Reporting right now from Muskegon, Michigan where we'll board a ferry across Lake Michigan and debark in Milwaukee for the next leg of our journey to Sturgis, South Dakota. With a couple of hours on our hands, I'll bring this narrative up to date.
We departed from Woodstock, NY on Wednesday 8/4 at 10 am. The Wing is packed to capacity for 2 people on a 30 day tour. We're disciplined in our packing, with only a few changes of clothes, necessities, a camera and laptop for the duration. The first day's ride took us along the NYS Thruway to Buffalo, then north to Niagara Falls, where we crossed into Canada. Weather was hot and humid the whole day, but we made decent time and rode 374 miles before finding a hotel near the Canadian side of the falls.
Our room overlooked the Niagara river, downstream of the falls. Notably, the room was furnished with a king size bed, and a huge, red, heart-shaped jacuzzi with mirrored walls on 2 sides. Resembling a honeymoon haven or a trysting suite, it reminded me of a hotel we tried in Caen, France during our honeymoon, a quarter century ago. That room was painted cerulean blue, and hung with erotic-ish paintings, while the featured attraction were the ceilings, mirrored for entertainment.
Too tired after a long day's riding, we skipped the jacuzzi, ventured out for drinks and dinner, and then fell off to sleep with the promise of more riding the next day bringing us closer to our destination.
We awoke Thursday morning to breakfast at a passable hotel buffet, packed up our gear and motored off to visit Niagara Falls. Streets crowded with tourists and traffic greeted us, as the heavily laden Wing maneuvered slowly, trying to find a parking spot. The American falls, across the river looked tiny in comparison to the vast Canadian horshoe falls. Unable to debike anywhere nearby, we rode the length of the town 4 times, marveling at the sights, and then turned onto Queen Elizabeth Highway going west across Ontario.
Ontario is farm country sprouting cornfields everywhere you look. Heat and humidity demanded that we constantly hydrate, so we took a cool-off break at a roadside Burger King. "Oh, you're the Goldwing riders," a woman's voice exclaimed. It was Trish and Tom from Michigan, fellow motoryclists who stopped to talk (as bikers commonly do) about roads, riding, destinations etc. They gave us a couple of pointers about Sturgis, and rode off themselves.
Barb and I continued across Ontario in the heat, eventually reaching Sarnia, where we would cross back into the US, in Michigan. Sarnia was one gigantic construction zone, and heavy traffic crawled for 8 kilometers toward the bridge. After 2 hours of stop and go, breathing truck fumes, and with a cramping clutch hand, we reached the toll booth and were informed that it would take another 45 minutes to cross into the US.
Exhausted, exasperated and exclaiming that "They won't let us leave Canada!" I pulled into the duty-free parking lot to rest, get a cold drink and assess the traffic. Cars and trucks were crawling uphill on the bridge, a prospect that my left hand would not undertake just then. Inquiring of the duty-free personnel, they told us that traffic had been awful for over a week, due to delays on the American side at customs. Resigned to passing an entire afternoon and potentially evening at this petit coffee shop, we strolled then through the shops and purchased a bottle of my favorite Irish whiskey, Tullamore Dew, at 50% off. After 2 hours, at last the sun hid out behind cloud cover, and we decided to chance the bridge. It was at least 45 minutes until we arrived in Port Huron Michigan, where we were in no mood to find the monument to the founding of SDS, as requested by Bob Rhodes. (Sorry Bob!)
Another 40 miles or so took us to Flint Michigan, where at 9:30 in the evening, we found a modest, budget motel and rapidly nodded off to sleep. End of the second day.
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