Day 18: Thunder Bay, ON: 766 km

July 16, 2013

Give me a place to stand, and place to grow, and call this land, Ontario…

It was hot Hot HOT (cue Buster Poindexter).

It was a great start to the day. The hotel had a nice breakfast and Dendog and I “rushed” out the door hoping to avoid the impending doom of the stormy forecast. We were fortunate in that not a single drop of rain fell on us. Some of the roads were still wet, so we timed our departure amazingly well.

But oh it was hot. Most of the day was above 30 C. It peaked at 35 C. We spent hours riding when it was 33 C. We have “Heat Busters” (guessing at the name) and I have a Frogg Toggs Chilly Pad. We kept those in the cooler until they were needed. At each stop we took them off and put them back in the cooler. It helps.

At the Eagle Lake, ON rest stop we were about to settle into our usual Snickers and Granola bar lunch when a nice couple from Toronto (yes, a nice couple from Toronto) offered us some sandwiches. We enjoyed those and a nice visit with them. They were travelling by car to Winnipeg and then on to Calgary. As I have mentioned before, many people talk to us and ask us about our journey. Doesn’t happen by car.

Note that the distance in the title might be a bit off. Something may be screwy in my records.

My bike passed 20,000 km on the odometer today. I’ve never had a bike with that many km on it. I’ve also not ridden more than 7000 km in an entire season.

There were 6 short bridges down to single lanes between Thunder Bay and Dryden. Dendog and I had a system to help keep the bikes cool and all was good.

Our hotel is pretty good. No pool, so we went for a walk. We had Pizza Hut for dinner, it was much better than Smitty’s too. Everything is much better than Smitty’s.

Tomorrow is another 700km day as we head towards Sault Ste Marie, ON. It will be our last night together as we each have to head home the next day.

Ride the dream!