To say that yesterday and today was trying is putting it lightly. So after two years of research and planning, it just goes to show you that #$%^ happens. I do not care how careful you are or how many backups you have, something's happen that are totally out of your control. Do we want a list?
Heated gear: Pant liners and socks, not working. Not sure if it is jacket problem or what. I will attempt to get it checked out in Anchorage.
MacBook Pro: The charge cable popped, fried, and or cooked! Bought another today and backup plugin for other devices if it happens again.
Garmin GPS locked up today, fixed that by disconnecting battery and reinstalling.
Rain and Cold. Ok when I left, I said I want Cold and Dry, not Cold and Wet. Even though I’m dry, the suit is cooling.
Sink holes near Wawa and Nipigon almost got me, would have been forced to reverse around Lake Superior to the south, got lucky.
Riding at a 10-15 degree right tilt. The last 50 miles into Winnipeg, not wind gust, just flat out 30-50 crosswind. So much so I had to close my shield and felt my helmet lift until chin strap tugged. I been hit by gust which are actually worse, but never a steady crosswind like today.
This morning I set my alarm at 5:30am East coast time and from the time I got up, till bundled snuggly, 6:15, no breakfast. I was determined to make Thunder Bay, 100Km’s down the road before I ate. Mission accomplished through fog, rain, and 39-40 degree temperatures. I walked into McDonald’s, undressed, and ate a big breakfast. All of it. As I was getting ready to leave, I approached an truck driver to ask one question. “Roads open and clear from here to Winnipeg?” He said yes and he was heading in the same direction. Told me to watch out for the police because they were heavy on that stretch and as long as I held 100kph or less, I would be ok. That sounds easy but that is only about 65mph and when you are the only one in sight, ripping down the road is much quicker. Ok, 102-105 is what I held and no intervention by Canadian Police Force.
The ride from Thunder Bay to Ignace was wet, foggy, and cold. When I rolled into town I decided to stop for gas even though I didn’t need it and coffee. I also decided to put on a second pair of socks over my heated since I was getting the impression that they were not working. While sitting in the restaurant everyone wanted to know, where I was from,(how could they tell?), where I was going, and was I cold. I guess with everything I was wearing I looked like RobCop or the Michelin man. We had some friendly banter, finished my coffee, then said my goodbye’s and vanished into the mist.
Some 45-50 miles outside of Ignace, I saw in the distance some breaks in the clouds. That’s blue sky, I know it is!! Sure enough the roads started to dry out, the temperatures started to climb, and the frown on my face started to fade. The roads also started to twist a little bit, so that was more amusement for me. Before Ignace, the roads were flat and straight and hardly a human in sight, except some idiot on a R1200GSA BMW. Yep, me.
I pulled into Vermilion Bay and decided time for lunch. I pulled into Busters Barbecue and had the Brisket, Red Pepper & Onions grilled, with fries. Yum! Sweet Tea was interesting also because it tasted fruity. Of what, I have no Clue. Apparently this restaurant in the middle of nowhere was on TV recently, because all the locals walked in and said, “We saw you on TV.” Oh ya!
When I stepped outside to the bike and started dressing, here comes a policeman wanting to chat. We talked about the bike, the crap hanging all over it, where I came from, and where I was heading. He got a big chuckle at just how ugly she was and I just said, “thank you”. He wished me safe travels and told me to watch the moose and deer. We shook hands and off I went.
The last half of my ride today was so much different than the first. I saw temperatures move from 39 degrees to 76 degrees by the time I rolled into Winnipeg. I went from no wind to a 30-50 cross wind the last 50 miles of the trip. Not gusting, steady constant wind so the lean angle never changed much. Overall the last half of the trip today was beautiful. I only wished that the day before and the first half of today would have been rain free. I’m afraid I missed some pretty sights. One more thing to note here. Where are all the motorcycles? I only saw one on the road until I got close to Winnipeg. Winnipeg is a big place with lot’s of traffic.
Ok, I turned on the Spot Tracker today and then forgot to fire up the Iphone for part two of the process. I have to tell the tracker to track me using an App in the phone and I forgot to do this in my hast to dress and leave first thing this morning. Once I arrived in Winnipeg and got an TXT message saying it was off, I fired it up. So, you can see where I ended up, but not my track. Sorry about that. Now here is the funny part. The wife was pretty adamant about me buying and using this thing. She has been shopping with her mother and sister-n-law the last day or so and didn’t even notice. No, it wasn’t her that notified me! This actually made me smile.
Mental and Physical evaluation after 4 days on the road. The mental stresses the last few days with sinkholes, laptop death, heated suit lower portion failure, and what seem to have been wet feet at the time but turned out not to be, has been a lot to process while trying to lay down the miles I want to cover. As long as things work like the are suppose to, I’m fine. When things break, it slows me down.
Physically, my butt is doing pretty good now. Day 1 and 2 was a little rough because the ole butt was starting to burn the last half of the ride each day. Day 3 was better and day 4 I hardly notice the ole butt. So I think we are getting the ole butt broken in. Ok, you all can stand and laugh now because you might pull a muscle laughing if your sitting. When it is cold and your not moving your head left and right enough, muscle in your neck start doing funny things. Today it felt as if I had a pinched nerve and was having a hard time looking right full. Funny thing though, when the temperature started rising, I’m good. Everything else is good.
Ok, I feel like I’m rambling here so I will wrap this up. I was just looking out my hotel window and the sun is still up at 9:10pm. The weather report is saying sunset at 9:15pm here. I also crossed into the Central time zone, so now I’m an hour behind you. I will post a picture below and a picture link for the photo’s that I could not link the other day. Weather tomorrow looks to be calm, 45-75 overcast along my route, so maybe not so bad. Mileage will step up another notch to 517. I forgot to get my total mileage so far, but I should be somewhere between 1800- 1900 miles so far.
PS – Laptop issue solved. Stopped at the Apple Store in Winnipeg, so blog will continue to run as long as I find wi-fi.
Pictures of the day or yesterday.
Dude, I am sure Mr. I planned for everything was stressing with all those little issues. It's still to cold for the Northern Motorcycle riders, that ain't dummies like you, they still have their bikes in the garage, it's not summer up their yet. Remember we are getting old the body doesn't hold up as well. Enjoy, I'll keep following along.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's it. Still parked in their garages. You would think they would use to this stuff and the current temperatures would feel like Summer. I did see some folks walking around in Shorts in Ignace where it was raining and 41 degrees. Damn!
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