With hot sunny days upon me, the sun bakes me out of the tent once again and into the swing set I camped under the night before. I set a goal for myself to make my way back into Canada in two days, crossing from one Sault Ste. Marie to another. That means about three hundred kilometers by the end of the day on Sunday. I follow route 28 all day with its modest road shoulders. I decide to wear my orange reflective vest as my shirt for the day to make myself more visible.

Early in the day the ride takes me along the quiet shores of Lake Superior.

One curious thing on these roads is that they put a special surface on them where snowmobile paths cross. I have no idea what this special covering does and it is hard to imagine all these snowmobiles crossing a main highway in so many different places.

I come upon a park with the most curious set of signs. It may require reading multiple times but clearly the owner of the park has had his park shut down by local authorities and he is taking revenge on them.

I am determined to cycle about half the distance, about 150km, to the town of Newberry. About fifty kilometers away I notice a woman in a convertible going in the opposite direction pulled over on the side of the road. I soon figured out she did so to put the top on her car. For hours I have only been looking east and seeing something like this.

When I turned around to look west, I understood why she was preparing for rain.

As it was about 20 km to the nearest town, and I was quite exposed on the highway, I picked up the pace to try to beat the storm to the next town where I could find some shelter. It’s great to have a shot of adrenaline after cycling 100 km or so. As I hear the rumble of thunder coming closer, I move even faster.

Within 30 minutes or so the storm is above me.

Fortunately, the storm and I reach the town of Seney at the same time so I am able to get shelter at the Fox River Inn where I decide to spend the night.

There is a single bar in town that also serves food so I head over for a hamburger and fries. Basically, that was the menu. It was a politically conservative place full of signs like “Charlton Heston is my President” and something that I noticed in the washroom urinal, actually you can’t miss it. I find it amazing that more than forty years after Jane Fonda was protesting against the US involvement in the Vietnam war, this little bar in upper Michigan is still taking the piss out of her.

Stats – for Saturday 14 July 2012

Start: Chcolay Townsip, Michigan
Finish: Seney, Michigan
Distance: 113 km
Time on Bike: 5 hrs 19 min
Average Speed: 21.2 km/hr
Distance to Date: 4,767 km