The last couple of years, I've spent the July 4th holiday weekend in Quebec. I've got friends in Ottawa, David, Marna, and Lorayne. Every year, they borrow David's parent's cabin in the Gatineau Hills, and host a weekend long party. It's a magical place. Last year, Michael and I drove to this event in his cage. We had just taken the MSF course, we'd only managed to find one bike to share, and neither of us was ready for such a long motorcycle trip. It's nine hours to Ottawa, and another hour from there to the cabin. This year, Michael could not go, he had to work, and I was going to ride my motorcycle.
Marna and David visit the Detroit area several times each year; they have many friends in the science fiction fan community here. They invited several people from this area to the party, and one of them, Troy, is also a Sabre rider. He decided to join me for the trip.
I am running very low on vacation for 1999, and I wanted to avoid taking an extra day off for the trip. So Troy and I arranged to meet at my office at 5:30 on Friday, and leave straight from there. We would ride about 2/3 of the way, and finish the trip in the morning. The road to the cabin is scary and I didn't want to push on through and hit it at night anyways.
Alas, it was not to be. Troy and I each realized we'd forgotten things we needed, and we had to visit both our houses. The houses are on the way, but it still cost us some time. We rolled out of Ypsilanti at around 6:30pm. Oh, and on the way from my office to his house, Troy was stung when a bee flew up the sleeve of his jacket.
I-94 and Detroit were uneventful. We gassed up at the station by the bridge (last chance to buy gas at U.S. prices) and rode across into Canada. Troy had never been any farther into Canada than Windsor, and he was looking forward to seeing the 401. I told him it wasn't that exciting, that it looks like Ohio only emptier. Once he saw it, he was forced to agree.
Troy was nervous about getting pulled over, and I didn't see any reason to hurry, so we moseyed along at a less than spirited pace. We stopped for dinner at a service plaza near London. Over dinner we discussed where we might sleep that evening. Troy was not keen on camping, he preferred a motel room, so we agreed to look for a motel room and use the tent as a backup plan. We stopped for gas at a service plaza near Kitchener just as the rain began in earnest. Someplace between London and Kitchener, Troy's speedometer and odometer had stopped working.
We moved the bikes to a spot that didn't block any pumps, yet was out of the rain, and tried to figure out the cause of the problem. His sending unit pivoted on the front axle, but mine did not. Hmm. I also noticed that his brake disks were not centered between his forks the way mine were. We propped the bike up by resting the case guards on a milk crate, and removed the front wheel from the bike. He pulled out his Clymer's manual, and we examined the diagram. It showed two washers (15) next to the speedometer housing (16) and sending unit(17). We did not see washers like this in there.
Of course this diagram has the thing disassembled a lot farther than we wanted to disassemble it at 10pm in the rain at a rest stop in another country. Besides, I just had my front wheel off a couple weeks ago and I didn't remember any washers like this. It was a mystery. But when we put it back together, it worked. At least temporarily.
One good thing about this little wrenchfest, was that the rain stopped while we were working, and within ten minutes we were riding on dry pavement again.
We crossed the Toronto metro area in the dark. On the east side of Toronto, there was construction and it went on for miles. It was much easier to get through this at night, than it had been when I crossed it in midafternoon on my way to Maine. We didn't have to do any stop and go stuff at all. Troy really disliked the construction. I wasn't too distressed, because I'd been through it before and knew to expect kilometer upon kilometer of grooved pavement and orange barrels, and I was simply grateful not to have a traffic jam as well.
By the time we got through Toronto, it was midnight. We started looking for that motel room, and couldn't find one anywhere.
Just finding the motels was tricky. Every exit seemed to have one of those amenity pictograph signs, that tell you whether there is gas, food, lodging, camping, etc available at the next exit. We would see a pictograph of a bed, signaling a motel at the exit, but when we got off the freeway there would be no motel in sight, and no sign saying which way to go. Ditto the gas and food. I'm not saying I like the USA system, of having gas stations and fast food joints clustered around every second or third freeway off-ramp, but still it would be nice to know which exits actually do have those things, and if they are out of sight of the highway it would be nice to have a sign saying which way to go. What good does it do the traveler if the government puts up hundreds of signs promising amenities at various exits, but none of the tourists can find those amenities?
The motels we did manage to find were all full. We made our way farther and farther east, with numerous wild goose chases to look for the motels promised by the stupid freeway exit signs. Early in our search, one of the motels we stopped at was next to another motel, the Dynasty Inn. The Dynasty had tons of flashing lights and signs offering 60 adult table dancers. We didn't ask if they had rooms. Some places are just too sleazy, and I didn't think we were that desperate. Little did I know.
We stopped at a service plaza that had a perfect spot for camping - a parklike picnic area, with dozens of tables widely scattered, grass and trees, and a central building with bathrooms which was unlocked, even though it was 2:30am. It looked like a campground, with sites fronting on a circular drive, there were no signs saying we couldn't camp, and it was completely deserted. I was all set to pick an inconspicuous spot to pitch the tent, but Troy held out for the motel room.
Finally one of the motels we stopped at was able to find us a room at a room at their sister motel, in Peterborough. Peterborough is thirty minutes or so from the 401, but it was in the right direction. In the morning, we could take route 7 the rest of the way to Ottawa. We decided to go for it. When we finally got there and took off our helmets, I could hear the pre-dawn bird symphony beginning. The motel clerk was laying out the continental breakfast. She agreed to give us a late checkout, noon. We raided the breakfast bar on our way to bed.
In the morning, Troy checked the phone book for a Honda stealer. He found one. They were not answering their phone, but their message said they were open 9am to 1pm on Saturday, and he was able to find the intersection they claimed to be on, on a map. We left the motel a bit before noon and rode off to look for this shop. We found the intersection, but the shop wasn't there. There was a Honda car dealer and a Harley shop, but no Honda bike shop. We stopped at the Harley shop to inquire. The man behind the counter at the Harley shop was very friendly, and gave us direction to the Honda shop. Apparently these two roads intersect several times. He said he knew all the guys at the Honda shop, and he confirmed that they were indeed open. He said they often got too busy to answer the phone on Saturdays.
I led the way to the Honda shop, and found it without trouble. They were closed. Sigh.
We decided to press on despite Troy's speedo failure. We followed Route 7 out of town. It was a pretty decent road, as such roads go, but there were many slow cages. Troy didn't have a speedo, so I led the way, and I set a quick pace.
I was just slowing down from the burst of speed I'd poured on to pass one of the slow cages, when a woodchuck ran right in front of me and under my wheels. No chance whatsoever to avoid him. Chunk thump, both wheels went over him. I hate it when stuff like that happens. Poor little critter, to lose his life just like that! I felt kind of bad about it. Troy didn't help by telling me the tale of the view from behind, when we next stopped for gas. Apparently it was a gory scene. I suppose it could have been worse, it could have been a deer, or I could have crashed trying to avoid this little critter. Still, given my druthers I would prefer to not run over small animals.
It was so hot! The heat was making me sleepy, and when we stopped for gas I had to sit down and doze for five or ten minutes. It took a long time to drive Route 7 to Ottawa. We didn't get there until 7pm, and the cabin was another hour past Ottawa.
The Ottawa/Hull area has several large rivers and canals running through it, so navigation can get really tricky. I got us thoroughly lost. Twice I realized we'd gone in a circle. But finally we made our escape north on Route 307, into the wilds of rural Quebec. It's beautiful up there. The trees have finally leafed out enough to cover the damage from that terrible ice storm two winters back. Everything was the silvery green color of midsummer.
We turned off 307 onto a smaller paved road, and then onto one that was smaller still. Then we turned off the pavement onto a wide gravel road. This gravel was recently graded and very loose, and the road went up and down steep hills and around tight curves. It's pretty scary to be riding a motorcycle towards a tight curve on loose gravel, down a hill so steep that braking enough to slow the bike causes the bike to skid out from under you. This went on for what seemed like forever but was probably only a few kilometers. We turned off the wide gravel road onto a narrower one; this one had not been graded so it was bumpy, but more solid. After a kilometer or so, this road was reduced to a single lane, then a two-rutter, with grass in the middle and boulders in the tracks. It went over even steeper little hills, around curves, very close to trees. I hoped we wouldn't meet an oncoming car! Some sections of the road had been washed out in rainstorms and had gullies to ride over. It got scarier and scarier. By the time we reached the cabin, the entire road surface consisted of pine needles. But we didn't crash!
Our friends came out of the cabin to greet us. They'd been worried, since I'd told them to expect us around lunchtime and we'd just barely made it in time for dinner. We enjoyed the breeze off the lake and the late afternoon sunshine, and in the evening we played Scruples. It started to rain lightly, as my friend Marna and I pitched my tent on the deck. The tent kept us dry and comfy and we enjoyed having the privacy for a serious conversation.
Sunday we loafed about, but eventually we had to face the road out. Troy decided to stay later and ride back with David, but I left on my own, slightly earlier. It was easier traveling the goat tracks out than it had been riding in. By the time I reached the outskirts of the metro area, I was feeling hot, tired, and thirsty. So I stopped at a little ice cream shop by the river. The teenage girls staffing it had only slightly more English than I had French, but I managed by dint of much smiling and pointing to order myself a slush. The hard part was choosing a flavor. I read the list and picked one of the French names at random, "Cerise". It turned out to be cherry. I sat on the deck overlooking the river, and leafed through a newspaper someone had left behind. It was in French, and I didn't understand a word, but it was fun to look at the pictures and guess what the stories were about.
I found my way to David, Marna, and Lorayne's new house without much trouble; it was just around the corner from their old house, in an area of older homes and apartments near downtown Ottawa. David and Lorayne were not home yet, but Marna and I rode two-up over to the Market, and had a huge dinner at an Indian restaurant. After dinner, we came back to the house and parked the bike. It was still extremely hot, and I didn't want to sit inside. I suggested we walk somewhere for cold drinks.
Marna led the way to a 7-11 about ten blocks away. We were inside choosing our frozen drinks when it started raining outside. Rain just poured down in sheets! We stood inside and looked at the magazines while we waited for the rain to stop. While we were waiting, a motorcycle roared up, and its female rider dashed inside to wait with us. The bike was a Yamaha Seca 550, like my first bike. I tried to engage the rider in conversation, but she didn't speak English. It didn't take long for the rain to stop. It was not significantly cooler outside after the rain, just more humid. Sigh.
As we crossed the street with our slushes, we noticed a man standing on the corner, not doing anything, just standing there. As we walked past him and down the narrow side street towards her house, the man turned and followed us. Our alarm bells went off immediately; with one mind we moved out to walk close together, in the center of the street, where the moon was brightest and we could see all around. We picked up our pace, and walked tall and strong, our ears tuned to follow the movements of this man behind us. We talked loudly of trivial things, and braced ourselves for confrontation. None came. He followed us for about a block, and then he went into a house. We walked another half block in silence, and then discussed the event. For a brief period, it had been quite scary. Back at the house, David, Lorayne, and Troy were waiting, and Lorayne gave us a tongue-lashing for worrying them, we should have left a note. We didn't tell them about the scary guy.
It was so hot! I ended up sleeping on a screened in second floor balcony. This was probably the coolest place in the house, and it was still so hot I could hardly sleep. In the morning I woke to the sound of trucks and curbside garbage pickup outside. Troy wanted to stop at a Radio Shack to replace a lost cord for his mini-disk player, and Lorayne gave us directions. We said our good-byes and rode off in search of Radio Shack.
The Radio Shack was easy to find, and I turned onto the next street to look for parking. What luck! There was an empty metered spot right on the corner, and I pulled in. Troy parked next to me, and I stayed with the bikes while he ran into the Radio Shack. He had just disappeared around the corner when I noticed the sign that said this spot was reserved for vendor trucks. Argh! I looked around nervously. Sure enough, not far away and heading my way, was a uniformed fellow with a notebook, writing parking tickets. Argh! I looked frantically for a space to move the bike to. There was a legal spot just a little ways down. The meter guy arrived at my corner as I was dogpaddling my bike backwards out of the spot. There was no way I could move both bikes quickly enough, so I decided to stay and try to talk both of our ways out of this. The meter reader was actually fairly friendly and amenable, quite sympathetic to my plight. He didn't write us tickets. But he said the truck drivers were very hostile and I better get the bikes moved really quick before one of them came, because they'd park us in and keep us there while they called the cops to have us towed. Great. He asked me where was my friend and how long did I expect him to be gone? Just then, Troy came back and got on his bike. We got out of the bad parking spot and pulled away just as a truck arrived. I waved goodbye to the friendly meter reader and led us out of the city.
The ride south to the 401 was hot, hot, hot. By the time we got to the 401 I thought I might pass out. I led us off the freeway and into a park and ride lot. We parked the bikes and rested in the shade. After a half-hour or so, I felt ready to continue. But this pretty much set the pattern for the whole trip home. An hour on the bikes, a half hour to rest.
Troy didn't want to lead, since his speedo wasn't working, so I took over as the full time leader. On my trip to Maine, I had stopped at a Honda dealer in Kingsport and they were able to sell me a replacement grommet to hold my side cover on. I remembered this dealer, and it was still only midafternoon, so I led Troy off the freeway at that point, to see if they could help him with his speedo problem. They couldn't. But they gave us some bottled water and offered us free demo rides on Buells. Why not?
They asked us each which model we wanted to try. I didn't know what the Buell models were, so I said I didn't care. Troy actually chose a specific bike. The bike they put me on was the touring model, I think it was called Thunder Road. It vibrated like crazy! I didn't find the ride at all comfortable; I can't imagine touring on that thing. But it actually handled fairly well, and of course it had lots of torque. The stealer had three other demo bikes in addition to the ones Troy and I were on. A dealership guy on a Harley led our little pack, and another dealership guy on a Buell brought up the rear. I was second to last, and this dealership guy kept coming up next to me and doing wheelies. I didn't like that. We rode five or ten miles in a big circle and came back. It was interesting and fun, but I wouldn't say I'm now panting to go out and buy a Buell.
We stopped at several of the service plazas along the 401. They were all just mobbed; lots of people were traveling and the heat had them all stopping. Most of the plazas were out of ice, due to the crowds, and their air conditioning was not adequate to the task. But we'd get water and sit around outside in the shade.
In Toronto we decided to try taking the new freeway, the 407. It's a toll road, with a twist. Instead of having booths where everyone stops, they take pictures of your license plate as you go by, and at the end of the month they send you a computer-generated bill in the mail. Since we were not from Ontario, we didn't get a bill, and we don't expect to. The 407 was wide, open, uncrowded and very smooth; I highly recommend it to anyone riding past Toronto.
I saw one unusual thing on the 407. There was a sport bike parked in the median, just leaning against a utility pole with no one around. I looked and looked but I didn't see a rider anywhere.
We stopped for dinner in Kitchener, and dawdled over many refills on our cold drinks; we didn't end up leaving until dusk. It was cooler once the sun had set.
Outside of Windsor, I got sleepy again and had to pull over. We took a long off ramp that led to a country road. At the foot of the ramp, we pulled over, and stopped the bikes. It was so dark! I was watching the fireflies in the brush across the road, when Troy said to look at the stars. The sky was clear and there were an incredible number of stars visible. I leaned back and just drank them in. I couldn't even make out any constellations because there were so many more stars than I was used to seeing. The Milky Way was so dense that it looked like a glowing cloud; so many stars there that they didn't even resolve to pinpoints of light. It was incredible. We both stared in silence. I don't know how long we stood there.
It turned out that Troy's speedo problem was because Nicholson's Honda, here in Ann Arbor, sold him the wrong axle. I do not know why he replaced his axle in the first place.
I've decided I won't take any more really long trips in that kind of weather. The heat just knocked me flat, and I barely managed to make it back.