Parting of the Ways

Saturday was Kerry and my last day riding together on this trip.  Yesterday we got an early start and were on the road from Espanola at 7:30 a.m.  When we reached Sudbury about 40 minutes later Kerry took Highway 69 south to Toronto and then headed back west to Guelph to visit his sisters who live in the area.  I continued on Highway 17 East to North Bay, Mattawa, Deep River, Renfrew, Arnprior, and finally to Perth.  I hope and trust that Kerry made it to his sister's place in Guelph alright.  I assume that is the case but I don't know yet.

Ready to leave Goodman's Motel in Espanola on July 17th, 2011

Yesterday was extremely hot.  As I rode along the temperature kept increasing until the inside of my jacket sleeves and my T-shirt were soaked.  As I passed every small town it was difficult to find a place to get a cold drink on the highway.  I was beginning to be dehydrated so I finally pulled in to the parking lot of Macdonald's in Arnprior.  When I stopped the air temperature gauge on my motorcycle read 100 degrees F.  I drank a large (1 litre) sized drink and it hardly made a dent in my thirst. However, I was close to Perth so I continued in that direction on a great back road that took my to Highway 7 outside of Carleton Place, home of the not-so-famous Canadian singer Brock Zeman.

I am a person who gets paranoid after my gas gauge reaches the just a little less than half full mark so I don't know what I was thinking yesterday when I left Mattawa with just a quarter tank of gas.  I figured I could fill up down the road in plenty of time but as the kilometres rolled on I checked my GPS only to find that I was about 45 km from the nearest gass station each way.  I had no idea I could go 95 kilometres in that part of Ontario without being able to get gas and not be warned with a 'Check Your Gas - Next Service 90 km.' sign.  But about 20 km north of Deep River I came across a small Esso station and put enough gas in to get me to Deep River.

While I was filling up I saw a most disturbing sight.  A guy in a beat up, rusty old pickup truck pilled in to the station.  He got out and I saw that he was wearing cut off jean shorts and no shirt.  His skin was the colour of chicken skin and while he was not overweight, his pot belly hung over the tops of his shorts.  He had on a stained baseball hat which covered his mullet.  It was just so wrong and is the stuff of nightmares!

Corn field with farm buildings and silo near Arnprior, ON

Corn field and farm buildings

Typical Lanark County farm scene

As I rode the back roads I saw the sights that I still remember from over forty years ago; the brick farm houses, fields of corn and oats, the tall silver-domed silos, and most of all the trees.  We had begun seeing the trees of the Eastern Mixed Hardwood Forest two days earlier near Terrace Bay, but it is good to see elms returning after being decimated by Dutch Elm disease, sugar maples with their distinctive shapes, oak, poplar, and the local white pines.

In the almost 5000 km of riding I have doone in the past week, the closest I came to seeing a collision was when a driver in an RV pulled out in front of Kerry.  Fortunately is was early enough so that Kerry could hit his brakes and avoid a collision.  However, yesterday between Cobden and Renfrew I came across a major collision.  One car was smashed and pointing into the ditch on the right side of the road while the other was on its roof at a 45 degree angle to the shoulder.  I surmise that there might have been serious injuries because of the condition of the cars and the fact that an ambulance arrived just as I passed the scene.  shortly after I met two more ambulances, a policeman on a motorcycle, and an OPP cruiser heading to the scene. 

Later as I rode through the village of Pakenham I stopped to take a picture of their famous five arched stone bridge.  As I pulled in to the parking lot I saw a local fire truck, and across the river, several search and rescue vehicles.  I was told that someone had gone missing and that they were trying to find a body if there was one.  I found out late last night that a 53 year-old man had drowned after falling into the rapids while trying to retrieve a shoe that had fallen in the water.  It was strange that after  almost 4800 km or travelling, I should see two serious incidents within 90 minutes of each other so close to the end.

The five-arched stone bridge in Pakenham, ON

The Stewart Park Music Festival was winding down so the town was busy as I rode to my brother's house.  I arrived at about 3:00 after doing 600 km since 7:30 in the morning.  Needless to say, I had not stopped often during this part of the journey.  When I pulled into the driveway I was about 20 km short of the 5000 km mark for the ride, which for me had begun last Saturday morning in Campbell River.

After visiting with my brother for a time I had a nap since the extreme heat of the night before meant that it was a short on sleep kind of night.  When I awoke the cloudless skies had changed and there were angry grey clouds with high winds.  This usually signals a storm so we stood in the carport watching the branches of the maple trees get twisted and bent by the wind as lightning flashed overhead.  Rain soon followed but the whole event was over in about 40 minutes although the clouds remained.  Weather reports said that the winds approached 100 kph and in some places large branches were broken off trees.  It was great be under shelter and not to have to ride in that wind and rain.

It was still very wet so I let my dad know that I would visit him on Monday after I had the chance to do a major cleanup on my bike. 

This was a wonderful journey.  Now I have almost two weeks to visit with family and friends and prpeare for the return section which will be through the US along Interstate 90 back to the West Coast.  I may blog from time to time over the next two weeks but until I begin the return part of the trip they may be a few days apart.