We've Gone International!

Day 46: Newberry, MI to Sault Ste. Marie, ON--70 miles

Milestone: 2,500 miles today! Wow!


We had been worried about these last 2 days in the U.P. because it promised to be a green wilderness similar to our experience in Minnesota. But our fears were for naught--there were populated areas all along this ride and places to stop every 10-15 miles. We were very happy to see that!

Unlike most days, this one did NOT start with a hill. It was flat for the most part and we had several stretches where you could see the road ahead for about 5 miles--it was so straight and flat. There was not much wind at all, and we were thankful taht we didn't have to fight any wind tunnels down those straight roads.

We crossed a lot of creeks and rivers during the 4 hours we were on the bikes in the USA, and saw plenty of small ponds and lakes. It was a really fun day of riding--just like our other days in the U.P.!

We turned north toward Sault Ste. Marie, MI and found our first real wind of the day--a crosswind to fight for 9 miles. It wasn't too bad, and we made it almost to the international crossing. But we wanted to explore the town on the USA side, so we headed into the historic downtown area. We checked out the Soo Locks, which can accommodate HUGE ships! We actually saw a couple of ships go through, and it was really neat to see them angle themselves into the lock. We stopped at the Lock View Restaurant (lots of tourist stuff about those locks) and had a nice, fresh whitefish lunch. The Lake Superior whitefish is awesome and I wish we could get it at home (Colorado is kind of a fish desert).


Sault Ste. Marie was a neat little town on the USA side, and is a much bigger city on the Canada side, so we decided to go for it before the afternoon ended. We headed to the International Bridge, which is a toll bridge that is about 3 miles long and connects the two countries. We paid one car toll, and I got to ride over the car counter but David had to take his bike around (so we didn't mess up the count). The bridge had NO pedestrian or bike lane, so we were a little concerned about making that 3 miles with two hills in it in traffic. Luckily, the side going into Canada was not crowded! We only had to stop once to let a big RV go by--there just wasn't enough room for both of us on the bridge.

The other side of the road, however, was a mess! The bridge into the USA was backed up at least 2 1/2 miles of the 3-mile bridge (lucky for us--they broke the cross-wind we would have had to deal with otherwise). The wait was probably about 2 hours. People had their windows open and their cars turned off. We felt lucky to be going the other way! It seemed a bit ridiculous for them to be so slow on the USA side when we waited only about 30 seconds to get into Canada. After a few questions and not even a glance at our passports, we were off to the Canadian welcome center! This was a good lesson for us--we will plan our re-entry into the USA for a mid-week day to avoid some of the wait.

Once we were in Sault Ste. Marie in Canada, we checked into a Days Inn and checked out the town. Unfortunately for us, all the shops close up at about 4 p.m. and so we just got to window shop. Actually, that was a lucky 7/7/7 break, because everything here is MUCH more expensive than home. The Canadian dollar is about par with the American dollar (thanks, current administration), and so we paid $11 for a beer and a glass of wine; $18.50 for movie tickets; and a LOT for dinner. The money here is pretty cool. It is all the same size like US dollars, but they have different colors for the different money. A $20 is green; a $5 is blue, etc. And they have NO $1 or $2 bills--they use all coins for that. Interesting throw-back to our failed attempt to adopt Sacagawea dollars, eh? They have made it work here.

We had a good dinner with VEGGIES at the Quality Inn's restaurant! And then we went to see "License to Wed" which opened yesterday. It was OK--not Robin Williams' best effort, but fun and we didn't fall asleep.

Kenny, we did find some good beer, but it took two pubs to do it! The first one had only Bud on tap--and no dark beers at all. The second one (after dinner and the movie) had several darker beers on tap--so all is not lost! David has already had one Molson!

Dinner, a movie, and some blogging--a good first day in Canada! We'll see how it goes for finding computers for the next 10 days or so. We have a lot of territory to cover here in Canada, and can't wait to see it!