2024 Maine to Peoria, Illinois, Bicycle Trip through Canada--Epilogue. August 29 to September 14 2024

       After spending a few days with our son and family and getting to watch our oldest grandson run in a cross-country meet, we headed home. A few days later, Kay located the information about her stolen bike, found the serial number and called the Sault Ste. Marie Ontario Police Service to give them the number, as we didn't have it with us on the trip.

When an officer called back, he put the number in their database and said there wasn't a match. Since we hadn't heard anything from them while on the trip, she asked what they had found when they had reviewed the security camera video, and other details of the case. He said the officer who was handling the case was out of the office and would call back on Monday. When Jim got home from work on Monday, we discovered they had called his phone instead of Kay's, The next morning while we were both at work, they tried calling again, so Kay called them back at lunch time. The officer reported, "We found your bike today." He said that it was in quite good condition, except that the pedals were missing. Kay especially was excited and overjoyed at the news.

          Since we had Thursday, Friday and Saturday off, we decided we should go ahead and take advantage of that and head north in 2 days to go get it. Off we went on Thursday morning and took the opportunity to have lunch with Jim's sister in Traverse City, then headed to the tip of the Lower Peninsula, drove across the Mackinac Bridge and camped overnight at the Straits State Park just north of the bridge. We enjoyed views of the bridge from the park and while we were at one of the viewing platforms, we heard someone talking about northern lights. They told us it was supposed to be a good night for them and the predicted time was in a half-hour. So we hiked to a dark area of the park and did see some, but quite faint to the naked eye, brighter on cellphone camera pictures.

           Moon over the Mackinac Bridge

        The night was pleasantly warm for September which was nice for sleeping in a tent. The next morning we took a walk on the beach before dawn. It was a little foggy, enough that the towers of the Big Mac were disappearing into the haze, but not enough to keep us from seeing a freighter head for the bridge and cross under it. We also got to see a beautiful sunrise, with the sun very red in the haze and the light reflecting in the water. Then it was time to pack up and head north. We crossed into Canada without incident and headed to the police service building. After signing a few papers, we waited in the entryway to the building for them to bring the bike. We started talking with a guy seated across from us, who told us horror stories about how stolen bikes were spray painted or taken apart and sold for parts then the frame sold for the metal. We took comfort in the fact that the police had told us it was in good condition. Then there it was! not coming through the building, but outside being wheeled toward the entrance. It was still white, no spray paint. Looking it over, we discovered a few other minor things. One water bottle cage was missing--but what was odd, it was the broken one (which had still been functional with a zip tie) that was missing! We wonder if the bike might have fallen over and it had broken off, that's what we could think of as to why the broken one was missing. Another odd thing, the mount for the bike computer, the wires to the sensors, the sensors and the sensor magnets were also missing. (the bike computer itself we took off the bike for travel, so we still had that.). A number of days later we also noticed the bell was also missing. Other than that, and maybe a few additional wear marks in the paint, it looked good.

                                                                   

      By taking both wheels off we were able to load it inside the car. Since we had to come up here we decided to make use of the opportunity, so we then headed north along the Trans-Canadian Highway to vist Pancake Bay Provincial Park and camp overnight. As we traveled we saw that a few of the trees were starting to get their fall colors. The park turned out to have a very long and skinny campground between the highway and the beach. We camped at the far end on a "quiet" loop, no radios, generators, etc, allowed. It was also quiet in that there were only a few other people up in that nice wooded area. 

      We spent the afternoon taking a hike on the 14 km Lookout Trail across the highway which traveled through pleasant woods. It also followed a section of rapids on the Pancake River. In some places on the back half of the trail it was muddy, and we saw lots of moose tracks. We went by a beaver pond later on--we looked but didn't see any moose. As we circled back, we climbed up a lot of stairs to get to the Edmund Fitzgerald Lake Superior Lookout where we had a great view over the bay and west toward the area where the Edmund Fitzgerald sank while trying to make it to the calmer waters of Whitefish Bay. 

     The next morning we were up before sunrise to take a walk along the beach. First we walked to the left along the beach to the end of the park and probably a little outside the park boundaries. Then we headed back and continued along the other way most of the distance to the end of a point before we turned around. We ended up walking 6 miles! 

We enjoyed the beauty of another gorgeous morning.

                                                    

Then it was time to pack up, be on our way and head back to Holland, Michigan.