{"id":1206,"date":"2010-08-14T20:41:34","date_gmt":"2010-08-15T00:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/?p=1206"},"modified":"2010-08-16T08:44:06","modified_gmt":"2010-08-16T12:44:06","slug":"ride-home-quebec-to-dallas-day-1-%e2%80%93-610-miles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/ride-home-quebec-to-dallas-day-1-%e2%80%93-610-miles\/","title":{"rendered":"Ride home Quebec to Dallas day 1 \u2013 610 miles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Magog, Quebec to Conneaut, OH Wednesday, August 11<\/p>\n

Between motorcycle repairs and pricey lodging I felt it was time to get home and stop spending money. I was dreading the ride back into the heat and just wanted to get it over with so I left Quebec with the goal of reaching home in three days. I left Magog at 5:40 AM (first light) in heavy fog. I love fog because of it’s beauty, but this fog was so dense I could barely see the road and I almost didn’t see the entrance ramp to Autoroute 10 to head toward Montreal.<\/p>\n

I had decided to go west through Quebec to cut across the southeast corner of Ontario and cross the border into New York. My 5:40 departure took me through pockets of heavy fog and had me crossing the Jacques Cartier bridge into Montreal at 7:30 right in the middle of morning rush hour.<\/p>\n

The route I had chosen took me down Ontario 401 to cross the Thousand Islands bridge to the US. My excitement for seeing the St. Lawrence again was quickly wiped out when I came around a curve on the road that started out across the river to see an enormous bridge that had a steel grid deck. I had crossed a couple small bridges the previous summer with this slippery surface and hated it — I never would have knowingly chosen this huge bridge that arched up 800 feet above the water and was completely steel grid, but there was no turning around at a border crossing.<\/p>\n

I ascended the bridge and was so scared I realized I was shaking from head to toe – so counterproductive to good control of the motorcycle, but at that point I was having to remind myself to breathe. I topped the rise of the bridge to see construction ahead on the steel grid and a stop light that was red. I did not want to stop on that surface — I just wanted off it. I slowed down and to my great relief that light turned green just as I approached and I didn’t have to stop the motorcycle until I had my feet on wonderful, predictable pavement.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Thousand Islands area St. Lawrence River<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Getting that scared wears me out (which I didn’t need) and it took me a while to stop shaking. The most disappointing part was\u00a0 missing what was probably a spectacular view of the St. Lawrence because my eyes were glued to the steel grating. I still got to see the parts of the river since NY 12 is a great route that follows it in an area where there are islands everywhere.<\/p>\n

NY 12 took me to I-81 which connected to the New York Thruway I-90 and I started repeating the route I had taken north in reverse. It was only 5:00 when I got to my planned stop in Conneaut, OH for the night, but it had been such a good place with a great restaurant I decided to call it a day and get on the road early the next morning since I knew I had experienced my last day of pleasant temperatures while riding. It had been 78 degrees when I crossed the border from Canada, but it was 90 degrees in Conneaut. It was going to be hot and humid all day the next day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Magog, Quebec to Conneaut, OH Wednesday, August 11 Between motorcycle repairs and pricey lodging I felt it was time to get home and stop spending money. I was dreading the ride back into the heat and just wanted to get it over with so I left Quebec with the goal of reaching home in three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[67],"class_list":["post-1206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trip_reporting","tag-vermont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1206"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1274,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions\/1274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}