2023 (July) Lake Superior Circle Tour

No motorcycle trip is complete without days filled with ice cream and/or pie so we started our journey this year at the Crystal Cafe in Iola who has the best pies! We kicked off the trip with a stop for breakfast...AND PIE!

The Journey Begins

From Iola, our first target destination was to visit friends in Chetek, WI. Visit with Friends in Chetek which is about a 175 mile trek. As you may know, we stay off highways and prefer county roads and smaller state highways. While it takes longer, it gives us a chance to experience the area we are traveling through. On this trip it certainly included all the good (and bad) smells along the way, a Mennonite Volleyball tournament and other things . We Stopped at one of our favorite cheese places which we discovered in our travels to visit Kyle in Minneapolis. Yellowstone Cheese has one of Tim's favorites: XXX Cheese which is a spicy cheese he loves in his scrambled eggs!

We also made one other stop to visit our new friends who we met inn the Villages and live in Chippewa Falls (Jim & Beth). It was great to see them, their beautiful house and learn that Jim is darn good at woodworking and furniture making!

Our trip to Cheteck was to visit our long-time friends, David and Monica Orozco. They own a very cute little resort that anyone looking for a north woods get away vacation should consider: the Northland Resort which David and Monica purchased and totally remodeled. We spent much of our time there at the Pokegama Mexican Cantina which they also own. David and Monica were able to disconnect from running hte business for the evening and spend time with us. We totally appreciated that and loved the time to catch up. If you are ever in the Chetek area, we HIGHLY Recommend that you stop in there, grab dinner and say 'hi'.

Visit with Friends in Kenora, Canada

Our next destination was to Kenora, Canada which is a city just on the north end of Lake of the Woods in Ontario. Tim's long-time friend (Kindergarten, actually), Mark Haber and his wife Veronica live in Kenora and we planned to spend an evening with them.

The total trip from Chetek to Kenora is over 300 miles so we broke that trip up and stayed our second night of the trip in International Falls. On Monday morning, we crossed into Canada, traveled north through Sioux Narrows in got to Kenora mid-afternoon.

We had a chance to visit with Mark and Veronica, stopped in at their business, Chow Time (Pet store), and had a nice dinner together! Our time was far too short but Tim loves spending time with Mark and laughing together. Mark and Ronnie have a nice home on a very quiet lake (been there twice and never seen a boat on it) which has lots of birds to watch and listen to. They have added a collection of chickens which seemed to be curious and come up to check us out.

On to Thunder Bay, Ontario

After spending the night at the Haber's. We set out Tuesday morning to drive to Thunder Bay. This was a 300-mile plus segment of our trip which we almost needed to make in a single leg as there are very few motels along the way that we found. The ride is very pretty with lots of rock outcroppings along the way to marvel at.

We did make a stop at Kakabeka Falls as we neared Thunder Bay. The falls there are very pretty and we enjoyed the rest stop.

Segment of the Lake Superior Circle Tour

Our trip was originally intended to be the Circle Tour around Lake Superior but it is hard to get your head around how large that lake is. With the other stops we wanted to make, our tour was really only the 'northern' shore side of Lake Superior.

Unfortunately the road out of Thunder Bay was under heavy construction and we seem to think that signs to various spots we wanted to see were (temporarily) removed and we missed a few highlights. We did stop at the Terry Fox Memorial site. This memorial was erected to celebrate Terry Fox who as a teenager developed cancer which forced them to amputate his leg. He wanted to raise one dollar for every Canadian (I think $24million) to support cancer research and endeavored to run a marathon length every day in a journey from the east coast to the Pacific Ocean. he statue was created to mark the place where Fox was forced to stop his run on August 31, 1980. He died a year later but has since raised over $850 million for cancer research.

One of our "must stops" was for Tim and Rox to see the "famous" (maybe only to us), Red Rock Inn. This hotel came highly recommended (to Tim) in our first attempt to circle the lake but due to our deer encounter, Fred and Karen had to do the trip themselves. From the stories we have heard, I envision being chased around the grounds by someone chanting "RED RUM". (if you don't understand...watch The Shining!)

Near Red Rock was the Nipigon Tower in Nipigon. We could imagine this area used to be a booming paper mill area but due to closures of many paper mills, the area seems to be much quieter today.

Along the way we stopped at the Aguasabon Falls and Gorge near Terrace Bay along Hwy 17.

Our first stop for the night (Wednesday) along the Lake Superior Circle was in Marathon. Not much happening in Marathon and about the only restaraunt/bar/night life just happened to be next door to our hotel so we checked Biloxy's out. In the morning we found a great little restaurant for breakfast called 'the Oar House'.

On Thursday morning we continued on and stopped at the Visitor center in Wawa to see the big goose & read about the history. Apparently this large, Canadian goose was the brainchild of some guy to draw tourists. After much mocking, the guy has been proven correct as this was the most happening place in town! We stopped in town to pick up sandwiches for our drive at Subway in town & drove on to our overnight destination of Mystic Isle Hotel where we had to eat our sandwiches and wait for someone to show up for our 3pm check in. This may have been the cutest motel we stayed and and would really recommend it to anyone traveling through. We met the owner, a polish woman who obviously has great taste and remodeled the hotel herself wonderfully. Her and her husband run this rgreat little place only about 3km out of town.

After checking in, we headed to Lake Superior Provincial Park - to the Agawa Rock Petroglyphs; the park had pretty, short, rocky hikes through the trees down to the boulder path along the shore of Lake Superior. Signs were everywhere telling us how dangerous it would be to continue the path out along the cliff to see the petroglyphs. Luckily the water was very calm and the park provided both ropes & chains to help hikers. Tim had crappy, slippery tennis shoes that proved too dangerous to go very far but Roxanne had good hiking boots which afforded her hte ability to navigate out the end of the rugged trail and witness most of the petroglyphs herself.

One Hiccup

On Friday, we continued south on Hwy 17 . Fred did alert Tim to the poor condition of his rear tire but after a LOT of searching, we determined that our best bet would be to try to get to Sault Ste. Marie where there was the nearest Honda dealer. Unfortunately no tires were available there and we determined that our fate could be decided there.

Along the way we stopped at places like:

• Visted Silver Falls Middle Falls

• Stopped at Old Woman Bay

About 1pm, Fred's tire finally gave out. He did a tremendous job keeping the bike upright and pulled to the side after a 60mph blow out! At this point, Fred was in the middle of almost literally nowhere and there was no cell phone coverage to call for help. Tim and Rox continued on to Pancake Bay Agawa Camp store to see if we could arrange for a AAA toe. Finally at about 7pm, a flatbed arrived to pick Fred's bike up and tow us to a hotel in Sault Ste. Marie.

So grateful to Tim and Roxanne's son, Erik and his wife Amy who came to our rescue. They hopped in Tim's pickup after connecting the motorcycle trailer and hoofed it up the Sault Ste. Marie on Saturday. Erik and Amy got a short while to walk about the by Sault Ste. Marie locks area, grab lunch and then load up the motorcycle to drag it back home. I think Erik and Amy left the Fox Valley about 8am and arrived back home just before midnight. We are very grateful that they got us back home safely!