Thursday, June 28, 2007

Motown

Today is Opposite Day. Where yesterday was hot, hurried, and kinda stressful, today was absolutely beautiful. When you’re riding in strong winds, you’re constantly “steering” the motorcycle, leaning into the wind. When a 32-wheel truck (actually counted them today) comes barreling past you, it blocks the wind and suddenly you are veering in the direction the wind had been coming from. Then when the truck has passed, you'd better be ready to make sure you don’t get blown back in the other direction. When that wind is 99 degrees and you’re doing 70 through a construction zone, it can make for a long day. It’s not really as bad as it sounds, though, and still better than a good day at work. Today was crystal clear, cool chamber of commerce weather. In fact, it was only 22 degrees when we left Kitchener! The ride was beautiful, traffic was very light heading west toward the other end of Lake Erie, and again, there’s the courteous drivers who are paying attention. What a concept.

Today’s discovery: you can’t do the hokey pokey with out bumping into two Tim Hortons restaurants in Canada. McDonalds seems like exclusive dining in comparison. Curiousity piqued, I finally did eat in one, but it was across the river in Port Huron, Michigan. You can save yourself the trip; it wasn’t all that.

The border crossing, which I again expected to be a hassle, was a 10-minute affair including the line. We got into the Motor City (actually staying in Auburn Hills) a little after lunch, and spent the afternoon exploring the Chrysler museum and learning about all the cars I grew up being enchanted with.

Tonight we will have a moment to catch our breath, get re-organized, and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow before heading to the races, we will take a driving tour of Detroit and see pretty much the entire history of the American auto industry. We will be unarmed. Wish me luck.



Oh, yeah: we checked in this afternoon and there was a FedEx package waiting for me! :-) So... there will probably be no more updates for a while, as we will be spending the next few nights being drunk and disorderly at the racetrack campground in Norwalk, Ohio. During the day, it will be 300-mph Top Fuel drag racing. Just the ticket for a simple redneck like me.

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