I packed Wednesday night and left straight from work on Thursday. Unfortunately, I didn't escape work on time (I seldom do) so in this case I didn't manage to leave town until after 7pm, and I'd skipped lunch so I only got as far as Windsor before I had to stop for food. I parked the bike in front of the restaurant, went inside, and staked out a table by the window. I hadn't even taken my stitch off before a guy walked up to my bike and stood there staring at it, examining it from every angle. I watched through the window and finally ambled back outside to say hello. I thought perhaps this fellow was a 'maggot. He wasn't. He said he had one of those six cylinder Honda CBs.
After dinner, I rode east on the 401, as I have so many times before. It's still flat land, the countryside is still empty, and the traffic still goes really fast. It started to rain, and I pulled into a service plaza to put on my rain boots. At the service plaza, I met a Harley rider, a clean-cut, pleasant looking older fellow. He asked if I was on my way to Port Dover? I said no, and asked him what was in Port Dover? It turns out that every Friday the 13th, there is a big rally in Port Dover. The Harley rider said that last time, there were twelve thousand bikes there. All I can say is, that sure must be a sight to see, because Port Dover is so small that when I rode through there this spring, it didn't even look like a town.
My plan was to stay with my friend David, who lives in downtown Toronto. It was after midnight when I exited the freeway at Yonge Street. For those who are not familiar with Toronto, if you ever get a chance to go there make sure you set aside some time to wander down Yonge Street. The skyscrapers are clustered by the lake and Yonge Street runs north from the middle of the skyscraper district. The older buildings along Yonge Street have narrow little storefronts that go way, way back, filled with things from all over the world. The main floors of the gleaming new towers are like continuous shopping malls. The sidewalks are teeming with people, and the street is crowded with taxis and busses and bicycle messengers. The subway runs underneath. I suspect it would be entirely possible to live there and never even go outside, just take the subway from building to building. It reminds me of New York, only there are more people asking for spare change.
But that's in the daytime. It was much quieter at 12:30 on a rainy Thursday night, and I didn't have to ride Yonge Street. David's directions sent me north on Bay Street, which was a block or two over from Yonge. I rode eight or ten blocks along a four lane street that had trolley tracks in the middle lanes, and curb lanes reserved for busses and taxis. Trolley tracks are slippery in the rain, and the intersections had tracks veering in all directions, so I had almost no attention to spare for looking around me. I rode through an intersection where they were doing some construction stuff; the police were directing traffic, and I was sure I'd gotten lost.
Certain that I had missed my turn, I was looking around for a place to turn around when I spotted David's building. As instructed, I pulled up to the door into the underground parking garage and pressed the call button. The guard was deeply suspicious and wanted to know if I was expected, and why I wanted to take my bicycle into the parking garage? I explained that I was not riding a bicycle, I was riding a motorcycle, and that yes I was expected. He finally agreed to let me in on the condition that I report to him at the front desk immediately. Inside, I squeezed the bike into the same spot as Manuela's car, and spent ten minutes trying to find my way out of the parking garage and up to the front desk. I guess that when the parking is for residents and guests only, people are supposed to just know the way, so they don't put up any signs. The guard called David, and David told him to let me come upstairs.
I found the right door, David and Manuela welcomed me, and I teased David about living in a fortress. The apartment was on the eighteenth floor, in a corner, and had floor to ceiling windows with an excellent view of Yonge Street. The interior was filled with Legos. David had more Legos than I've ever seen in one place before. There was a huge castle, a mostly finished cathedral, and a bunch of smaller stuff. He had whole armies of Lego soldiers. It was cool.
In the morning I awoke to grey skies that held a promise of rain. After breakfasting with David, I rode out the Don Valley Parkway to the 401, and continued my journey eastward. I saw a lot of bikers coming the other way, in small groups. Perhaps they were on their way to Port Dover? I made a mental note to mark my calendar for the next warm weather Friday the 13th. It would be fun to ride on up there, and it's not very far from home.
I crossed back to the USA on the Thousand Islands Bridge. It was actually several bridges, and it was beautiful. I had never been there before, and it was fascinating to see how even the very tiniest islands had brightly colored cabins on them. The cabins looked like toys. I wondered if the area ever saw storms strong enough to sweep those cabins into the water and destroy those little tiny islands? I would think that the islands would be gradually eroded, and move downstream. Did the cabin owners have to do a lot of work to keep their islands stable?
The duty free store was on a larger island in between two bridges. I stopped to pick up some alcoholic beverages to take to the party as my contribution. I'd never really shopped at a duty free before. It was interesting to see what they sold there. This place was packed, and I saw a lot of people buying cases and cases of beer. I don't know a lot about beer, so I chose a twelve pack of something unfamiliar to buy, and hoped the others would like it. I don't remember what it was. It took me about ten minutes to repack the bike so I could carry it.
I crossed the remaining bridges and rolled into New York State. I stopped at the New York State welcome center. The first thing I noticed that was odd, was that they had no trash cans, instead they had signs saying that people should pack their trash out with them, and that there would be a steep fine for littering.
Inside, it was the usual state welcome center thing, thousands of brochures from tourist traps that want you to spend money, and no maps unless you ask the attendant for one. I waited in line, and finally it was my turn. I asked for a map, and the attendant gave me a whole magazine. As I was saying that I just wanted a map, she turned away and went on to the next people in line. These people wanted a restaurant recommendation; something local, different from home, but all the attendant knew was where the chains were, she kept trying to send them to Applebees, Fridays, or the Outback Steakhouse. I opened my magazine and found that the map was an insert in the middle, so I pulled it out.
I waited patiently until the restaurant people wandered away to seek a restaurant on their own, and then I asked the woman at the counter if she could throw away the magazine for me since I couldn't easily pack it out on the bike. She scowled and snapped, "If all you wanted was the map, why didn't you say so? That's so wasteful!" How charming. I didn't want to get into it with this nasty creature, so I left the magazine on the counter, turned and walked out. I heard her parting shot, "Hmph! Some people..." and the door closed. This welcome center wasn't terribly welcoming. No trash cans, threatening signs, surly workers who claim that the area doesn't have any unique restaurants. I thought to myself that if this was a sample, I'd just as soon not visit New York State again.
Outside in the parking lot, I chatted with a Harley riding couple from Ontario. They wanted to know about my Aerostich suit, and how long had it taken me to come from Michigan? They were nice, and it restored my good spirits.
I examined my map and picked out a road across New York that I hoped would be pleasant. I needed to pick up the ferry in Plattsburgh. Route 3 looked as close to direct as anything, and it was marked scenic. I set out down I-81 south, and cut across the corner on route 342. My route took me along the edge of a military base, and I saw a lot of army vehicles tooling around on the roads. The terrain was mostly flat to rolling, with farm fields and small towns.
The rain that had threatened all day started to come down as I was buying gas in Fells Mills. I decided I might as well eat now, before I went out and got wet. The gas station had some deli sandwiches and pizza and stuff like that, and a half dozen tables. I sat at a table munching food, looking out at the rain, and listening to the women who worked there as they gossiped. One of them had apparently been putting in way too much overtime, and the others were accusing her of working herself to death. She started proclaiming that she was a woman of steel! I snuck a look and saw her striking a superhero pose. It was cute. These ladies had much nicer personalities than the welcome center attendant.
The rain wasn't going to let up, so finally I got back on the bike and headed out into it.
I rode through a town called Natural Bridge, and craned my neck this way and that looking to see if there was actually a Natural Bridge there. I didn't see one, and I didn't see a sign pointing the way to it, either. I wondered how the town got its name?
I stopped at a historical marker near Lake Bonaparte to change my CD and look at a historical marker. The area was once home to French political exiles, but few of them had stayed The winters were too hard and the area too isolated. I was glad I had almost a full tank of gas, because the area was very sparsely populated. I was getting close to the area the map designated as the "Adirondack Park" and I was hoping for some small mountains, some twisties. But alas it was not to be; the "peaks" listed on the map were mere hills. Probably just as well; it was getting on toward late afternoon, and the rain showed no signs of letting up. Twisties would have slowed my progress. I settled in and enjoyed the broad sweepers and the emptiness of the landscape.
In Saranac Lake, a cruiser of some sort turned in up ahead of me, as the area started to look more populated. I ended up following that bike for close to an hour, but I never overtook it. I wasn't really trying. Eventually it turned off on another road, and I kept going. I pulled into Plattsburgh just after dark, got gas, and followed the signs to the car ferry. I bought my ticket, and got into the line they directed me to. The rain let up momentarily, and I could see lights across the water. I watched the ferry come in and dock, the cars that were on it drove off, and they loaded us on.
The metal deck was wet and I was afraid it would be terribly slippery, so I boarded with extreme caution. They put me right at the front, in a parking place that was too narrow for a cage. I very carefully put my bike on the sidestand and climbed off. I debated hoisting it up onto the centerstand, but I was afraid I'd slip and fall so I decided against it. I walked a few steps to the rope at the front of the boat. There were a couple of teenage girls and an older woman there already, looking out over the water.
One of the girls turned and looked at me, startled. "Eeep!"
"I hope I'm not that scary?"
"You startled me! Where did you come from?" The other girls giggled.
I pointed back at the bike.
"We just went and saw Blair Witch. It's made us really jumpy."
"Wow, you take the ferry to go to the movies?"
"Sometimes. Plattsburgh is much closer."
"I never took a ferry like this one before."
"Really? Where are you from?"
"Michigan. I've been on much larger ferries, and much smaller ones, but
never one like this, and I never drove a motorcycle on one before."
"Did you ride all the way here from Michigan?"
"Yes."
"Where are you staying?"
"With some folks on the Vermont side that I know from a motorcycle club
I'm in."
The ferry had moved out a bit from the shore, and the waves picked up a bit. I got a little nervous about the bike. I was afraid it would fall, so I went back and straddled it, placing my feet far apart on the deck. The ride was very short. I carefully rode up the ramp and back onto the wet pavement. John had given good directions, and I quickly found my way to the house.
I was disappointed to see very few bikes. The folks that were there came out to welcome me. The Bocks were excellent hosts, the baby was cute, the lobster dinner was tasty. Very few maggots had braved the rain, and the ones who were there have already told the tale elsewhere.
Sunday morning I said goodbye to my hosts and the small group of riders who were planning to ride south around the lake that day. I took the ferry back across the lake, and made my way north and west. I saw beautiful forests of deciduous trees, and noticed that there were plastic coated cables strewn everywhere. Again and again I saw this, and wondered what the cables were for? Eventually it dawned on me that these were maple sugar farms; the cables were actually tubes connecting the taps on the trees with large tanks where they capture the sap. It made sense; these tubes probably saved a lot of work, and kept flies from getting into the sap. I wondered who first came up with the idea of sugaring? It's a pretty strange thing, to drive a spigot into a tree, collect the juice that comes out, them render it down to syrup or candy. How would anyone ever get the idea to do it? Do other trees produce sap that could be used this way, or are maples somehow unique? Could one conceivably make oak sugar or poplar sugar? What would it taste like if you did?
As I was riding along the northern edge of New York state, I thought about how the road I was on was right on the Canadian border. I had never crossed the Canadian border without going through a tunnel or over a bridge. Here I was in the middle of nowhere; the border had to be within a mile or so , and there were plenty of little tiny roads heading north. What would a border crossing look like in a place where there wasn't a major metropolitan area, a freeway, and all the traffic channeled to a couple of bridges and tunnels? I decided to go see. I picked a tiny paved road that did not even appear on my map, and turned north.
The terrain was flat to rolling, very much like the area I'm from. Every half mile or so, there would be another old farmhouse on a hill. I didn't pass any cars coming the other way. Maybe there would be a fence across the road? I found it hard to imagine that they'd have border guards to staff a little road like this, but it was even harder to imagine they'd leave it open and unguarded. What would it be like to live in a farmhouse where your nearest neighbor lived on the other side of the border? When I was a child, we played in the fields, roaming freely; we had friends who lived a half mile or a mile away as the crow flies, and we'd walk to their houses through the woods and fields. Were children from these farmhouses allowed to walk into Canada and play with the Canadian children from the farmhouse on the other side of the field? If it was not really allowed, did they do it anyway? Did hunters get lost and cross the border while chasing deer through the woods? Would the roads on the Canada side meet up with the roads on the US side, or would they just end? I hadn't seen any dead end signs.
I came over a hill, and there was an orange cone in the middle of the road, and a sign saying all traffic must stop. On the left hand side, there was a little toll-booth style building, bristling with antenna. Just a little farther, on the right, there was a white house right next to the road, with a little drive up lane under a carport. I followed the arrows on the pavement and pulled up under the carport. I noticed a Honda Shadow parked next to the house. A woman in uniform came out and asked me the usual questions. Once the formalities were out of the way, I was in no hurry to ride off; I was curious to find out more about what it was like at this border post. I started asking her questions, and she was not loathe to talk.
I learned that she had been assigned to this border station for several years. She usually saw about a dozen cars a day, and almost never did she see anyone she didn't know. (In fact, one car came while I was there. She knew them, and she waved them on without even having them stop.) This station was only open during business hours in the winter. She said the post on the USA side was open most of the time, and even when it was closed, the USA guys had mobile units in the area. When her station was closed, the USA guys would monitor both directions and give chase if need be. In the fall, hunters crossed into the USA from Canada, but no hunters ever came north into Canada. In the winter, most of the traffic through the post was on snowmobiles. There wasn't anything for people to cross over and do in this area; they didn't just cross over for lunch the way we do in Michigan because there weren't any restaurants, or anything else for that matter, anyplace near this border station.
The Shadow belonged to her husband, who had come out to bring her lunch. He came out of the house and joined us, and I answered a bunch of questions about my bike and my trips. I also answered questions about the border in Michigan. She had never been stationed in a busy area, so it seemed as odd to her as her border seemed to me. I told her about crossing the Mexican border into Tijuana on foot, and how different it is from crossing into Canada.
After chatting for fifteen minutes or so, I figured I'd better get going, since I did have to get home sometime that day. She wished me well on my trip, and her husband gave me a long set of directions for getting to the 401.
I almost immediately got lost. I didn't have a map of Quebec, and they don't show all those tiny roads on provincial highway maps anyways. I decided to find my way back south and get back on my maps. I needed to get gas soon anyways, better to get it in NY where it's cheaper. I picked a road south. Pretty soon I was crossing the border in Fort Covington. This post was a bit larger, with multiple booths. It looked like a bank drive-through. I pulled up at the one open booth and stopped. The guard stared at me. I stared back and waited. She just kept staring. Finally I turned the bike off and said hello. At that point, I got a frosty, hostile sounding "Thank you!" Great. I've crossed the border hundreds of times without incident; would this be the time I got a hassle? My bike isn't loud. What was this woman's problem? I smiled politely and waited. After a long pause, she asked me the usual four questions, scowling the whole time, and waved me on. I thanked her and left. Unpleasant people are their own punishment. I didn't let her get me down.
I followed 37 west out of Fort Covington, and started looking for gas stations. I planned to cross back into Canada in Cornwall, and I didn't have far to go. I saw an extremely shabby looking gas station with one pump. The sign out front advertised a price about thirty cents a gallon cheaper than I'd seen elsewhere in New York. I assumed this gas station was not actually functional, and the sign hadn't been taken down. Either that or there was something wrong with the gas. I passed it by. A mile or two later, I saw several more gas stations, all advertising equally cheap prices. Maybe something had happened on the world stage, to drive the gas prices down? I hadn't heard any news in a couple of days, after all.
I picked the least shabby looking of this bunch of gas stations and pulled in. No pay at the pump here; these pumps were the old mechanical kind. The sign said they were all full service. I almost pulled out, but decided to see if they'd let me pump my own gas anyways. There were two pump attendants, each busy pumping gas into cages. I pulled up to the third pump, which had no attendant, stopped the bike, and walked over to see if the cashier would turn the pump on for me. The cashier's booth was plastered with cigarette posters, advertising cheap cigarettes. Suddenly I realized I must be on a reservation.
I stepped up to the cashier's booth, peered in through the window, and saw something extremely odd. There was one person in there, a boy about fifteen years old. He was bound hand and foot, and tied to a chair! I turned and looked towards the pump attendants. They didn't seem to notice or care that I was looking into the booth. Who tied this kid up? Why? Should I interfere in whatever was going on? The kid looked up at me, nodded, and smiled. I walked back to my bike, trying to decide what to do. That kid hadn't looked at all distressed. Maybe it was some kind of initiation or practical joke. The kid appeared to be enjoying himself. I decided that his kink was OK, that I wouldn't interfere, but I didn't want to be there for it.
I started to put my helmet back on, and as I was doing this, the kid I'd just seen all tied up came out of the booth, walked over to my pump, and asked what grade of gas I wanted. I smiled and said, "I just have to ask. What was that all about?" He told me he'd had a bet on with the other guys, that they couldn't tie him up well enough to hold him. He looked as smug as the cat who swallowed the canary. He was perfectly willing to let me pump my own gas, and I filled it up.
A little farther down the road, I saw an unusual sign, so unusual that I stopped and wrote the text down in my notebook.
Akwesasne Territory NO IRS NYSP FBI NY State Dept of Taxation Sheriffs Allowed Within Security Enforced by Rotiskenrahkete
I crossed the border into Ontario at Cornwall and hopped on the 401. Time to make tracks for home; it was already afternoon and I knew that even at the elevated speeds common on this racetrack of an expressway, I had eight or nine hours left to travel. Sure enough, even the slowest cages on the 401 this fine Sunday afternoon were traveling 20 or 30 percent above the posted speed limit. I picked a speed where I passed only a few more cars than I allowed to pass me, and set the throttle lock. The miles flew by under my wheels.
I overtook an annoying little blue car. Maybe the driver was drunk; he was certainly driving erratically. He kept matching speed with semi trucks and sitting next to them for miles on end, weaving violently back and forth in his lane for no apparent reason. I decided that while I would really like to get past this car, I didn't want to be very close behind it; it was an accident waiting to happen. I dropped back, gave the blue car plenty of space, and waited for a really wide opportunity to pass. I wasn't going to get close to that car unless I had plenty of escape room.
A white pickup truck with extremely bright headlights (in Canada, all cars drive with their headlights on) came up behind and started tailgating me. I looked for a spot to move over to the right and let the tailgater by, but the traffic was all congested behind the idiot in the blue car. Grr. Finally the blue car passed the truck it was next to, oscillated back and forth between the two lanes a few more times, and settled in on the right. I decided this was my chance to pass it, and I didn't want to be near this car any longer than I had to be. I whacked the throttle, way full out, and left the tailgater behind like he was sitting still. I screamed past the blue car at well over the ton, and it wasn't a metric ton either. Over 160kph in a 100kph zone! I hoped there weren't any cops around. Finally I got far enough past the blue car that I felt it was safe to slow down and pull into the right lane.
I waited for the rude pickup truck driver to pass me. As it pulled even with me, I looked over and saw the lettering on the door. OPP. Eeek! Ontario Provincial Police! I just exceeded the speed limit by a huge amount, right in front of a cop car!
I needn't have worried. These LEOs weren't paying any attention to me. Within minutes they were out of sight. Every car on that freeway was speeding, and I didn't see any brake lights come on, no one slowed down even a little bit. They don't call that road the Indi 401 for nothing. I laughed as I passed yet another "O.P.P. Safety through Enforcement" sign.
I crossed the border into Detroit without incident, and pulled into my garage not long after midnight. The next day I would cross the border four more times, but that's another story...