Day 4: Wawa, ON, to Schreiber, ON

July 10, 2007
175 day miles; 760 total trip miles.

This has been quite a laid-back trip! Dale was up early, but then went back to bed for about an hour. I (Floyd) worked on posting pictures, checking email, etc. We finally left our motel around 10:30 am. Our first stop was Young's General Store about 1/4 mile from the motel. It is a typical country general store with everything under the sun.

Then it was off to find a place for breakfast (yes, it was around 11:00 am by now). We found a local family restaurant along Route 17. Johann and Dale ordered the "Hungry Man's Breakfast." Johann's comment was, "It is much easier to order when one of the options includes 'everything'." As it turned out, Johann was still hungry and finished off Dale's last pancake. By the time we hit the road it was 12:30!!

We knew we would run into rain, so we put on our rain gear before leaving the restaurant. Dale and Johann didn't bother with rain pants; I put on my full gear. It was not long until we ran into light rain. Then, later in the afternoon, it started to pour. I stayed fairly dry, but the rain soaked through Dale and Johann's riding pants.

Even in the rain the scenery was beautiful. The wet rocks take on a different hue, and the trees and plants become a shiny green. Rain or shine, this is beautiful country.

The heavy rain lasted 30-45 minutes and as we entered Terrace Bay we actually saw some light patches of sky. Another welcome site was Wah's Restaurant (Chinese and Canadian cuisine) where we ordered hot tea, soup, egg rolls, spring rolls and other items. We then decided to call it a day and hope for better weather in the morning.

Our stop for the night was at Barrel Inn - a place that advertised internet access and a sauna. The sauna is the barrel on the right side of the picture. The owner of the inn is from Ann Arbor, MI. She moved here and bought the place on year ago, but gets a bit lonely - the nearest Walmart is 2.5 hours away, and the population of Schreiber is 1,000 (down from the 1,700 on the sign by the road). We sat in the sauna for 20-30 minutes, but Dale said it was not nearly hot enough for him. I was sweating!

The weather forecast for Wednesday is more rain, but then clearing skies. We'll see what the morning brings. The wind is blowing very hard now (midnight).

Crisis of the Day: I (Floyd) could not find my motorcycle keys when we left the Chinese restaurant. I searched all my pockets, looked in all the places I had been in the restaurant, and looked all around my motorcycle. I thought I might have left the keys in the motorcycle trunk. I have a spare key hidden on the bike and used that to open the trunk – no keys there either! I became convinced I left the keys in the lock and someone had stolen them. We did one last search in the restaurant and one patron said, “Did you look in you pants leg? I did that one time.” I shook my leg and pulled my outer rain pants away from my jeans and my keys dropped to the floor! The keys were between my jeans and the rain pants.

Highlight of the Day: Hot tea and soup at Wah’s Restaurant after riding in the cold wet rain.