Before we begin talking about today's events we need to describe the manner in which Ken arrived back at the hotel room after the movie last night (technically, this took place today, since it was after midnight.) After riding through the largely deserted streets of Duluth, Ken was "in the zone", and continued riding through the two sets of automatic sliding doors of the hotel entrance, through the lobby and past the deserted front desk, made a left turn and rode all the way down to the end of the long hall to the room. By doing so he arrived at least 30 seconds ahead of Cam, who had not seen Ken's grand entry into the hotel and had dutifully dismounted at the front doors!
Now on to the rest of today's events...
Our free breakfast at the Country Inn & Suites ranked in the top three of free hotel breakfasts on our trip! Why you ask? The oatmeal was prepared in a actual Quaker Oats Hotpot, as opposed to the instant envelopes. In addition to all the "standard" continental breakfast items there were "make your own" waffles, sunny side up eggs, sausage patties, cheese slices, and even biscuits and gravy! (Editors Note: Quality of the oatmeal has absolutely nothing to do with Cam's evaluation of hotel breakfasts - in fact, the presence of oatmeal of any sort results in a downgrade on Cam's scale...)
Now on to the rest of today's events...
Our free breakfast at the Country Inn & Suites ranked in the top three of free hotel breakfasts on our trip! Why you ask? The oatmeal was prepared in a actual Quaker Oats Hotpot, as opposed to the instant envelopes. In addition to all the "standard" continental breakfast items there were "make your own" waffles, sunny side up eggs, sausage patties, cheese slices, and even biscuits and gravy! (Editors Note: Quality of the oatmeal has absolutely nothing to do with Cam's evaluation of hotel breakfasts - in fact, the presence of oatmeal of any sort results in a downgrade on Cam's scale...)
Ken coasts toward the Blatnick Bridge. After chowing down on all that, we hit the road around 10:00 A.M. and began the swift descent towards Lake Superior and the impressive Blatnik Bridge across the mouth of the St. Louis River. As we made our way up the bridge approaches and merge lanes it soon became apparent that we would have been in serious trouble riding across this bridge on a normal weekday rushhour! The fact that it was Sunday meant the traffic was light. In addition, a maintenance crew was working on the bridge so one lane of traffic was blocked off, which provided a traffic free lane for us to share with the construction vehicles and equipment. The expression "more luck than brains" came to mind!
 Cam rides the bridge in the construction lane. |  The view from the bridge was amazing - the water was very calm. |
Once over the bridge we were almost immediately in Wisconsin, so we stopped for the obligatory province/state border photos - this is province/state number 7.
Then it was back on the road to make some miles. Our lunch stop was once again a delightful experience. Charlie's Riverside Restaurant served up a delicious lunch with great service to boot! It's located at the junction of Highway 2 and Road "U" (very imaginative road name!)
The waitresses (not pictured) at Charlie's wear "Charlie's Angels" tee-shirts!
Cam, Doug, Cher, Chase & Scott The highlight of the afternoon was a surprise visit on the road side by Scott Althen, a former Price Waterhouse colleague of Cam's who was driving to Halifax with his family in a convoy of two motor homes. Scott had been following our progress on the website, and had sent Cam a message this morning saying he was traveling the same route and would be watching for us. Cam hadn't checked his messages so was completely surprised by the unexpected encounter. (Ken was not surprised at all!) Scott and his team were on Day 2 of their cross country adventure and are making much better time than us!
The temperature continued to rise, as did the road - rise and fall, that is, as the rolling hills became more frequent and more steep as the afternoon progressed. We stopped for a couple of much needed shade and refreshment breaks as we rode through the Brule River State Forest and the Inch Lake State Natural Area. We love the blue sky and sun, however, are not yet sure if the beauty of a nice day is worth the extra work required to cycle long distances in the heat. We do find that blue sky and sun equate to exponential increases in the volume of fluid consumed in a day!
The temperature continued to rise, as did the road - rise and fall, that is, as the rolling hills became more frequent and more steep as the afternoon progressed. We stopped for a couple of much needed shade and refreshment breaks as we rode through the Brule River State Forest and the Inch Lake State Natural Area. We love the blue sky and sun, however, are not yet sure if the beauty of a nice day is worth the extra work required to cycle long distances in the heat. We do find that blue sky and sun equate to exponential increases in the volume of fluid consumed in a day!
That's a lot of pedaling! It was during this stretch that Ken achieved a personal milestone, as his trusty Cat Eye odometer recorded 40,000 kilometers of riding! (Since he bought his first odometer that is).
Finally, around 5:45PM, Lake Superior appeared - what an awesome sight. We later learned that Lake Superior, while not having the most shipwrecks of the Great Lakes, is known for not giving up its wreck victims due to the extreme cold and depth. It's kind of haunting to think of all the dead bodies entombed down there!
Finally, around 5:45PM, Lake Superior appeared - what an awesome sight. We later learned that Lake Superior, while not having the most shipwrecks of the Great Lakes, is known for not giving up its wreck victims due to the extreme cold and depth. It's kind of haunting to think of all the dead bodies entombed down there!
The "Big Lake" aka The Great Gitche Gumee
We checked into the AmericInn hotel located lakeside, looking forward to enjoying "Splashland" with it's hot tub, sauna and waterslides. We were just a little disappointed that the sauna temperature wouldn't break a sweat, the hot tub jets were broken, the hot tub temperature was just slightly warmer than the lake water, and the waterslides were closed until the lifeguard returned from their extended break... We are generally pretty easy to please, but we wondered how the visitors who had paid for their visits and were sporting wristbands were feeling about their visit. A 2 km ride to the PizzaPub who served excellent nachos and bacon cheeseburger pizza made for a great end to a great day, and we once again navigated our way back to the hotel in the dark making good use of our headlight and flashing taillights.
What's wrong with this picture - 5 points for the first correct response...!
Ride Details:
- Distance: 127.6 kms
- Riding time: 5 hours, 58 minutes
- Average speed: 21.3 kms/hour
- Wind: Northeast (light)
- Cumulative: 3,238.6 kms
For more ride details see Strava and for more photos from today see our Photo Gallery.
FYI - we completed our Strava Junedoggle Challenge in 2nd place out of 3,030 riders in Canada and 23rd out of 85,278 in the whole world!!! Not bad!
- Distance: 127.6 kms
- Riding time: 5 hours, 58 minutes
- Average speed: 21.3 kms/hour
- Wind: Northeast (light)
- Cumulative: 3,238.6 kms
For more ride details see Strava and for more photos from today see our Photo Gallery.
FYI - we completed our Strava Junedoggle Challenge in 2nd place out of 3,030 riders in Canada and 23rd out of 85,278 in the whole world!!! Not bad!
