Lake Superior 1K

[Ole]

I was off. The border crossing was easy. It took about 2 minutes and was soon in The Bush heading for Wawa. Lots of critters up there. I turned around 3 times to take pics.







I saw that bear in the road about 3/4 mile ahead of me by the time I got there he was in the trees. So I whistled and on cue he came out for the pic.





She was a little jumpy maybe the bugs were driving her crazy




I did not ride with the others. I do best solo. Besides, they had super pumper gas tanks and I did not. There were many many bridges being rebuilt in Canada and Minnesota. Lost a bunch of time in line waiting for a pilot car to take us through.



pretty boring just sitting there



Around Nipigon Ont it stated raining so I put the camera in the top case and just pounded out the miles. I did see the others at gas stops they would pass me and then I would pass them. June 21 was Grandmas Marathon in Duluth MN. The roads were packed packed I tell ya. I waited 33 minutes at the border crossing to get back in to the USA at Grand Portage. 3 lines of traffic stopped arggggg. Most were Canadian plates I assume going to run the race. Duluth was a white out fog but I made it through in good shape. One of the guys on the BMW GS passed me in Duluth so I knew I was not going to beat him back. But it's not a race with others it's a race with the 24 hour clock and that's it. It stopped raining near Ashland WI I dont mind rain I have good waterproof riding gear head to toe. I just ride it out.
It rained fogged for about 350 miles
Around the 600 mile mark my knee started to bother me. Popped a couple pills and it felt much better. The pills did not affect my riding at at all. i made very good time in the UP of Michigan. There was no traffic but the gol darned deer were everywhere. Approaching Ishpeming I did not dim my headlights fast enough for this gentleman. He turned around and pulled me over.





He let me go with a verbal warning and a sermon. He claimed "this is how I find over 50% of my drunk drivers".
I thanked him and assured him I was not drinking just burning fuel.

I lost some time going in to Newberry MI for fuel. 8 miles. The 2 gas stations out on the highway did not have 24 hour pumps and that burned my ass.
So leaving Newberry I had 2 things to do. Ride 76 miles and dodge about 70 freaking deer. Another guy on a BMW GS came up beside me and said he was going to tail me me with his brights on. He had more lighting than I. After about 15 minutes I waved him by and he just flew the remaining miles how he didn't hit a deer is beyond me. I just kept telling myself " dont screw this up you have gone 980 miles dont screw this up laying in the ditch with a bike and a deer on top of you"

I throttled down to about 50mph and had some close calls but I made it. I got my last mand gas slip and went to the rest area to meet the check-in guy at 3am. There were 3 riders all on BMW GS's ahead of me



My bike odometer said 1094 miles in 21.5 hours. My GPS said 1062 miles