Day 36 - The rest are home to roost.

Joe left Mike's house in New York early Friday morning.   He was hoping to make it home to New Hampshire in one day.

Having spent the night in Louisville, Kentucky, David left early Friday morning for home in Tennessee.

Joe made a stop in Binghamton to have lunch with friends, Linda and Gary.

Lori, Archer and David

David arrived at home sometime Friday afternoon.  He finally got to meet his new grandson.  Archer was born while David and Lori were at the Calgary Stampede's rodeo.

Foxy and Joe

 Joe was the last of the six Iron Horse Alaskan Adventurers to arrive home.  

Joe reached his home in New Hampshire at 7:00 p.m.

Day 35 - Petsokey, Michigan to home, sweet, home, for some.

Joe, Ron, David, Fred and Mike at the Perry Hotel, the last group photo for the Alaskan adventure.

Soon they would be splitting up and heading for their home states.

Fred says, "Now that we've ditched those two, this is how it's gonna be."  Just kidding.

Mike, Fred and Joe split off from the group and headed east after leaving Michigan.

David and Ron kept heading south.

David, right behind Ron.

Ron knew he was getting close to home when he started seeing the Soy Bean and Corn fields.

The first one home!  Fred arrived home around 3:45 p.m., and was reunited with Pat.

Fred rode a total of 470 miles from Petoskey, Michigan to his home in northern Ohio.
Fred said, "It was an awesome trip to the top of the world.  God is good!"

Arriving home shortly after 6:00 p.m., Ron rode a total of 525 miles.

David continued on to Louisville, Kentucky.
From Petoskey, Michigan to Louisville, Kentucky he traveled 595 miles.
He plans on getting home to Tennessee tomorrow.

Ron pulled that filthy motorcycle right into the garage.

Are there any offers to help him clean this thing up?
 How many times will this have to be washed to restore it to original condition?

Jack helped carry his Pa's gear from the garage to the house.

Ashley brought Natalie and Ben over to welcome Pa home.

 

After riding 580 miles, Mike arrived home in western New York. He was greeted by Pam and Rosie.  

         Joe followed Mike home as well and will spend the night before heading on to New Hampshire.

           Joe has also traveled a total of 580 miles from Petoskey, Michigan to Bemus Point, New York.
                                                         He'll add more miles tomorrow.

Day 34 - Terrace Bay to Petoskey Michigan in 405 miles. That makes 10,255 miles the guys have ridden since they left Indianapolis, Indiana.

Light rain fell overnight.  The guys had to suit up in the rain gear again.
If they never have to wear their rain suits ever again, that will be too soon.
 It was still raining when they left this morning.  It continued to rain for the next 2 hours, at times heavily.
 Lake Superior also made sure that there was ample fog to contend with.

Mike, Fred and David at the morning fuel stop.  Everyone had to change into dry gloves before they left.

And there's Fred, hamming it up for the camera!  

You know they're still having fun when Fred's smiling in the rain.

Joe at the Lake Superior overlook.

Fred lost his smile, there's some serious snacking going on.

Mike and Fred at the lunch stop.

Lunch at The Cookhouse.  These guys must be really hungry after fighting the rain all morning.

Fred, Mike and David going over the Canada/USA bridge.

Entering customs.  They were glad to see the guys this time!
The five adventurers were glad to see the United States of America again!

Sault Ste Marie!

Joe, Mike, Daivd, Ron and Fred at the rest area just inside the United States in Michigan.

Check out the smiles on those faces!

The Mackinac Bridge and more construction to deal with.  They said it was really windy on the bridge.

They have now reached Petoskey, Michigan where they will be staying for the night.

Stafford's Perry Hotel, they take the Christmas lights down after the holiday.

Checking into the Perry Hotel.

Mike took over the duty of emailing the images of the daily rides since Stu's absence.
He did a mighty fine job too.

David has perfected his ironing skills and will be helping out with the laundry when he gets home.

You can't visit Petoskey without contacting these two.  

Lynn and Jan came to visit the guys and have dinner with them.
Thank you so much for making time to hang out with the five adventurers.

This is definitely on the list of highlights of the trip!

Fred, Ron, Lynn, Jan, Mike, Joe, David at the Noggin Room in the Perry Hotel having dinner.  

They also shared stories and had some laughs, but that goes without saying.  Well, I said it anyway.

Day 33 - Whiteshell to Terrace Bay, Ontario, Canada in 479 miles. The five have ridden a total of 9,850 miles since departing from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Ron is outside and stowing his gear, preparing for today's ride.

When he went outside he found these two Deer snooping around the parking lot.  

Word in the herd is that the Deer Whisperer is in town.  They were looking for Fred.

As the group departed the sky was gray and gloomy.

The group crossed into the province of Ontario fairly early in the morning.  Mike documents their arrival.

There is nothing noteworthy about the little bird sitting on the side of the road!  

This is just a picture of the gloomy morning.

Ron and Fred hanging out with the gigantic inuksuk at Vermilion Bay, Ontario.

The fellas had stopped here for a morning break and a cup of java.

The inuksuk is a stone statue and translates into, "something which acts for or performs the function of a person."  These symbols were constructed by the indigenous peoples from  the Arctic Regions, like the Yupiks or Inuits.  They were usually constructed upright and had the appearance of a cross like symbol yet they were built before European missionaries had come to their regions.  The inuksuk may have been built as navigation tools, travel point markers or food cache markers.  They were generally very large which suggests community efforts were required in their construction.

Using this fish to illustrate his point, Mike talks about the size of the one that got away.

The guys spotted this cow Moose after leaving Vermilion Bay's inuksuk.

This semi trailer pulling this pup was stacked full of freshly cut timber.  The guys surmised that this load was heading to the pulp wood mill.  There seems to be lots of logging in the area.  This was a common sight.

Lake Superior

Lake Superior ahead.

Welcome to Terrace Bay.  This is where the guys will be spending the night.  

As they entered the town of Terrace Bay they saw signs advertising the Aguasabon River Gorge.  

The detoured off of their original route by a couple of miles in order to see what this was all about.

They were so glad they stopped.  This was an awesome sight to see.

David's checking out the info about the falls.

Ron, Joe, Mike and Fred at the overlook of the Aguasabon Falls.

This was the lodging for the night.  The motel owners are either really early with the holiday decorating, or they were really late taking the lights down and just gave up worrying about it.  They do have some type of solar panels on the roof,so maybe we should cut them some slack about the lights.  

Although it was cool today it was nice riding weather.  The guys didn't get we today even though they were wearing rain suits in most of the pictures.  The roads were good with lots of gentle and rolling curves.  They were fun to ride.  More civilization is being seen as the days click by, which is okay.  The guys haven't seen very much of that in the past 10 days or so of being in the wilderness.