Sault Ste. Marie, Canada - Polarsteps

We hit the road in high spirits, feeling like we were in the easy home stretch to the Soo. Inexplicably, after it widens through some cottage communities, Highway 17 becomes narrow and shoulderless again as it approaches the city and becomes heavy with truck traffic, then climbs over the Mile Hill. It was a bad time. Later in the day in a parking lot, someone leaned out of their car to chat with us, then informed us that there was a side route we could have taken to avoid the highway over the hill; we didn't know. When we finally left the highway, it was onto a quiet, treed road with nearly no traffic-- the first in so long that I'd forgotten what it was like to enjoy cycling that much, without the noise and constantly monitoring the traffic. We rolled into Velorution, a bike shop that had come highly recommended for some persistent problems we needed solved, just as some thunder was rolling in; they greeted us with cups of coffee and got my crank system back in working order. We landed in the backyard of my friend Aurora's family; her brother Vince and mom Deb were incredibly lovely to us, and we ended up hanging out too long in the morning to get on the road and stayed a second night in the 'P Patch'. We were so lucky to have an arrival to friendly faces waiting for us at the end of the long, hard stretch; after the Soo we would be getting onto the Waterfront Trail towards Manitoulin, and we had a lot more visits lined up on our route into southern Ontario. -Sara