08 Group Vacation Day 5 - Canada and Mackinac Bridge

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This set of blogs is another Group Vacation. Our 2008 trip was from KC up and around Lake Superior into Canada and then a slight detour to Milwaukee for a few days for the 25th and 105th celebrations for HOG and Harley Davidson. The blogs are broken into sections, each being a day in the trip. The first blog of this trip is here 08 Group Vacation Day 1 - to Iowa

Tuesday -- 26AUG08

Our only day that we are in Canada most of the day. The goal is to finish the trip around the top of lake superior and get to Mackinaw City then start down the west side of Lake MI toward Milwaukee. Norwest ends up being a great little hotel to stay in. the proprietor is a hoot and comes out in to the parking lot any time there is more than one of us out by the bikes. She is just excited to talk with us although her accent is too strong for Jerry to understand I don’t have any problems. Must have been all those years of working with Asians and Europeans. Breakfast was back to the little café we ate supper at last night. With a hearty breakfast everyone was ready to brave the cool morning and finish this last leg of Lake superior. It was during the morning that we discussed the gas and food prices in Canada. Wow. From then on we always laughed about the free health care they enjoy. That health care is really expensive. Taxes on purchases were really high.

We stopped a couple times around the lake to take pictures. At one stop we met a couple from NJ that were out on a 3month ride about. Having been to most of the US and a lot of Canada they were heading home with 10K more miles on their bike.

We were treated to the hometown of Winnie the Pooh on our hwy. White River. OT, had a really nice and colorful roadside stop dedicated to Winnie the Pooh. The week before we got there the town had it annual Winnie the Pooh days, so the statue and grounds were in perfect shape and just gorgeous. Winnie the Pooh was a real bear. A black bear that was from this area and purchased on August 24, 1914 by a Lt. Harry Colebourn a vet with the 34th Fort Garry Horse & Canadian Army Veterinary Corps. When the unit went to Europe for WWI they took the bear with them to England. Giving the Winnie to the London Zoo for safe keeping while the unit was in France. Winnie was name for the hometown of the Lt., that would be Winnipeg. In 1919 he gave the bear to the zoo permanently. It was very much in enjoyed by the English and one of her frequent visitors was A. A. Milne, an author and his son Christopher. Winnie lived on at the zoo for nearly 20 years. The first Winnie the Pooh book was in 1926. Could you imagine a military unit now traveling across the world with a pet bear?

The other noteworthy stop was at the Agawa Indian Craft stop. Definitely a tourist trap it was great stop. Giving a wide variety of things available. Some of our group got some food from the little snack shop, I think everyone got some ice cream from that stand and then there was souvenirs. This was a good stop, some in the group had never been to Canada so now they have a chance to buy those Canada mementos. All kinds, all shapes, I headed to the camping store and found a sticker for Pancake Bay, I was happy. After that it was my turn for ice cream, Mel had just introduced me to the bubble gum version and it was pretty good. Still no salad bar, been looking for one for several days now. The next segment of our journey was to get back into the US.

They charge to get into the US. It was $2 for use of the bridge. Jerry took some pics as we crossed the bridge. I took a couple but not many. At the far end of the bridge, US customs waited for us. It took longer to get into the US than it did to leave it. The interviews were one on one and the line was long before we started. We were needing to stop for a gas stop as we exited Canada, but we didn’t want to pay their inflated prices so we waited to get to the US. I had really kind of forgotten about getting gas as I was worried about making the HD dealer in Mackinaw City before it closed. As we rode across upper MI I was reminded about the gas situation as I had to switch to reserve, 175 miles on the tank. I knew I had at least 30 miles on reserve. About the time I switch over, then a member of the group comes up to remind me that they are low on gas. They all have fuel injection.

I don’t pay for map upgrades in my GPS’s. There are few times I think it would pay off. This would have been one of them. Upper MI is like remote WY the stations are there, but few and far between. 10 miles later Willy says his ZUMA is showing gas on a side road so off we head. We are on the side road for about 5 miles and I pull over. It looks like we have gone from the pot into the fire, there is nothing out here. When I pulled over all the rest of the group pulled over and Willy continued up the road to find if there was a station. My reasoning for pulling over was that I at this point had 15 miles left. I wasn’t going to make 10 more miles down this road and 10 miles back to the interstate if there was not gas down there. We all waited as Willy disappeared down the road. I learned that they all had fuel warning lights on. Willy probably was getting the worst gas mileage of any of us so he was really the worst choice to venture out but it was a done deal by the time we thought of that. We are all just hanging out along side the road a couple bikes ride past, thanks for the help. We start joking about sending someone out to look for Willy. Like that scary movie where you loose your group one at a time as they go out to see what happened to the others that have gone before them. The problem was that noone had gas to make it very far down the road before they would not be able to get back to the group, if there was not gas. So even though none of us had run out of gas we were stranded on the side of the road until we knew where a gas station was. After all of this we are screwed at getting to the HD dealer tonight too. I had hoped to make it to Mackinaw City, get to the dealer, get back across the bridge and start heading to Milwaukee. I had a Comfort Inn picked out that was right on Lake Michigan and would have great views. But that would mean a late night if we were to do all that today. It took Will about a half hour and he rejoined our group informing us of gas that was another few miles up the road. We all saddled up and headed out. Soon we bombarded this little gas station in the middle of nowhere. No pay at the pumps here. There have been few times I have been happier to get gas.

We continued on to Mackinaw City and soon found ourselves ready to go across “the bridge”. I had never heard about this bridge before it was requested as a stop on this trip. So for those that also had not heard of it there is a website with all the good stuff on the bridge (www.mackinacbridge.org).

But in a nutshell (stolen from the website):

“ The Mackinac Bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere. The total length of the Mackinac Bridge is 26,372 feet. The length of the suspension bridge (including anchorages) is 8,614 feet. The length from cable bent pier to cable bent pier is 7,400 feet. Length of main span (between towers) is 3,800 feet.
The width of the roadway is 54 feet. The outside lanes are 12 feet wide (2), the inside lanes are 11 feet wide (2), the center mall is 2 feet wide, and the catwalk, curb and rail width is 3 feet on each side - totaling 54 feet. The stiffening truss width in the suspended span is 68 feet wide making it wider than the roadway it supports.
The height of the roadway at mid-span is approximately 200 feet above water level. The vertical clearance at normal temperature is 155 feet at the center of the main suspension span and 135 feet at the boundaries of the 3,000 ft. navigation channel.
All suspension bridges are designed to move to accommodate wind, change in temperature, and weight. It is possible that the deck at center span could move as much as 35 feet (east or west) due to high winds. This would only happen under severe wind conditions. The deck would not swing or "sway" but rather move slowly in one direction based on the force and direction of the wind. After the wind subsides, the weight of the vehicles crossing would slowly move it back into center position.


After we get across the bridge we decide to just stay there the night, there are a ton of hotels right off the bridge. We find a Best Western that is cheap enough and has rooms. They also have bats. A ton of bats. Mel is the first to see them, then as we looked around they were about everywhere. The Motel was a stone complex with a lot of over hangs so it appeared that there were little cavy type areas about everywhere. The bats must really like the motel. Mel went in and told the office that there were bats and pretty soon the custodian comes around with a shop vac and starts sucking them up. To be released somewhere else, probably the competitors motel. The rest head out to a local café and I decided to stay in the room until Jerry calls the room and tells me that the have a salad bar. Away I go to join the group. And it was a really good salad bar, worth the wait. We were parked right outside the office under an overhang, the bikes were safe a secure. I checked the mapping software I have and it says we are about .75 miles from it, it should be right around the corner. When Mel calls to find out what time they open, we find that they are actually open until 10PM. Its too late now, but we easily could have gone there after getting into town.


Here are links to all the blogs for this trip:

1. 08 Group Vacation Day 1 - to Iowa
2. 08 Group Vacation Day 2 - John Wayne, Albert the Bull and Freedom Rock
3. 08 Group Vacation Day 3 - Buddy Holly, SPAM and the Joint
4. 08 Group Vacation Day 4 - Aerostitch and Canada
5. 08 Group Vacation Day 5 - Canada and Mackinac Bridge
6. 08 Group Vacation Day 6 - Yoppers, Pasties and outa gas John
7. 08 Group Vacation Day 7 - HOG 25th are you kidding me??
8. 08 Group Vacation Day 8 - Vinnie and Cody from American Chopper
9. 08 Group Vacation Day 9 - Last day of the 105th Anniversary Party
10. 08 Group Vacation Day 10 - Heading Home
11. 08 Group Vacation Day 11 - Snake Alley, Worldest Largest Pecan

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Photos

Norwest Motel
The Owner and her bird saw us off that morning.

The travellers
out on a little spin, this couple had been on the road for a month and travelled more than 10K miles.

Winnie the Poohs Hometown
Winnie was a real bear and came from White River Ontario.

Agawa Craft stop
A real tourist trap, but we each found something here to buy.

The Mackinac Bridge
Jerry took this as we were crossing.

Willy is suffering
When travelling he gets a little constipated. Its been over 3 days at this point and hes getting stomach craps. He is clowing around here, but he has been in pain most of the day.