Day 38: Ignace to Savanne River Campground (124 km)am

Today was a lovely, full ride, but it was somehow overshadowed by our
experiences last night.

Just as we were settling into bed, one of Vanessa's tire valves blew
out without warning. Rain was starting to fall, and I frantically
began tearing the tire off the bike, trying to swap in a fresh tube
before completely losing daylight. After wrestling with the bike for
about ten minutes, the manager of the campground came ripping by in a
truck to warn us a tornado watch had been issued for the area.
Vanessa's tire blowout suddenly made sense. A low pressure zone had
rolled in so suddenly that it overstressed the valve and popped the
tire. By this time the sky was a deep reddy, orange hue and lightning
was starting to blow in from the west.

At this point our focus changed to making sure everything was clamped
down as well as we could manage. Heavy storms are a bit alarming if
all you have is a tent in an open field to protect you. (Being in a
campground was a bit ominous as well.)

Luckily, we seemed to just catch the edge of the storm as the worst of
it passed us to the south. Before it was done, we were treated to a
rainbow on a red sky, with lightning forking across it's arch (I don't
know why I didn't grab my camera).

After our eventful evening, our day was rather pleasant. We rode
through mostly flat to rolling land, passing through logging grounds,
lakes, rivers and the (very) occasional small town.

One odd thing we've been hitting, quite literally, in the last few
days is swarms of bees. At first we thought they were horseflies, but
every time we stopped, without fail there would be a bee wedged onto a
break pad or cable. The troves of wild flowers on the edge of the
highway bring them out in large numbers. The sensation of hitting
them while riding is about the equivalent of having a quarter dropped
on your face from a second story building. So far they seem happy to
buzz around us or land on our sunglasses so we have yet to acquire a
sting.

Tomorrow we're rolling into Thunder Bay and are looking forward to
spending an evening with our old friend Amy. After that it's on to
Nipigon.