Misty for you

It was very misty leaving Tobermory. Actually it was more wet than misty. There is only so much interest you can gather from mildly undulating roads through pine forests whether they are National Parks or not. It is probably better to speak of the highlights than the low points though and the highlight was clearly a warm, cinnamon roll (don't they love their cinnamon here in the US) at our morning coffee stop somewhere between Tobermory and Toronto.

                     

The weather did clear up. It turned out to be bright and shiny for our entry into Toronto. We architecture spotted the CN Tower, (the lakeside hotel was in its shadow, so it wasn't difficult), the Liebskind, the Calatrava and the Mies. They were all quite well done with the Mies showing incredible contemporarity, even if probably over 50 years old. We dined with friends and colleagues from London who advised us to go for a stroll in the park.  As we have been getting ferries in our blood recently, we took the ferry to Toronto Island for a stroll in the park. Very nice, but pretty well all closed up for the impending winter. No one seemed to have told the butterflies though. Even though it is almost the middle of October and Toronto does get very cold in the winter, it is on the same latitude as the South of France.

 

                 

Next stop onto Niagara-on-the-Lake which is where we were advised to stay the night. When we got there, the reasons behind the advice were obvious. A lovely little town with a lot of real history. It was also pretty obvious why last minute bookings for a Saturday night would not work here. Never mind, the weather had been fine. What was new to us was the rather plush Canadian wine Chateaux that abounded in the Niagara region. Look that up when we get back.

               

               
 

We were slightly dreading the visit to Niagara Falls. However we had a sunshine filled day and there was very little gross tourism. You had nonetheless to close your eyes to the ridiculous Casinos in abundance on both sides of the Falls. In the end we spent all day there, helped by the weather. We walked across to the American side, so we could see the Falls from both sides and it was worth it. Of course one has to have the trip on the Maid of the Mist whilst there. Much more impressive close up. However how could one have a blog photo of the Maid if you were on it? So we went on the Hornblower from the Canadian side instead for the full 4D experience.

                
  
OK, it's 20$ and touristy, but boy don't you get misty and soaking wet. Much better than any Log Flume. But on the Environmental subject again; never mind all that malarkey about towels on the floor to save on the washing or whatever, how about turning the Falls off after the nightly fireworks? More seriously there is so much waste here. The portions are too big. The plates and bowls for breakfast if you get it in the motels are made out of polystyrene; the cutlery out of plastic. The milk in cafés and restaurants to put in your coffee is always in the pre-packed capsules as is the whipped spread. If it is in the motel it comes in one of those sealed plastic bags with sweeteners of various sorts, stirrers and a whole host of other paraphernalia that you just throw away. All to save on someone washing up, or the water needed for washing up?

          

         

         
 

Onwards and a misty morning in New York State to get to Corning, home of the Corning Glass Museum. In order to get our full set of Great Lakes we detoured slightly to see Lake Erie and then travelled what would have been a wonderfully scenic road if it hadn't been so misty (raining). We did our trip through Europe passing Naples, Warsaw, Leicester and the small town of Wales amongst others. Autumn was here and, with the mist and not an insignificant little wind, the leaves were now falling. Pumpkins abound but can you get Pumpkin Pie here? Pumpkins also abounded at the Museum, glass ones. Doubtless they will start on the glass Christmas trees shortly. Anyway, a fun museum and well worth the visit. we could have stayed longer, but we could say that of many places we visited...

 

We are closing in on New York now and we are asking ourselves lots of questions and putting off answering them till we get home. We are catching the last of autumn in a log cabin in the Catskills Mountains chosen for its scenic rides. No mist on the ride at all; in fact it's quite warm which is posing a slight problem. We have been wearing many layers in the cold weather, which left inviting room in our panniers and top-box for 'things'. Now it's got warmer again, we just have to sweat a bit.

                         

 

Paul & Francoise

Irony

Chicago was the cold, and about to be wet, city as we left. Its handle of being windy was only due to the verbosity of its politicians anyway.

Next stop Milwaukee, birthplace and home of Harley-Davidson Motorcycles.

                                    

We stayed at the Iron Horse Hotel (punned after one of the many Harley nicknames and we also have a Harley 'Ironhead' Sportster), one of those industrial chic places. It had previously been a bedding factory and was constructed at the beginning of the 20th Century. It was motorcycle friendly too: heavy duty hooks for helmets and leathers, or in our case, plastics, in the bedroom, complementary parking for the bikes as opposed to $30 per night for a car, and heavy duty stone worktops in the bedrooms just in case you wanted to rebuild your gearbox. There was also a free washing station for the bikes but as it was DIY and less than 10 degrees C, we did not avail ourselves of this facility. Its main claim to fame however is that it is across the road from the Harley-Davidson museum, which we visited the following day. Whilst we were there there were a total of six bikes in the specially reserved for motorcycles parking, and only three were Harleys though three others did turn up as we were leaving. The cold seems to get to these American bikers; maybe if they wore helmets they might stay a bit warmer?

                   

                   

We also visited the Harley factory where they produce the power-trains, ie engines and gearboxes. It was a nice little tour. It passed the time before our midday ferry. However they were not sympathetic to our request for a new gearbox but then again... it has now done a fair few miles since being diagnosed as being a bit sickly. In order to enter onto the factory floor we had to don earplugs and we kept a few for when the gearbox gets a bit too noisy. Harley churned out 250,000 power-trains last year from this plant. It was quite impressive as far as a factory workplace is concerned.

We don't have much to say about Milwaukee itself as it came across as a bit of a wasteland. Not a derelict one, but one with not much going on and some very wide streets and next to no traffic. There was clearly only one sort of tourist in moribund Milwaukee. Not a place to go walking and get lost in. There were no regrets then in taking the ferry across Lake Michigan, which is not far short of 100miles across.

 

On reaching Michigan and after alighting from the ferry we made one of those impromptu decisions and turned left as opposed to going straight on. Turning right wasn't an option. So we headed up the Michigan coast and stayed at a charming little motel overlooking one of numerous marinas. This must be a really nice place to visit in the summer; lots of beaches and watery things to do. With no view except of water to the horizon you do tend to forget it is a lake, especially when there are some sizeable waves on it.

                        

We have got a bit tired of seeing the notices in hotel bathrooms about doing your bit for the environment re water and energy and washing towels.  Many of the motels we stay at, even those in the desert, come equipped with outside hot-tubs so you can gaze at the stars and use more towels too. And what was one to make of the notices in energy guzzling Vegas? Anyway, our little motel in Whitehall/Montague had the same notice but instead of a communal hot-tub, every room had one. And a bath/shower. OK they have one of the worlds greatest sources of fresh water that even the Chicago meat factories and slaughterhouses could not pollute, but the energy to heat these things up?

                       

                      

The road-side scenery? More of those brightly coloured leaves again, maple trees rather than aspen this time. And it is pumpkin season too. How much pumpkin soup and pie can they eat? Clearly not enough as even Starbucks are advertising Pumpkin something or another in their windows. And the local breweries have pumpkin beer too. Pumpkin pie seems to be a means anyway of using up pseudo dairy products and spices that you bought for that special recipe but never ever used again; a sort of grocery cupboard annual autumn cleaning.

                       

We continued North to Mackinac City. We stayed overnight in a very British B&B, called Brigadoon, but did not have time to visit Mackinac Island which was, Channel Island like, averse to the internal combustion engine. A 5 mile or kilometre long suspension bridge, not sure of the basis of the calculation or claim,  takes you North and we took it very gingerly indeed. It was incredibly windy up there and the deck was open-grating with a greenish growth on it which, although undoubtedly very safe indeed, psychologically felt the opposite.

                     

We were now chilled and stirred as we headed to the Canadian border at Sault Sainte Marie and what would be the last sticker to put on the top-box this trip. More bridges as you pass into Canada with the distinctive pine smell from the obligatory timber works on the waterways beneath. By the time we had followed the coast round and arrived at South Baymouth, population 34, on the Manatoulin Islands we were wearing all our layers. Could have done with some additional thin socks too. We will have passed adjacent to Lakes Michigan, Huron and Superior. Massive lakes, all vast. It really is watery up here. And trees everywhere, just as much as Cambodia was logged out, Canada is clearly logged in.

                        

Next stop a short ferry across Lake Huron to Tobermory and it is as charming as the name sounds. The ferry will stop next weekend as the winter sets in so we are just squeezing it in. Can't quite picture where Tobermory's  British namesake is at present; wonder whether it is fictitious or not?

 

 

And now off to our first city in Ontario.
 

Paul & Francoise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to front

 

Monday 30th September... on the advice of our weather guru biker chum from Monument we hid from the impending storm, brave souls that we are! Tuesday we awoke to the snow capped Pikes Peak.

                     

The five of us went for a jolly run skirting Denver with more amazing scenery and roads. It just doesn't seem to stop. The Golden Gate National Park, named as there was once Gold in them thar hills. Mines, or old mining towns seem to abound in Colorado, as do hills.

                   

Changing gear was now becoming a priority. Not on the bike, which is still holding up, but clothes wise. Although we have avoided the rain thanks to Jim's advice, it has been getting steadily colder. Having had lunch together with our chum, we buckled down and gritted our teeth to the 1,000 miles ahead of us in order to get to Chicago with an ever increasingly dramatic sky. It was now early October but somehow, having moved around the globe at a pretty constant temperature, give or take the odd day, we were finding it difficult to come to terms with the onset of autumn.

                      

No choice. We had to cover the miles quickly. One corn field looks pretty much the same as the next. One mass of cows corralled in a fattening pen smells much the same as another and you can smell them coming. You can also play at catching the turkey feathers that are drifting on the air from the lorry a few hundred yards ahead. That's about it unless you like watching clouds; sometimes it was misty so you couldn't even do that. We were Interstating as that was the quickest way to cover the miles. We did dodge the weather although it got very close indeed.  Thank you Arthur's Market Deli Diner for our lunchtime rain break, 'somewhere' in Nebraska. Our overnight stops were equally not high on the tourist stakes and should be classed more as 'functional' than anything else. Not on the expensive side though, which is always a plus and the bites will get better before long.

                

                

Three solid days later, a thousand miles through Nebraska and Iowa gets done. We arrived in Chicago completely dry. You can see the towers in the distance just like London from the M20 or M11 and it's pretty exciting as you drive by them. Our on a budget hotel is one of those very slender 100 yr old towers with ornate tops and right in the centre of downtown Chicago. All is perfect, except motor vehicle parking where we struggled to find anything less that $40 per night. Don't take a vehicle to Chicago is the maxim, even a two wheeled one. We are now the only two wheeled transport in view as the temperature has plummeted.

 

                              

Chicago, proud of its heritage architecture, is a pretty neat place to spend a day or two.  We would recommend it to anyone. We are definitely more country/scenery riders rather than town ones. Chicago, however, is a real city whereas Los Angeles wasn't, Las Vegas wasn't and San Francisco was too misty to see. We are getting pretty adept at doing things when we get to places. Despite only a short time we managed to see and eat at the home of the Chicago Deep Pan Pizza; we saw the towers close up and also from far away on a boat trip on the lake. We spent some time in the Art Museum, walked around the Anish Kapoor Bean as well as the not very impressive Gehry even if you like that sort of thing, plus the fountains. We finished with a tour round Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studios as well as some of the houses he designed. We stood by the supposed start of Route 66. But as we started at the end and have go back to the beginning by avoiding everything in between, are we all back to front?

 

                                       

                     

                     
 

We managed to escape the very expensive parking without paying and with only a slight tremor of nervousness when police sirens could be heard. It is chilly here with temperature dropping down to 3 degrees C as we left with a hint of snow on the breeze, but we are gradually accepting it. Soup, not salads, now on the menu.

                     

                     

Onwards to Wisconsin...

                    

Paul & Francoise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting your kicks elsewhere

Route 66 went from East to West and has been mostly demolished and replaced with a not very interesting Interstate highway. It wasn't our route anyway, having arrived in the West, and we wanted to see some more scenery.

As we are doing 'Not Route 66', heading East for that matter was OK.

                      

So we started the morning in the desert at Bluff next to Mexican Hat; we then lunched in the green splendour of Telluride, an uber ski station in its summer guise. It was a magnificent high speed ride through the forests and mountain passes. Lizard Head Pass took us to 3,124m and all in the sunshine. Plenty of leaf-peeping opportunities and not too many leaf-peepers. All within the speed limits, Officer Dibble, and this is a Harley so it couldn't possibly be going that fast. All bikes in Western America are Harleys by the way, not the remotest sense of exotic here. The previous days the scenery had all been about the different shapes and shades of red rock. Now we had an abundance of colours. Stunning.

                     

                     

                     

Leaving Telluride was made more difficult by a herd of elks wanting to be photographed and Francoise refusing to heed Deputy Sheriff Dibbles's polite request for us to move on and not remain stationary at the side of the road. She could not hear the Deputy because of her helmet, an impediment soon overcome when the Officer used his load-hailer to alert us to the imminent possibility of a road-side fine if we did not get a move on.

                    

We continued to Gunnison with a slight detour to the quaint Alpinesque town of Ouray. Gunnison, usually a very sleepy little town, was full.ÿ No room at the Inns; Saturday Night must be all right for Leaf-peepers. Fourth time lucky though and we had somewhere to sleep.

                    

Next day wasn't a big day so 'we' decided we could have a lie-in. The Innkeeper reiterated the mantra of heading East. Monarch Pass was a great run and took us to 3,445m of altitude and highlighted the need for warmer clothing. We had outrun the rain and the words of the Innkeeper faded away. So we stopped for a hot chocolate at the cafe at the top celebrating the Continental divide, this little raindrop will flow to the Pacific and that one to the Atlantic. "Snow on Wednesday", such were the words of the lady serving chocolate fudge to us.

Soon after we donned our waterproofs again as the rain had caught us up and then we gained a head.

                  

                  

Onwards into nowhere and lunch.  The cafe door blew open and the rain came lashing down rather seriously. The rain had now outrun us. Other bikers passed as we watched out of the window. They could not sacrifice their cool with helmets and bright yellow waterproofs. So their cool became cold with lots of wet. We passed them later and although still with cigarettes in mouth, they looked a bit bedraggled. Eye contact was not made.

We have now reached Monument, South of Denver in Colorado, staying with our trans-China biking chum, Jim and his wife. It is a truly wonderful place with serious wildlife outside the window and views of the mountains from every corner of the house.

                 

                     

Half way across America in some way or another, at least a thousand miles to any coast and this our last leg. Where has it all gone?
 

Paul & Francoise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go East young man, go East

A visit to the Grand Canyon was an absolute must. It has two sides or rims, the North and the South. We were heading down from the North, so this made more sense for us. Only ten percent of all Grand Canyon tourists go to the North rim and accommodation is in function. There is only one place, the Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge and it is currently taking bookings for 2016. It is also a 45 mile ride in from the nearest other habitation, which consists of a petrol station and an equally popular motel. Not knowing when we would have the bike in America meant we had had no detailed planning and thus no reservation on the Grand Canyon.

On the post-justified basis that there were only two modus operandi for a visit, either a ten minute, 'Wow isn't it big!' appreciation or a 5 day hike to appreciate its bigness we decided for the former, having already dismissed helicopter rides and whitewater rafting. Intermediate positions did not seem to have much logic.

So we left our cherished abode in Springdale for the GC with the idea of having lunch there and then moving on and finding accommodation en route somewhere.

                   

                   

The ride into the Grand Canyon, if you can call it that because the rim is at over 2,000 m above sea level, was exceptionally colourful with the huge clumps of Quaking Aspen trees changing colour. They weren't really clumps as they all have a common root system. So fundamentally it was a forest consisting of one tree.

 

The Dining Room at the Lodge defines the phrase, 'a room with a view'. If you've got it, flaunt it. And it wasn't one of those 3M stickers on the back of the windows or some giant video screen because you could walk out on to the terrace for a drink and it was still there, or out on to the promontory and look all the way down. We lunched there and there just happened to be a last- minute cancellation, so we slept in a log cabin with vertigo inducing views over the Canyon. A wee bit chilly. We could have done with those woollen blankets we had bought that afternoon in the gift shop, but already posted. So we managed, after all, to adopt an intermediate position and visited five different view points on the North Rim before sunset, back at the Lodge with a view, called us back. So an amazing experience and not overly costly. If we had been able to have dinner as well as breakfast and lunch in the Dining room, it would have been perfect, but no such luck.

                      

                  
 

Bigness translates as over a two hundred mile trip by road to get from North to South rims. Walkers do it in a day at something less than 25 miles including the up and down bits. There was a twinge of jealousy that soon evaporated when we overheard talks about their getting up times in the morning. So we didn't make the South Rim, but we had to ride a long distance out of the way to go South as there are not that many bridges. The bridge we did eventually reach was pretty spectacular too. At this stage the Colorado River lies not in Colorado, but Arizona.

                 

                                        

Onwards to Monument Valley, backdrop to hundreds of Westerns and also rather hot. One is always at altitude and even though we did not know the temperature, we would have sworn it was hotter than the Death Valley. We called it a day early and pulled into a really super, classy Motel in the desert at a place called Bluff. Exceptionally nice with an equally nice café not far away for breakfast. Clearly we had ended up on some sort of tourist track, otherwise why were they there?

                 

                            

                                                                                                  

The following morning we continued our desert odyssey and travelled to Four Corners, what's an orner?  - where the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah abut, so we could stand simultaneously in all four. We couldn't work out whether there were different time zones so that we would also be time travelling too. When we set off we had the clouds, menacing clouds. Waterproof putting on just in case type clouds. It was hot. We were in the desert after all. Part of us wanted it to rain so we could see what happened. But it just threatened. The café proprietor had told us to head East when he served us breakfast that morning. A storm was coming in from the West, and one from the North and one from the South which meant a 70% chance of rain. Head East...!

                        
 

So after Four Corners we headed North. 

Paul & Francoise