Day 12 - The Extra at the End

Marinette, WI to HOME

334 Miles

It was a fairly quick ride from Wisconsin home.

The Minneapolis skyline showed itself around noon,

and we made it to our house about an hour later. As always, it was great to be home and greeted by the Large Four-Legged One.

We are weighing our options for the next Quinlan's Great Motorcycle Adventure. With so many places to chose from, it's hard to decide. It's a Big, Big World though, so you never know where we'll end up next.

Day 11 - The Extra at the End

Sturgeon Falls, ON to Marinette, Wisconsin, USA

489 Miles

We made it back to the United States on the Fourth of July

Happily celebrating 70 mph speed limits and the Imperial Measuring System - and of course our nation's 240 birthday.

Before we crossed the border, we made one last stop at Tim Hortons.

Sean will always love their moon pies,

and Anne will always be partial to their coffee. So much so, that she finally replaced her travel-worn Ole's Beer Depot coffee mug with a shiny new Tim Horton's version.

The ride back through Michigan's UP and into Wisconsin went without a hitch. And we made it to Marinette, WI (home of the infamous Dean Blomquist) before we stopped for our last evening on the road.

Day 10 - The Extra at the End

Quebec City to Sturgeon Falls, Ontario

567 Miles

Another day of just pounding out the miles on our way back home. It seems we didn't even take any pictures that day, so we thought we'd take this opportunity to explain something.

There are 13 provinces/territories in Canada. Only 12 of them are accessible by motorcycle. Nunavut is not.

Nunavut sits way at the top of Canada.

You can't get there unless you fly, walk or paddle. Unlike places like Hawaii and Alaska, we didn't find any good options to ship our bike or rent one once we managed to get up there.

So we'd scratch Nunavut off the list, and considered our quest a success none the less. Until one last option presented itself.

Our niece, Lucy Woolson, has been involved with Camp Widjiwagan since she was a little girl. "Widji" focuses on wilderness travel and environmental learning experiences and is found in the Boundary Waters between Minnesota and Canada. It's a great camp, and it's been fun to see her self-reliance grow more each year that she's been there.

Here's the thing about Widji. If you attend camp every year from the time you are 12, you get to go on an incredible voyageur trip that takes the young women (and men, but separately) on a month-long Artic adventure.

Picture lifted from Lu's Facebook Page.

Long story short, Lucy and her group made it all the way up to Baker Lake, Nunavut. The northern-most community in Canada. Knowing we couldn't get up there, she was kind enough to represent us in the province and took a picture just for us.

There weren't any signs that actually said "Welcome to Nunavut" so I embellished it a little so it fit in with the rest of our pictures.

Thank you Lucy for representing us, and even thinking about us, on YOUR epic journey!!

Also from Facebook. She's just like her Aunt Annie!

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We ended up in Sturgeon Lake, NB for the night and as we got there a little late on a Sunday, most restaurants were closed. Luckily, Pasta Kitchen & Bar wasn't closing for about 15 minutes when we arrived, and they were kind enough to stay open late so that we could eat and have a couple drinks. 

Day 9 - The Extra at the End

Fredericton, NB to Quebec City, Quebec

383 Miles

We couldn't have asked for a better ride the previous day through Nova Scotia, and we expected today's ride to be uneventful as we made our way to Quebec City.

It was raining lightly again, but not enough to keep us off the road as we headed west.

Occasionally, during our trips, we've encountered other motorcyclist making long journey on their bikes. You can always tell by the pack on the back of their bike, and quite frankly, just the look on their face. We rarely interact with them, except to offer a biker's greeting, and share the road with them for a while, wondering who they are and where they have been and are going.

Today, we met Greg. At first, we were just behind him on the highway. He was driving at the same pace we were and had all the telltale signs of a long-distance traveler. He acknowledged us. We acknowledge him and stayed behind and to the right of him for a couple hours.

Then the sky grew darker and we knew it was time for a break to fill up the gas tank and get some coffee while the clouds passed.

Just as we decided to pull off the road, ahead of us, Greg signaled that he was also taking that exit and pointed to the large Tim Horton's sign at the top of the ramp.

We pulled into the gas station right behind him, filled up and introduced ourselves as we headed into the diner.

Over the next hour, we learned that Greg had been a fighter pilot in the Canadian Royal Air Force, among many, many other things. He told us stories of working with the US Air Force, starting out in the infantry, and how he eventually became a fighter pilot.

"One morning I jumped out of a plane. The sun was just rising and it was a little foggy...and I thought to myself, 'People make good money doing other things besides jumping out of airplanes at 6 am'."

So Greg went to flight school. His military career took him on many different paths, as a fighter pilot, squadron leader and flight instructor. he eventually left the service and now he was settling in Quebec and to work in the financial world. He was taking a few months off to travel, see friends and spend time with his sons before starting his own business.

We had such a great time talking to Greg, and once the clouds cleared, we followed him toward Quebec City, via the back roads and down the St Lawrence Rive, to see some of Canada we would not have seen otherwise.

We parted ways just outside of Quebec City, happy to have made a new acquaintance, and marveling how he road his motorcycle with a guitar strapped to the side.

We headed to our hotel after we left Greg and set out to see the sites of Old Quebec City. The first thing we noticed was that there were a lot of Americans (sorry, United Staters) visiting over the long holiday weekend. We also noticed that unlike Old Montreal, Quebec City was very modernized, while still keeping its historical feel.

We wandered the streets and checked out some of the shops and bars, bought a couple souvenirs and stopped for a last drink before heading back for the night.

One more thing that became very apparent to us very quickly was that while those in the service industry here could speak English very well, they really preferred not to. So things like striking up a conversation with the bartender or waitress wasn't as easy as it had been in other places in the province.

We did, however, come across this guy,

whose name was Yannick. He grew up in Quebec province and had just moved into town. He told us that he didn't get to use his English very often, so he liked to hang out with the tourists and practice. Actually, his English was fine. He knew and used many words that you would never hear coming out of our mouths. Still, he was a fun guy and fellow biker so we were able to talk about the differences between riding in Canada and the United States.

Day 8 - The Extra at the End

Newfoundland to Fredericton, New Brunswick

558 Miles

Pulling off the ferry the next morning, we started to see Nova Scotia's beauty that we'd been told about time and time again. It was sunny, clear, bright and warm as we detoured to Cabot's Trail in northern Nova Scotia.

Cabot's Trail is a winding, mountainous road that skirts The Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the other.

The views were magnificent as we drove through mountain wilderness,

past rocky coastlines, and even watched the lobstermen pulling in their lobster pots.

This day was July 1 - Canada Day, in Canada. It had the same look and feel as our Fourth of July, with lots of families out celebrating and towns hosting parades. We stopped for a late breakfast at a place called Brown Bean Café.

It was the perfect mountain spot to enjoy breakfast.

While we were getting ready to leave, a young girl came flying out of her car, ran towards us yelling "Wait! Wait! Is that a Harley bike?" We told her it was and she said she had to get a picture of her entire group (that was stuffed into the car) with the bike because they were on a scavenger hunt and one of the things they had to find was a Harley bike. If one of us could get in the picture they'd even get extra points.

We happily obliged, but they took off before we could get a picture with our camera. A couple more groups stopped us over the next hour or so with the same request, and this time I got a picture of the scavengers.

We made it all the way around the trail, then headed back to the highway, eager to rest our destination for the night.

We ended up in Fredericton, NB and sat down to a dinner of fresh surf and turf.

 

Full of good seafood and meat, we called it a night early. Happy to have seen what we'd hope to see of Canada's eastern beauty.

Day 7 - The Extra at the End

Port aux Basques,
Newfoundland and Labrador

10 Miles

After a harrowing day the day before, we were excited to get off the ferry  and back on the bike and see what we could of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Which wasn't much at all.

We thought about the previous day's adventure, our lack of good sleep and the present weather conditions. We really could only come up with a few things we really wanted to do. Get some food, take a hot shower, and find a warm bed.

So we pulled into a small hotel right next to the docks, hoping beyond hope that they had a room we could stay in until the ferry went back to the mainland that night.

The people at the hotel were so nice, and gracious and kind. They did everything they could for us, short of going into the kitchen and making breakfast to feed us. We must have looked really pathetic, because they moved people who had reservations for that night around so we could be on the far side of the building, away from the traffic and construction.

We slept for a good six hours, and woke up refreshed and ready to go.

We weren't going too far obviously, but we did manage to get our Newfoundland and Labrador picture.

and celebrate visiting all the Canadian Provinces and Territories by finding a fantastic hole-in-the-wall bar to kill a couple hours.

The owner, Lukey, tried to convince us that it's always foggy on the coast, but once we got about 10 miles up the road it would be sunny and dry.

We considered it for a while, then pulled up the radar on our phone to see if the rest of the island was, indeed, sunny and clear.

We decided to just stay put, have a good dinner and head back to the mainland on the next ferry out of town.

As we headed back to the hotel, the sky started to lighten,

and we could see more than just a couple feet in front of us as we headed down the road.

We managed to get packed up, eat and get to the docks in plenty of time for the midnight ride back to Nova Scotia. We weren't frantically trying to strap the bike down as the ferry was pulling away, as we had the night before.

 We noticed a lot of people had the same idea we did. In fact, it looked like a mini-Sturgis with all the bikes lined up below deck.

Another trip to the lounge and another night's sleep in a tiny bed awaited us, but at this point we just wanted to be dry, rested and fed.

Day 6 - The Extra at the End

Woodstock, NB to North Sydney, Nova Scotia

555 Miles

We've been extremely lucky on our Great Motorcycle Adventure over the years. No accidents, no major (or really minor) breakdowns. We've always found a place to sleep at night. We usually run into rain, but we've always left ourselves enough time to sit out major rain storms, or throw on our rain gear if the rain isn't too bad.

Yeah... Well... It had to happen sometime, and why not on the last ride of our adventure?

Day 6 started out fine. We left Woodstock, NB with everything intact. Several towns down the highway, there was suddenly a void where one of our saddle bags used to be. We looked back just in time to see the hard-sided bag bouncing down the road behind us.

Luckily, it was very early, and there weren't a lot of vehicles that could have been hit, or could have run over the bag, which held our rain gear and tools.

Sean was able to run back and grab the bag from the median and found everything intact and in good shape. He spent the next several minutes figuring out how/why it fell off the first place.

Apparently, two nuts that were supposed to secure the bag to the side of the bike had vibrated off...and the bag went with them. Upon closer inspection, we found the nuts in the bottom of the bag, safe and sound, so we were able to get them back in their proper places and head on down the road.

We had a very lofty goal for the day. Buzz up to Prince Edward Island for a picture and lunch, then leisurely head across to the very tip of Nova Scotia where we would have dinner before taking an over-night ferry to Newfoundland and Labrador. The ferry didn't leave until midnight, so even though we'd lost some time with the saddle bag, we figured we had plenty of time to meander around.

We crossed the Prince Edward Island bridge just before noon and took our PEI provincial picture.

We then found a great little restaurant for a quick bite to eat...

and had more fresher-than-fresh fish and chips, which fast became our favorite.

Within an hour, we were crossing the PEI bridge the other way,

and warily eyeing the storm clouds gathering above us. We had one more stop to make, at the Nova Scotia provincial line, before making our way up to the ferry launch a couple hundred miles away.

So, we don't have any more pictures from that day because it started to rain, and pour, and flood the back roads that Google Maps was sending us on.
Finally, at about 10 pm we stopped. We were lost, soaked, cold, hungry, miserable and about to give up - but none of the little tiny towns we were traveling through had gas stations, let alone a motel where we could stay for the night. So we had to press on in the downpour. Then somehow, miraculously, we found ourselves pulling into the ferry landing, about 30 minutes before the ferry set sail.

Just to give you a visual, we pulled up to the ticket booth just outside the parking lot where you wait to get on the ferry and the wonderful attendant took one look at us and said,

"Oh my god, you poor things".

We had reserved a berth months ago for the over-night trip,

so we were able to quickly change into semi-dry clothes and find the lounge where we could warm our chilled blood before we exhaustedly called it a night.

Day 5 - The Extra at the End

Montreal, QC to Woodstock, New Brunswick

479 Miles

After two fun days in Montreal, we hit the road again and checked the provinces of Quebec

and New Brunswick

off our list.

We were headed to Nova Scotia to catch a ferry to Newfoundland and Labrador, and needed to get as many miles under the tires as possible.

So after a few Tim Horton's stops, we made it to Woodstock, NB for the evening and rested up for the next day's ride. Which, as it turned out, was a very good thing.

Day 4 - The Extra at the End

Old Montreal

0 Miles

We had a full day of sight-seeing planned, but the weather really didn't lend itself to walking to the top of Mont Royal, or really anything outside, so we headed to the Basilica of Montreal to get a look inside.

"Wow" was about all we could get out of our mouths before we were swept along with a group for a tour. We managed to break away after a while and checked out the church on our own.

Historically significant, incredible architecture, wonderful stained glass everywhere, but the thing that stuck out most...

...were the radiators in front of the front pew. Apparently, they had discovered a great way to get people to sit up front on those cold Canadian Sundays!

After church was a visit to a local fish and chips place.

and then more wandering and dashing in and out between showers.
Along one of the side streets, we discovered how Montrealians really roll.

We topped the evening off with the most French food we could find - fondue and crepes,

and ended the night with another walk past the Basilica and back to our hotel. We agreed that Montreal was another place to add to our "have to come back to someday" list.





Day 3 - The Extra at the End

Pembroke, Ontario to Montreal, Quebec

221 miles

Let's be honest, we were kind of intimidated by the thought of riding through and staying in the province of Quebec. We knew that here everything was written or spoken in French. Sean has a pretty good grasp of the tourists' version of the language. Anne has none. At all.

The road signs were our first big issue- They were all in French, and when the motorcycle's navigation speaks no French at all, we assumed it was going to be incredibly confusing getting to wherever we needed to go.

Luckily, the navigator discovered an untapped ability to guess at what the road signs were trying to tell us...

And other than getting "Ouest" and "Est" confuse a few (many) times, we did surprisingly OK, and made it to Montreal without getting lost.

We assumed that staff at the restaurants, hotels and bars spoke English, at least in Montreal, but frankly, we didn't want to look like dumb tourists expecting everyone in the world to speak our language. So we tried, 95% unsuccessfully, to communicate in French (and at times accidently Spanish because, darn it, a lot of the words are similar). Usually, whomever we were trying to speak to just smiled and answered with, "It's OK, we can speak in English." Seriously. We tried.

We arrived in Old Montreal early in the day, dropped our bag off at the hotel and started exploring. The first thing we needed was lunch, so we stopped at a local eating and drinking establishment where we met Jono the bartender,

who talked with us about living in Montreal and what we needed to see while we were there and what it was like living in a country where you are required to know two languages.
We ordered authentic Montreal poutine -

potatoes, meat, gravy and a fried egg on top. It was really good.

After lunch we headed down the street, past the Montreal Basilica, to St. Paul street which was lined with outdoor cafes, with any kind of food and drink imaginable.

It was a beautiful, hot summer's day and it seemed like everyone was outside enjoy the sights and sounds.

It was dark when we headed back to the hotel, and the Basilica and everything around it was lit to show off the amazing architecture.

Our hotel was amazing - it was built in 1870 and had artwork from all over the world. It even had the original LOVE sculpture from the early 1970s out front.

We visited a little more with people in the lobby, then called it a night. Excited to go out and explore more of the Old City tomorrow.