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July 26th, Wednesday day 30 Seney to Sault Ste. Marie’s OUR TRANSPONDER FINALLY
UPDATED AND ITS’S ACCURATE EXCEPT THE LAST 100 MILES SHOWS A STRAIGHT LINE
BETWEEN SENEY AND SAULT ST. MARIE. I ONLY WISH IT WAS A STRAIGHT
LINE, BUT I PROMISE YOU WE RODE ABOUT A ZILLION COUNTY ROADS, ABANDONED
RAILROADS AND WHATEVERS.
WOW, What a day. We left Seney at 9:30 under very ominous looking clouds. I knew the trip was going to seem long today as folks at the motel told us it was 140 miles by car and we were going up north and then east and then south and then east. I think they were wrong as our total miles for the day ended up being 157 miles. We arrived at Sault Ste. Marie at 7:15. The day started great from Seney to Paradise. The roads were either, very smooth sand, gravel, dirt or asphalt. The county asphalt roads had wide gravel sides for easy riding. We included a photo of one county road that even has speed limits posted for OHV right next to their regular car speed limits. We ate lunch at a great bar/restaurant in Paradise called The Yukon Inn. It’s a great looking log building that has to be very old. We visited with Dan and Susie and had a great time. Paradise is a way neat town right on Lake Superior. We were in the middle of nowhere before we got to Paradise and came upon the Pike Lake Mini Mall owned by Diane and Ron. This place was great. It has no outside power source so they have their own generator. Of course there’s outside toilets and Jon, being the proper person he is, spent about five minutes inside, trying to figure out how to flush it. We included photos of the place. After leaving Paradise in fairly heavy rain things kind of went down hill. We found out that highway 123 is a state road and we could not travel on it. We snaked around trails, side roads and finally got to I think trail 8 and thought we were home free. However, about one mile down the road, there was a gate at a bridge and tons of fallen trees so we decided not to try that route. Then things brightened up. A DNR office who had never been down this little god forsaken road showed up to just see what the trail was like. The odds of that happening are about a million to one. She showed us a forest map of roads we could take. However, the problem was getting to one of them legally. Kelly gave us a flashing light escort down the side of highway 123 to a county road. Jon and I will always have warm spot in our heart for the help on that rainy day. Later we met two dudes named Dave from Columbus, Ohio and John from Lake Orion, Michigan who were dirt biking down isolated roads. We visited with them and compared gps systems and they were on their way. Next we went down more county roads and snowmobile/atv trails and met Rod in Raco at the exact spot he was supposed to be sitting. He was even awake when we arrived. We headed out of Raco about 6:00 and some guys said just follow the old railroad grade right in to Sault Ste. Marie. YEH RIGHT! It stops in numerous places for some reason, perhaps private property. So we figured out some more county roads and got back on the trail and ended up at Sault Ste. Marie at 7:15. By the time we got there a huge crowd of three had gathered around Rod as he spun the story of our incredible journey. Josh, Jim and Mark took a few photos and are taking them to the local newspaper tonight. I can’t believe it’s
already day 30. Tonight we need to find a currency exchange and get
some of that great looking Canadian money for our days in Ontario and Quebec.
Jon, Rod and I are also going to the library to pick up some of the speech
tapes on how to speak French. No doubt the atv folks we meet in Quebec
will be very impressed! Money is running low so I think we’ll head
right past Ruth’s Chris Steak House and go to the Burger King next door.
See Ya
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