunglasses-effect, without the assist of the sunglasses. There was a full range from the bright light greens of the aspens (with their contrasting white bark) to the dark varieties of conifers. Leaning through long sweeping turns created the effect of moving through a huge bowl of trees. They rose on both sides and around the curves, forming their own reality.
Every once in a while I would arbitrarily look 90 degrees to my side, directly into the forest. It was incredible the number of times that I would suddenly see a body of water. Canada was waterlogged. If someone looked at a map of the area, it would seem that a boat would be more valuable than a motorcycle.
Our entire trip today circumvented the north shores of Lake Superior. The lake was humongous. After all of the miles put behind us that day, we were still a big jump away from leaving it behind. And the lake was a popular bowl for beautiful cascading rivers to flow into. The rivers always splashed with drama over rocks, making a great series of rapids or drop-off waterfalls.
I frequently got the urge to stop and appreciate, but We Must Push On. If we dilly-dallied there, then we may have been forced to grudgingly pass by our goal locations in Alaska and the Northwest. And that would have been a sad no-no. However, the Trans-Canadian Highway held many opportunities for another trip, and a relaxed pace with a camera along would be very welcome.
We eventually stopped at Old Woman Bay. Unfortunately the Old Woman was not very kind to me. She must not have liked motorcyclists. She first convinced the overhanging gray clouds to let loose with some drizzle. Being the mentally and physically prepared travelers that we were, we started unloading and fumbling with multiple layers of weather protection that we had to cover all of our baggage and every square inch of ourselves. Considering how multiple these layers really were, it was taking so long to condom over the motorcycle that I was getting mildly irritated. I hate boring, repetitive tasks. The Old Woman thought that she would scold me for my lack of patience by having my shiny helmet slip off of the handlebars. It appropriately bounced around on the asphalt for a while, shedding some useless chips of paint from various spots on its previously like-new surface, and rolled into the sand trap (beach). Fine, then I did not have to worry over its pristine veneer anymore. Thanks, Old Woman. I suppose that she got really mad at my mild acceptance of the mild punishment, so she decided to sock me with a doozy.
After Dad had taken off and gone out to the road, I tried to make a sharp half-circle turn in the parking lot. Of course the bike balked and broncoed some, steering me just off course enough to put me in the sand. I found that directional control of 700 pounds of Suzuki decreased significantly in the sand, especially when performing a slow turn. So, of course, I laid the bike down for a rest. I had been devirginated from not having dropped a motorcycle. I suppose I should have been happy to have completed this rite of passage.
That evening we ended up in Thunder Bay at the Sleeping Giant Motor Hotel. I probably should have refused to stay here just because of the corny hotel name, but the beds were rectangular and the soap lathered. No complaints.