5 days and 1700 miles later . . .

we've landed in familiar territory. we'll spend the night with with my brother colin, and his wife sue in galesburg, mi. this (kalamazoo) is also where paul and i were married all those years ago! just a piece of history - here's a shot of my childhood home in galesburg where i lived from ages 6 until 15. my father built this house while we lived in a 24 x 36 garage that has since been torn down. since the last entry, the weather cooled dramatically, bringing out the leather jackets and chaps. but to this day (sat.) we've managed to dodge the rain/thunder storms and have only had momentary sprinkles in northern maine and then again in canada. heading north from the connecticut coast was nice as we left much of the congested traffic behind. we took a route by-passing boston and made it up to bangor. found the local motorsports shop and had oil changed on the gold wing, before heading still farther north. shortly after leaving bangor, we were treated to a scenic view of mount katahdin, the end (or the beginning, depending on how you look at it) of the 2200 mile long appalachian trail that begins in georgia. since my mother has climbed this mountain, i feel a connection to it, so asked paul to stop for a photo. cloudy skies only allowed for a limited view, which changed quickly in just a few moments. next stop was madawaska, the most northeastern corner of the country and little did we know, they have a formal "four corners park" in the town of 800 people. there is a marble structure with the harley insignia and a stone path way (still a work in progress) leading to a spot specifically designed for motorcycle picture taking. at our motel that evening, we ran into a few riders having their monthly gold wing meeting so, we spent some time sharing travel stories and riding tips. the following morning, while packing up, one of the gold wing riders that we had spoken to earlier on the phone drove up to the motel and offered to lead us to the bridge crossing into canada. in fact, he crossed the border and stayed with us at the customs office before leading us to the highway heading west. * * * passing through customs, both ways, was interesting. crossing into canada was much more thorough than we had imagined. after answering the initial questions, we were asked to dismount and park the bike and go inside. we handed over the papers and our passports, went through more thorough questioning (regarding destinations, origins, where we'd been, etc), then were told they would need to do background checks! they were polite and spoke english, so that helped. it was probably only a 15-minute process but seemed much longer! last thing they wanted to do was search the bike, but then for some reason, decided not to. the officers say 9-11 has made their jobs a lot more work! the ride was going oh, so well, until we hit montreal at about 2:30 in the afternoon. an accident involving several vehicles had occured late morning and was still being cleared. well, paul is pretty good now at walking the bike, as he had to do for nearly 3 hours! (and i attest that that's not an exaggeration!) we slept good that night! next day, our goal was to get to windsor, canada, for the night, which we did, but for the 4th day, found no computer available to use. left windsor this morning and then had another thorough pass through customs. after looking at the passports, the officer asked for all the compartments to be opened, which was expected, but then he wanted our bags opened. all the while he was admiring the bike and asking about our trip. the process took about 10-15 minutes by the time we were riding away. back into the good ol' united states! (oh, by the way, the reason for crossing into canada was primarily for the highway access. it would've added many more miles coming west from maine to the midwest). gas prices in canada are about $1.68/litre, which equals $5 something a gallon. so, it could be worse! tomorrow, we've been invited to join my brother's HARLEY group on their father's day ride to south haven (our next destination). and they know we have a HONDA - how cool is that!