Detour

The plus in the heart is French too

Originally I had planned on going east towards Maine from Vermont but decided to make a detour through Canada first. My friend Erica is also traveling across the country on her BMW GS650 and we have been trying to meet up at some point but it hasn't worked out. The day I was leaving Vermont she suggested going through Canada and looping back to Cleveland, OH to meet up and then head east towards Maine. At first I thought it was a crazy idea but after thinking about it for a 100 miles or so I decided to do it.

I went straight north and crossed the border into Canada. I had never been in Quebec before and knew that people spoke French there but didn't know that every road sign was in French only. It doesn't take long to learn what nord, sud, est, and ouest means. I was running low on fuel by the time I made it to downtown Montreal and a gentlemen on a scooter I met at a traffic light lead me to the closest gas station in the city.

While I was fueling up trying to figure out where I was going to stay and realizing that I couldn't use my phone to help me get around another motorcyclist from Ontario pulled up to fill up. He told me about the area and offered to show me around town and help me find a place to stay. Shannon is a Firefighter from Ottawa and had family who worked in Montreal so he knew the area quite well. We drove through Old Montreal at night which still has cobble stone roads and old stone buildings. It looked like we were in Europe. I ended up staying right in downtown Montreal and it felt very much like the viagra triangle in Chicago but French and with younger women.

Here is the link to Erica's adventure.

Just off the SR-100 in Vermont on my way toward the border.

More wildlife in Vermont. I wonder if it was the same coyote that scared the shit out of me at 3:00am.