Thunder Bay to Upsala, ON
Traditional territory of the Ojibway and Anishinabek
111 km
Sun in the morning, strong tailwind and then an electrical storm, 19 ºC
We left Thunder Bay with a tailwind and a very fond farewell to our hosts, the guys of Community Spokes. Definitely the kind of place and the kind of people that make you want to linger, but off we went.
Around lunch time, I was ahead and came across a friendly-looking family waving from the south side of the road. I stopped and crossed to talk to them. At first I thought they were selling fruit and then found out that the fruit (and fresh lemonade) was for Asad and me. They had met Asad the day before, saw us on their way out of the city and rushed home to get a special lunch treat ready.
I swear cherries have never tasted so good.
I don’t have a photo of them but Asad took a group shot which I will upload when it is online. Later in the afternoon, I stopped to take photos of the Arctic Watershed. It had clouded over significantly so I checked the radar on my phone and saw a huge storm rolling towards me. I layered up and hit the highway, and it wasn’t long before I could see flashes of fork lightning on the horizon ahead of me. The thunder rumbled almost as loud as the trucks beside me.
No photos of that, although I did valiantly try to photograph the lightning before the rain hit, despite not having a tripod and long exposure. I (predictably) did not succeed. I eventually stopped at a gas station where I drank two cups of coffee out of the rain and we ultimately slept inside a generator shed.