9/20/12 Wawa to Montreal River Harbour, ON

I heard the rain all night and thought maybe we should take the ride to the Soo.  We discussed the situation, so close to the finish, would we ever finish at a later date, the road isn't too hilly, the weather is warmer, in the 50's, wind in our face, no Bobs, rain all day.  We decided to go for it and left the Bobs with Tom and Tim and jumped on our bike.  Riding we were warm enough but got cold every time we stopped.  A couple hours out the guys drove by and waved.  Good thing they didn't stop because I would have jumped in and called it a day.  The hills weren't bad but the rain made it a miserable day and somewhat dangerous.  This day was riding through Lake Superior Provincial Park and with the bad weather we didn't even want to stop and enjoy the views.  We met a guy riding west towing a trailer with his cat in it.  He's from Montreal, lost his job and is headed to Winnipeg to hopefully find a job in a poultry processing plant.  All he had was a trailer that didn't have much in it other than his cat and a tent on a rack on the back of his bike.  He looked down on his luck.  There was a sign on the back of his trailer asking for food and/or money.  After talking to him I put all my cares to the side and felt like a million wet dollars.  We stopped at the Agawa Visitor Center to see how much farther we had.  This is where we were originally going to camp.  Good thing we didn't because it was cold and rainy and nothing would dry out.  Much to our surprise, Montreal River Harbour was another 12 miles east, so our short day came to 64 miles.  The good news is now we can finish the trip tomorrow with only 80 miles to go, otherwise we were going to split it into two 45 mile days.

We arrived at the Twilight Resort on the Montreal River looking like drown rats.  Our Bobs were waiting for us.  This "resort" isn't the kind of resort I'm used to.  It's rustic cabins, no TV or internet and old furniture.  But like all the other places we stayed, he was full that night.  There's also a campground there but the bath facilities are pretty bare, no heat in the building.  Good thing we didn't camp there.  Dan's the owner for 26 years and has it up for sale for 2 years now.  In the winter he goes to the Soo and does tax returns.  We stayed here because he also has a restaurant, Taters.  There used to be a restaurant across the river but it closed 4 years ago.  He started losing business then because guests didn't have a place to eat, so he opened his little diner.  It's not much but did the job.  This time of year not only does he run the office, he cooks and cleans.  In the summer he has hired help, same as most of the places.  We turned up the heat in the cabin to dry our clothes, I even had my hairdryer going.  Everything did dry out by the morning.  We made the decision to leave our Bobs here while we ride the 80 miles on our final day.  After talking to so many different people over the past week, we knew we had two final hills to climb, one out of here and the "mile long" hill before the Soo.  That hill is steep, but once you're up there, it's all downhill to the finish.