Thanks for all the confusion, canada.. Homeward bound...

[ With Matthew & I parting ways from the cabin in New York, I decided to at least get SOME Canadian time in & cut through from Buffalo to Detroit along the northern shore of Lake Erie..  Border crossing was fairly effortless although time consuming.. I made my way across, trying to stay off the major highways & found myself in a completely foreign, yet perfectly mundane farmland adventure.  I'm not sure why I was so hell-bent on traveling through Canada.. maybe it was just that I couldn't fathom riding through Northern Ohio again as I have done so many times.. Or maybe it was that I was looking forward to the challenges brought by a (slightly) different culture, street signs in English and French, mileage in Km & gas sold in Liters (or, Litres).. None of which were really all that strange.  But nevertheless, it was certainly interesting. I met a couple of unique characters along the way, most notably a farmer who pulled up during a smoke break on an old Honda 250 Custom... he asked me the same questions over & over, and just couldn't get over the technological monstrosity that is the GS.. .."she's a big ol' girl, aye?"  (yes, to my surprise and amusement, they do actually say "aye" after everything in Canada.. I'm not sure why, but I was under the impression that it was an expression blown out of proportion by our ethno-centric american culture..   turns out, not so much!)    

  I was trying to make it all the way to Windsor by Friday night but an impending rain storm on the horizon and a ever-increasingly sore ass convinced me to pamper myself at the Comfort Inn of St. Thomas, Ontario.

 Saturday morning I knew I had some miles to ride if I wanted to get home by Saturday evening, so I set out on the road at 8am & didn't stop until the first 120 miles were out of the way..  Finally across the border after a pit stop at the duty-free a bit after lunch time & I was now in the thick of the homeward marathon..  

 (Detroit is even more of a shithole than I ever imagined)

  400+ miles later I had reached the maze of freeways & toll plazas that is the approach into Chicago.. it wasn't until then that my retrospect kicked in & the entirety of the trip came flooding back in waves..   and now it was coming to abrupt end.   Total mileage for me was 2,737 which included travel through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Ontario & Michigan.  

  Stay tuned for a map, more photos & a retrospective look at the trip Motopsychosis-style..