Kevan & Judy’s Adventure in Nashville & the East Coast

Today was just a travel day.  No fun stops and the scenery wasn’t that great.  Flat land.  I only took one picture of the water tower in St. Cloud.  Suzanne sent me great tourist info for touring old flour mills here but we didn’t have time to explore.  We have been to Minneapolis before, on a tour of the Cambria plant, that a supplier gave us.  Apparently we won a contest I didn’t even know we had entered lol.  It was a great city but our campsite was in the outskirts so we just had a good rest here.

We went to the Harley Museum first thing in the morning.  Their website indicated all their tours for the day were sold out.  Kevan told the girl at the ticket booth he had come a long way, and miraculously she found one ticket for him.  He got the behind the scenes tour and was super thrilled.  I got 90 minutes to tour myself and enjoy the scenery.  After the tour we went for lunch, toured more exhibits and got a chance to see the Livewire, the new electric bike.  Was a pretty long line up to test ride it so we passed on that.  We then headed to the beach to dip my toes in Lake Michigan, the last of the Great Lakes for us to see.  We went downtown and found a brewery to test out some local beer, and then found a cool restaurant that had sidewalk seating.  Home to the third longest bar in the USA at 75 ft 9”.  Milwaukee is a nice city, with the lake & river through it.  We were told the locals live for summer months because wint...

Today we drove from Lansing Michigan, through part of Indiana, then Illinois and finally Wisconsin. Seems crazy you  can hit so many states in a day!  We didn’t stop to see any sights so I’ve only got a few pictures of driving through Chicago in the rain.  Weather was great again once we hit Milwaukee.  Tomorrow is the Harley Museum day...Kevan’s been waiting a long time to see this, so excited for tomorrow! Chicago is a big city Clouds were starting to part

We had an appointment with Tillsonburg Tire at 10:00 am.  Our tires were supposed to show up late morning and they were also looking at our trailer brakes that weren’t working as they should either.  Suzanne made us a yummy breakfast before we left...5 star campsite!!  We said our goodbyes and left for the tire store.  The tire store set to work on the brakes immediately & diagnosed & fixed the brakes.  Yay!  We were still waiting for the new tires to arrive and Kevan needed underbelly tape to repair some damage that happened from blown tires.  Again, Suzanne to the rescue who sourced a supplier & picked me up & drove me to purchase it.  Steve popped by the tire store too on a break from work so we all walked down to the old mill where Suzanne’s dad had worked as a young man.  It’s now a restaurant on the river and it was fish week!  More perch😊. I got a text that the tires had arrived so by the time we got back we were ...

Sunday morning we went to church with the Steve & Suzanne.  Had a quick light lunch and we were off on the bikes again.  Jared had to work but he let Steve have his bike for the day so we went for a ride to Port Dover.  This is a famous destination for bikers every Friday the 13th.  Kevan was pretty happy he got to ride there, even though we were alittle early for the next Friday the 13th.  Port Dover gets over 100,000 bikers in the summer months at this event.  We walked around the town, found the T-shirt store that sells the 13th T-shirts, and had a great early dinner of  perch fish.  It is very yummy!  We planned to ride to other beach areas but that direction was looking very dark & stormy so we headed home and beat the rain.  Grandma was hosting us for dessert so after a glass of wine in the gazebo we headed to their house.  We sure have been spoiled while we were here this weekend!  It was a good place to be broke...

Our tire delay turned out to be the best thing!  We had a great visit with Steve & Susan, our trusty bike tour guide Jared and Grandma & Grampa Pettman.  We started our day with Suzanne’s parents coming over for breakfast.  Then Jared and his orange Ural complete with side car took Suzanne as his passenger and toured us on our Harley to Port Stanley and Port Bruce.  Sunny warm weather again made for a great day!  We got back to the farm just in time to pick up Steve and go to the local fire departments pig roast fundraiser.  With very full tummies we went back to our campsite and had a huge bonfire.  Perfect end to a great day. Photographer Suzanne took lots of pictures! So I took one of them enroute  Port Stanley  Was windy so good wave action on Lake Erie Posing with Jared

We left Ottawa and made our way to the 401 with Corey’s awesome directions.  Just before Kingston we blew another trailer tire.  Ugh!!  Thankfully it was curb side again.  We’ve got a system down pat so were on the road in 15 minutes but it was a stressful drive as we didn’t have another spare.  I called Suzanne, Brent’s mom, who we were spending the night with.  She researched new trailer tires for us.  We don’t have a stock size so they needed to be ordered and wouldn’t be in until Monday late morning.  The Steve & Suzanne Bowker campground graciously welcomed us with open arms for the weekend.  We had dinner reservations at Braai House, a new restaurant Suzanne’s cousin & husband had just opened.  It is a South African inspired restaurant with a wood fired grill & oven.  The food was amazing!  We had a great night reconnecting with Kim & Anthony, the restaurant owners😊. They have spent the weekend at our hom...

We left Quebec and made our way to Ottawa.  We were visiting our friends Corey & Rachel as well as Kevin & Kelly and kids.  We hadn’t seen Kevin & Kelly in 15 years so it was a great reunion to see them all!  Thank you Corey for getting us a campsite at his seasonal place!  We had a great BBQ dinner at the campsite right on the Rideau Canal.  It was so lovely to “camp” with our friends and end our evening with a campfire on the canal.  We had a great night spending time with these amazing friends.  Our time was short but so special.  Miss you guys!!! The gang..just missing Jordan Our campsite  The view the other side of the trailer 

We had one more day in Quebec City so we decided to drive to the island in the St. Lawrence called Ile d’Orleans.  It’s only 40km long.  It has one road that goes around the island.  Our first stop was a winery.  It’s been there since the 1800’s and is in the basement of a house.  Very much a cellar and all constructed of stone.  We did a tasting but weren’t fond of their wines.  BC does a much better job.  Next we found a patio for lunch that also was a craft brewery.  They were very busy so service was extremely slow but we enjoyed our time there.  Next was a cheese factory.  Almost only soft cheeses and again we did a tasting of a grilled cheese.  We continued to the top of the island and discovered a lookout tower.  Judy climbed up the 96 stairs and snapped some photos.  After that little workout it seemed fitting to stop for a treat at the Belgium chocolatier.  It was good but not as good as Wim’s chocolates...

Our campsite had a shuttle to the city so we rode the bus in for the day.  W started on the hop on hop off bus.  It’s a good way to get the lay of the land. We had been here in 2012 when we rode the motorcycle across Canada but only had a day and a half so wanted to get some more time exploring here.  Half way through the tour we passed a tour boat docked on the St. Lawrence so of course Kevan is instructing me to find out when the next tour is.  We booked that for mid afternoon so had some time to walk around and have lunch.  The boat tour took us up and down the river and we were able to see the Montmorency waterfall, different views of the city, and learn more historical facts.  The weather was warm & sunny so a good time to go river cruising.  We hung around lower Old Quebec and enjoyed the cobblestone streets, stores & cafes and restaurants for the balance of the day.  We rode the venicular up to the upper area and caught our 6:00 shu...

We traveled from Moncton to Edmundston NB and spent the night in a Walmart parking lot with 15 other campers😂.  This is the north end of New Brunswick.  Mostly French speaking people in this town.  We had just alittle more than a 3 hour drive to our campsite the following day just outside of Quebec City.  It was another lovely day with blue skies and mid 20 temperatures.  It will be nice to have a campsite again and a home base for a few days. In Quebec! First view of the St. Lawrence...looked pretty muddy here This was a large lake we traveled along when we came into Quebec