Day 1: Superslab Part 1

The goal of day 1 was to get as far to the west coast as possible. I had 2 options, cross at Sarnia which would send me through the Greater Toronto Area, Detriot, and Chicago during rush hour or take the road less travelled and cross at Sault Ste Marie. I opted for the latter although it will cost me 4 extra hours. At least they’re 4 predictable hours as opposed to the unpredictable city traffic. Besides, I’m coming back home that way.

I started the day off a little late as I had to run to Canadian Tire to get another dry sack for my tent. Planned start time was 9am, but I left at 10am. It was about 15 degrees and raining when I left my house. Not bad, its only a little rain. As I rode more North, it got colder…a lot colder. About 5 degrees when I got to Sudbury. There was even snow on the side of the road.

The journey to the border at Sault Ste Marie was pretty much uneventful besides having a few close calls with the Ontario Provincial Police. There is an abundance of OPP sitting on the side of the highway and driving around in Northern Ontario and I passed many at over the speed limit but they seemed to have turned a blind eye. Or maybe I just got lucky.

I get to the border around 4pm. Line up is 3 cars long so I thought I’d get through here in no time. I get to the booth, the guy starts grilling me about where I’m going, why I’m going there, what the point of riding around all day is, etc. I eventually get sent to secondary inspection where they took a look through all my bags. Not very fun and it cost me about 30 minutes. At least the secondary inspection guys were nice, even gave me a few tips and destinations to visit.

By now, I’m freezing my ass off because of the cold and rain. My socks were soaked, I had to wring them out at every rest stop. I couldn’t wait to get to a motel to have a nice hot shower. That’s all I thought about…a nice hot shower…but I needed to cover some road. I rode until it got dark and found myself a little motel in a small town. I unpacked my stuff and I was really thirsty so I grabbed a water bottle that was in my bag and took a swig. ???? It tasted like alcohol. Oops, I forgot that I put mouthwash into a waterbottle…the same type of waterbottle I had my water in.

Next thing to do? Nice hot shower. And now I’m sitting here having a footbath eating some ritz crackers I packed. Best part of the day.

Not many pictures today since I was trying to make up time and it was too cold to stop, take off my gloves, grab my camera, and snap a few. However, my GPS seemed to have glitched. At least I have my average speed and km’s covered. 888kms for 11 hours traveled. Not as good as I thought but I did get delayed a couple of times.