Breakfast was at the Esso gas station restaurant. Don't forget we're in Canada where they use the metric system, kilometers and Celcius. We became very good at converting the numbers. We talked to a man there who confirmed the two big hills we had coming. This area has cliffs that go right down to the lake so there's no getting around them, it's up and over. The longer hill was a good 2 miles and of course, the wind that was out of the west shifted to be out of the east, another headwind. Most of the trucks did turn off on highway 11 right at the start so the traffic wasn't bad. Strange thing about this highway, the shoulders range for nothing to 6 feet, they go from one size to another without any logical reasoning and it may be for only a few yards at a time. Go figure. One thing for sure, it's when there's a very narrow shoulder is when there's an oncoming and passing truck at the same time, and there we are. Scary. I rode up the hills at 4mph or less, but at least I didn't have to walk up. Coming downhill I have to be careful because going too fast my trailer starts to wobble and I feel like I'm losing control. Of course that's when a truck goes by too.
We stayed at the Norwood Motel, $70/room. We got one of the last rooms in town because the pulp mill is reopening and the contractors are taking the rooms. Actually an Indian(from India) company bought the mill and is going to make rayon there. The town is very happy about this but there isn't much to the town to begin with. Drying our clothes outside we met several other guests. Dave and Kristina were visiting family over in Minnesota. They had a pickup and towing a powerboat. They offered to take our gear to the Marathon if we wanted, but we didn't know what we might need riding during the day. Another couple was there to go to the Amesyth mines and find some stones. Everyone was so friendly and had a story to tell.
No comments:
Post a Comment