Jun 02 - Wawa (No kidding!) Ontario where it’s cold as hell

The Super 8 Motel people are thinking, they provide an old worn out towel in the bathroom to be used for cleaning shoes, bikes, anything dirty. It beats seeing their good linens used for the same thing and at the same time provides another avenue for recycling. I’ve seen this done before but not often; last time was in BC last year. Maybe it’s a Canadian thing? Kudos to them anyway, I was able to clean most of the construction zone crud off the bike this morning. Naturally I ran through another construction zone this afternoon so it’s back to square one.
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When I looked out the window this morning I was greeted with the remnants of the rain storm that had passed through during the night. The sun was out but it was cold and the sky had lots of dark clouds on the horizon. The weatherman confirmed what he’d been predicting, rain and cold the further east you went. Not what I wanted to hear but hanging around Super 8 wasn’t on my long-term agenda so I packed it up and got ready to leave. About that time one of the other guests came over to chat it up and during the conversation he recommended taking 17, the Trans Canada instead of the backwater roads I’d planned on. His description of the two routes swung me over to his thinking as 17 runs alongside Lake Superior and the views are super. The back roads take you through flat boring country full of bugs and nothing to look at according to him so 17 it was.

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I stopped to gas up and reset the daily trip meter, then hooked up with 17 heading around Lake Superior. Just out of town I spotted the Terrance Fox memorial, one of the stops the motel guy had recommended seeing. Terry was a young man who lost one of his legs, recovered and ultimately ran all the way across Canada with his prosthetic leg. As an inspiration to people everywhere he raised millions of dollars for medical research causes. When he died he people of Canada erected the memorial overlooking Thunder Bay as a tribute to him. It was definitely worth the visit.
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Before leaving I thought I’d ask someone to take a picture of me with Thunder Bay in the background. A guy came by about then and I asked him if he’d take one for me and of course he said sure. Knowing how people sometimes react to strange cameras I opened the view screen and set things up so all he had to do was point and push the big fat button. You ever come across someone who’s unable to chew gum and remain upright at the same time? I assure you, he’s living in Thunder Bay. As I was posing the first thing I noticed was he had the lens aimed at my belly. That’s probably OK as the camera is very forgiving and I figured I could crop what I needed. Then I noticed he was having a really hard time with the view screen, lots of furrows popping out of his forehead so I told him to try using the view port, same as on older cameras. That helped but then I noticed his trigger finger turning white from the effort of pushing the shutter button. Nice. The problem was he was pushing down on the camera body between the shutter button and the on/off button. I showed him again which button to push and took up my posing position again. This time he frowned and said “It’s no good; I think the batteries are dead.” I looked and noted he’d pressed the tiny on/off button shutting the camera off. Taking it gently away from him I examined it and said “Dang it, you’re right they’re dead. Thanks anyway, I’ll just buy some new ones.” We did the mutual smile thing and each went our own way. I hoped he didn’t notice me taking more pictures on the way out of the park.
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Leaving the memorial I returned to my ride on 17 and after a few more miles noticed the sky was becoming ominous looking, black clouds were gathering in nasty looking formations and heading my way. I stopped for a quick photo of them and continued on towards the darkening horizon. Sure enough light droplets began to gather on my visor so I pulled over and put the rain cover on the tank bag. A steady downpour began as soon as I got back on the bike and within a few miles I was shivering with the cold. What a crappy day it was turning into I thought. I spotted one of the infrequent rest stops and decided to give myself a break for a few minutes and maybe take a couple more shots of Lake Superior. By the time I got parked and retrieved the camera the weather had socked in and visibility of the lake was down to nil. At least the Birch trees in the rest stop were pretty so I settled for another photo of the Ninja plus one of myself. I was cold and damp and not a happy camper.
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Returning to the miserable ride I continued on only now it was just stare ahead and move along as quickly as the circumstances allowed. About an hour passed without letup in the rain when I came across a lone restaurant way out in the middle of nowhere. It was one of those one-man operations and I was glad as hell to find it. He served me piping hot coffee right away and I ordered a bowl of his homemade cream of broccoli soup. It was great and I topped it off with a slice of lemon pie plus more hot coffee. I liked the guy, he was cordial and his place was clean and food was good. I probably should have taken a picture of him but the rain was starting up again so off I went.
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I continued along the highway, now heading south and decided to look for an early stop for the day. That’s exactly what I’d tried to do yesterday and ended up riding forever. Resolute in my thinking I wasn’t going to settle for that again today. My trip odometer was barely 200 miles but nearly all of it was in pelting cold rain and I was getting fed up with it, I wanted a warm room with a TV and an ice machine nearby. Like yesterday it wasn’t going to be easy, and when I’d ridden another 100+ miles I came to the town of Wawa. That’s right kiddies, Wawa. Figuring it had to be interesting I pulled off the highway into the little burg and sure enough, there were several motels. The Sportsman’s Motel won the choice as it has a restaurant next door and a Beer Store across the road. What more could a guy want?
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I checked in, unloaded the bike and immediately headed for The Beer Store. They’d just closed! Dammit anyway, missed it by ten minutes. Moving on to plan B, I scored milk, Oreos, and Schweppes Tonic water at the little grocery store down the road. After depositing my precious cargo in my room I hoofed it over to the Viking restaurant where I had one of their house special burgers, a veritable jaw breaker and tasty too. While waiting for it to arrive I entertained myself attempting to estimate the gross weight of the 14 ladies occupying a huge table across the room. Not an easy task but I finally arrived at 2500 lbs on the hoof, handbags and paraphernalia not included. I had to give it up as one of them had begun to stare at me and a cold fear gripped my heart, what if they were witches? What if they could read minds? They might come for me later…
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And that’s it, another day on the road; this one will be memorable as the coldest so far. However If I continue east it’s not likely to hold that distinction for long.