Trans Canada Highway - how plans really start

For the trip across Canada, I'm searching through recollections in recesses in my head, trying to figure out what goes into the "include this on the trip" pile. Here are a pair that are on the plan: the Mackinac Bridge and Lake Gitche Gumee.

The Mackinac (pronounced close to mac-in-awe) Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Straits of Mackinac that connects the non-contiguous Upper and Lower peninsulas of the U.S. state of Michigan. Although bridge happens to be really long, as in longer than the Golden Gate Bridge as measured between the anchorage points, the big deal is the wind. The engineering design of the bridge makes the road way stable in winds up to 150 miles hour (240 km/h). Learning from the failure of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (Tacoma, WA) in 1940, the bridge designers gave the Mackinac two features to reduce its wind resistance, the stiffening truss is open to reduce wind resistance and the road deck is shaped as an airfoil to provide lift in a cross wind.The center two lanes are open metal grid (not tarmac) to allow vertical air flow which cancels the lift, making the roadway stable. "Stable" is the key word here, stability is all in the mind. I've watched  Cirque du Soleil performs who thought they were stable walking across a high wire.

We'll take a southerly detour to Michigan as we cross into Ontario from the east as Peter is determined to ride across this bridge. The motorcycle blogosphere has several entries from riders who white-knuckled it across the bridge because of the windy conditions.I will decide whether I cross the bridge when we get to St. Ignace. Go ahead, call me a wimp. The fact that the Mackinac Bridge Authority has a Drivers Assistance Program for those who are concerned about driving over the bridge tells me just about everything I need to know.

As we head west from the Mackinac Bridge experience, if I'm understanding correctly, we'll be riding on the south edge of Lake Gitchie Gumee, which is also known as Lake Superior. In the Ojibwe language, the lake is called Gichigami, meaning "big water." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the name as "Gitche Gumee" in his epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha.What's confusing is there is actually a lake in Hanover, Michigan called Lake Gitchegumee, which is about 100 miles southwest of the northern end of the Mackinac Bridge. This would be an easy mistake, one that would be easy to admit and shrug off. I've seen blogs from brave men who admitted that they got confused in Alaska and rode from Fairbanks, AK to Circle, AK instead of riding to the arctic circle at Prudhoe Bay, AK via the Dalton Highway.

The "what could go wrong?" approach to getting to the arctic circle from Fairbanks (a dream still on my list) can cost about 300 miles and a day's delay. Stories about unplanned round trips feed the stubborn nature of spontaneity-challenged riders. Should I be thinking about getting Peter his own GPS?

Trans Canada Highway - the planning begins

Happy New Year to you all!

It is January 1st and my goal for this year is to ride the Trans-Canada Highway through the south-eastern provinces, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia - Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland.

Wikipedia is great place to get your first lesson about the Trans-Canada highway system. I thought that the Trans-Canada Highway was just one r e a l l y long road under federal jurisdiction. I was wrong. If you want to go from Victoria,  British Columbia to St. Johns, Newfoundland, you will traverse a network of highways that are governed by the individual provinces.

I'll be using this extraordinary Trip and Vacation Planner website for the Trans-Canada Highway. You can look at the itinerary segments on Google maps (choice of satellite, map, hybrid or terrain views) for the entire highway system, broken up by province, with elevation details and mileage. You can navigate across maps or by pull-down menu. Itineraries have links to attractions, accommodations.  I was delighted to see a list of "known speed traps" on the Nova Scotia page. The information that any traveler wants is right up front:

1. Overview of the highway, a detailed travel itinerary, and trip planning suggestions.
2. Weather conditions, with "normals" and forecasts along the highway as well as road conditions
3. Information about geography, flora & forests, fauna & wildlife, and agriculture (both plants & animals) that you may see in between the cities & towns along the way.
4. Route itineraries in handy 200-300 km segments to facilitate trip planning (in both miles and kilometres)
5. Getting to & from Toronto, Canada's largest city not on the Trans-Canada Highway

I have just started planning this trip. The primary constraint - there are always constraints - is time, I've got four weeks. I'll be starting this ride in upstate New York. The timing challenge will be to balance the time traveling north-of-the-US border heading west with the time it will take to complete the last leg of the journey heading southwest back to San Francisco. Will I make it to Victoria, BC or will I have to turn south in Regina, Saskatchewan? The route below is just shy of 8,000 miles (no side trips).

This trip will be a combination of tent and credit card camping. I'm particularly interested in open spaces, I love being around wildlife.  If you have traveled on the Trans-Canadian Highway system through the south-central and south-eastern provinces and have suggestions about your favorite routes or places to see or stay at, please let me know.