Trans-Canada - Day 7

Start Location: Thunder Bay, ON
Ending Location: Wawa, ON
Miles Today: 305
Trip Miles: 2333
States Visited: 1
Provinces Visited: 5
Low Temp: 60° F
High Temp: 78° F
Min Elevation: 595'
Max Elevation: 1490'

Route Map:

That's right, you read that correctly, we're staying in Wawa, Ontario home of the famous Canadian Goose and the even more famous Girls of Wawa Calender.

It looked like today was going to be a repeat of the last 2 days. Until 2:30 this afternoon (not sure which time zone) the temperature was between 60 and 65 degrees but it was very foggy. There were several times I had to slow down to less than 30 miles/hour because I just couldn't see far enough ahead. It never rained but it was like driving in a cloud most of the day. In fact in many of the pictures you can see our windshield covered in water droplets. It stayed that way until 2:30 and then it suddenly cleared up and warmed up to the mid 70s until 4:15 when the fog rolled in and the temperature dropped back down again. Very strange weather. We also ran into several construction sites where the road was not paved and we had to ride over dirt and gravel. Fortunately the spots were not too long and the traffic was light.

We said we would try to get some pictures of Inukshuks today and we managed to get a few but it proved to be more difficult than we planned. In the morning it was so foggy that we could barely see them. We generally take pictures from the bike while we are riding but the Inukshuks are small enough that it was impossible to get pictures while riding by at 55 miles/hour. The other problem is that the road shoulders are only paved for about the first foot - not wide enough to park and get off with high speed traffic zipping by. The remainder of the shoulders were gravel and pitched fairly steeply away from the road - not a good place to attempt to manuever and park an 800 pound motorcycle. But we did manage to get a few pictures and if you do a Google image search for Inukshuks you will get over 1000 images of Inukshuks.

Well it's decision time. We said we were going to try to go as far as Sault Ste. Marie and then turn and head back. We will be there in the morning and should cross over the border before noon (in some time zone). We had originally talked about taking Route 2 home only because we didn't have a better plan. Now we think we are going to go on to Owensboro, KY. We haven't been back in a long time and we have some friends we would like to see and I would like to see the plant that I helped build while we lived there from 1992 - 1998. We will probably go by way of Naperville, IL since it is on the way and we can stop at Linda's folks for a short visit, good food and a chance to do laundry.

I am also planning to get a new front tire while in Naperville since the current one is getting very worn. I usually replace tires in pairs but we replaced the rear tire last year because we were in the middle of another trip where we picked up a nail and then I never replaced the front one when we got home. There was so much going on before we left this time that I just completely neglected to check it out. We have had to replace tires at least three other time while out on the road in the middle of a trip and it's always been pretty easy. Let's hope this one also goes well.