St. Paul to St. Thomas

Working hard to catch up. St Paul (what a great coming together of friends linked with a common bond) BMW motorcycles. But on to visit my family in Ontario. I had forgotten about the fact that there were 2 great Lakes between Minnesota and Ontario so with great trepidation I headed out. Got on the right highway heading east. Whoops. Why am I travelling South? Stopped in Foster Minn, got fuel and directions and headed back north, found the turn I had missed and headed east again. Got to Wausau and whoops. Where is that damn road I want going north. Continued east. Met a whole bunch of boy scouts heading to camp and then headed north on Hwy 52. It was like stairsteps a little north, a little east, a little north, a little east..you get the point. It started to rain a bit so when I got to a tee intersection I knew I should head left but turned right for 1 mile to a little town called Wabeno.
As I entered the bar there was a streak of lightning and a clap of thunder. I said. How's that for an entrance? The bar was full and ended up talking to a couple of young men at the bar. They had tacos for 1.00 each and boy were they ever good.

 

 

 

This is the little bar I stopped in. The rain stopped so I headed out again hoping to get to the Mackinaw Bridge. I just had no concept how big Lake Michigan was.  I finally got on hwy 2 east and stopped for dinner at Escanaba. I met up with a lot of BMW heading from the rally to points east. I was thinking of stopping at Escanaba but forged on hoping to get to the bridge but I stopped at a little motel on the upper reaches of Lake Michigan.

On Big Bay du Noc

 

 

The next morning I headed for the bridge. As usual I had to go out on the steel decking twice but it was not as bad on this bike as others. I managed to get there when the wind was not to strong and successfully negotiated the toll booth. So I transitioned from Wisconsin to Michigan and had no map.

There she is. The dreaded Mackinaw Bridge but I negotiated it with no problem.

The biggest problem is trying to get out money at the toll booths. $4.00 to cross Mackinaw and $3.00 to go over Blue Water Bay Bridge into Sarnia. Anyway I found London and saw the sign to St Thomas and arrived at the Tim Horton's. Called my niece and she was still out of town so I visited with my nephew Paul and then when she got home she went to Aylmer to the driving school and we locked the bike up in the garage. She has a lovely home and I stayed 2 days. Will put that in next episode.

This is the Dianne at the driving school she owns and operates.

This is her beautiful back yard and deck.