Interlochen - Day 4

Interlochen Michigan to Sudbury Ontario

Today, August 19th, is the second anniversary of the bike accident that took Rick 'Wolfman' Jakubas from us. We miss you, Rick.

It rained overnight but had stopped by the time we got up. It started spitting again as we packed up to go and the sky looked grey, so we donned rain gear before pulling out. The round of goodbyes took a while. We do plan to see a number of the same people in Arkansas next month.

We skipped breakfast and headed back up US 31 encountering very little traffic. The skies cleared just north of Traverse City, a major break for us since later reports from those southbound indicated that they encountered ugly weather. We stopped briefly in Charlevoix for a Mickey D breakfast (very slow girl on the cash) and gas and then hauled on up through Petoskey and on to the Mackinac Bridge. For the first time in quite a while, there were no high wind warnings and, again, we were allowed to stay in the paved lane all the way over. No toll lines on our side, but we were surprised to see the southbound line at the booths lined up all the way back to the US 2 interchange. That can't be fun.

We stopped again for the last cheap gas in Soo Ontario. Then we crossed the border in the middle of the International Bridge. US bound traffic was lined up 3/4s of the way back on the bridge, while we only had a three car line-up to get into the Canadian booth. I am starting to have serious reservations about this two-lane bridge and the long waits that are happening with greater frequency.

We stopped at Mom's for a while and she made us sandwiches. I went to tighten a loose pinch bolt on my trailer hitch, one that keeps the drawbar from rattling in the receiver, but found it had fallen out. Something else to fix. The ride in from the Soo was fairly quick and uneventful. We got home to find that the contractors has finished 90% of the job. All that remained was some fine tuning.