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knee-dragging, but there's a lot of tire kicking on weekends at Tim Horton's coffee shop in Chippewa, and a good deal of easy, relaxed riding right alongside the river or through spectacular vineyards all along the escarpment. At any moment in your ride, you'll be within 10 minutes of a winery tour or dinner on an estate terrace. We camp at Riverside Motel and Campground for several days, the only campground right on the parkway and full of very nice people with plastic geese and pinwheels in front of their RVs. We stay in Niagara and do all the things hard-core riders are likely to do, including having little sandwiches at the MacFarlane House, the 1812 field hospital turned tea room; retracing the steps of Isaac Brock on Queenston Heights; having a Guinness at the Irish Harp in Niagara-on-the-Lake; attending a reenactment of the Battle of Frenchman's Creek; and listening to a bagpipe choir end a fireworks display over Old Fort Erie with a rendition of "Amazing Grace" that would bring tears to a glass eye. We see a bumper sticker that says "The War of 1812—Been There, Won That." You can get it with the Union Jack or the Stars and Stripes. Enough said. We return on different roads, beginning with Canborough Road out of Niagara Falls, which snakes along the side of the Niagara Escarpment through small towns that touch the Welland River from time to time. It turns into Highway 3, which, sadly, offers us only the rhythmic pounding of chiropractic-quality frost heaves. We turn south on Highway 19 and make our way down to Port Burwell and the near-perfect pavement that takes us along the shores of Lake Erie past wind farms and the last of the tobacco growers to the pretty port town of Port Stanley, which serves up the best freshwater perch you can buy anywhere. Outside Port Stanley, the road we choose turns to gravel and eventually to such loose and deep rock that I shift to 2WD for the first time since the forest roads of Minnesota. We stop at the site near Thamesville where the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh was killed in 1813, then ride on to cross the St. Clair River on a ferry, chat with the border patrol about Urals, and head west along the shores of Lake St. Clair with marinas to our left and lowland wetlands to our right. We navigate around weekend traffic jams down small town roads like Romeo Plank, up Highway 33 to the resort town of Cheboygan, along the last bit of Lake Huron shoreline we'll see, and then over the stunning Mackinaw Bridge into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. U.S. Highway 2 hugs the shoreline of Lake Michigan and gives plenty of opportunity to pull off the road, step across the sand and dangle your toes in the drink. We resist the temptation, and after a lunch of whitefish straight from the lake at the Bay View Inn, we continue our trek back to Minnesota. Highway 2 adds a passing lane now and again. After a night at a national forest campground, we head northwest up Highway 69, alternating between gentle curves and stretches of baby-smooth pavement straighter than your maiden aunt Mary. We have Swedish pancakes at the Milltown Inn and we're soon on Highway 2 and headed home. By 1814, America had pretty much given up on the idea of annexing Canada. Some argued gasoline was too expensive up there anyway. Since then, there has been almost 200 years of peace between the two countries and many thousands of miles of great roads to ride. Peace has its benefits. The Niagara Parkway is a 35-mile stretch of beautiful river views and is a magnet for motorcyclists looking for a relaxing ride. www.FavoriteRidesAndDestinations.com | ridermagazine.com PAGE 53 SPRING 2017 ISSUE 01 / VOL. 02