Nice write-up, guys. And thanks for giving me a pass on the bumps...
The entire ride, considering my house the start/end point (which it was for only two of us) was 880 miles for the four days. We got off to a less than stellar start as I realized my navigation software was taking us on a more convoluted path to start, tried to correct and despite this being my neighborhood, made a mess of things (the highway has closed some crossings due to an unacceptably high accident rate...apparently crossing a highway safely is beyond the locals skill level... and I chose the wrong exit. That plus confusing traffic circle added time. Anyway, we got late for meeting gitder near the ferry and had to do a quick take-out, which was eaten in line for the ferry off of Styrofoam takeout containers while intermittently walking our scooters forward. After passing a long ferry line on the way to the meetup at the restaurant, the light finally went on in my brain that being there the recommended hour before departure was kind of a minimum, and likely people were already there possibly an hour before that.
Not critical, but the best seats (like the deck chairs) probably went to those folks.
Second hard lesson was having our room reservation cancelled altogether. With personnel changes, we needed cancel one, not all, but the clerk I spoke with clearly misunderstood...and I didn't find the email noting that until after the debacle. Nothing worse than promising rooms and standing around scrambling to fix it. Fortunately I finally found the original reservation on my phone, and the clerk "found" a room. On the bright side, we found out that sharing king beds wasn't all that much of a privation (at least compared to slouching over our scooters in the rain).
Next day brought some of the nicest riding in southern Michigan, but a lot of fretting about that bad tire. Every scenario other than a miracle of Biblical proportions seemed bad. So when gitder found the scooter shop, that actually had a tire and time to mount it, I was dancing. While gitder was discovering the shop, I was focused on arriving at the Frankfort lighthouse and beach. Looking behind me to see my usual follower, I saw
nothing. Seems like as often as I'm watching the rear view mirror, the longer I forget to check, the more likely they are to disappear.
Just as I was going to turn around to look for them, someone rolled up to give me the good news. Bye-bye lighthouse...we have priorities.
Despite the delay and change in plans, the scooter shop was a great experience. We pretty much had the shop to ourselves, sitting on scooters, poking around...the owner offered coffee, which I took him up on, as well as the splash of Bailey's. Offered donuts too, which I finally broke down and tried as well. Leuthold even tried his hand at scooter sales with a customer that wandered in while owner was wrenching, but alas, no sale.
The weather wasn't all that good...haze in the air from forest fires far from us, and damp and a bit drizzly. But good enough for riding. Gave a thought to the Cannonballers that had passed through Traverse City the week before. Running late, and into some detours, decided to take some of the intended stops off the route. Did take a break at Legg's inn, a restaurant and lodge built by a Polish immigrant pretty much in the middle of nowhere. He was also an artist of sorts and must have spent years carving on driftwood to decorate the place with. Nearing the tip of southern Michigan I had my first mechanical failure of sorts-the rubber running board cover on my BV decided to let go out of the blue, and once again I lost the group...riding back I was handed an unidentified piece of rubber that was luckily lost where it could be retrieved. A few minutes later on the Mackinac Bridge would have been different.
We crossed the bridge. What an amazing structure. Great entertainment deal at $4 a scooter. At 155 feet off of the water, it gave a great view of Lake Michigan to the left and Lake Huron to the right as well as the massive towers and cables. Arrived at our hotel on the opposite side, we actually had rooms this time.
Next day Bill Leuthold showed us the radar which didn't look good, but we decided to leave Bill to his plans and make a run for it. Arriving in Sault St. Marie with still good weather and no freighters to watch in the locks, we shortened the planned stop and headed west through light drizzle. Lunched in Paradise for some whitefish and poutine, off to our next stop at Tahquamenon Falls, where it started to rain in earnest. Seemed ironic to pay to see water while getting rained on for free, but such is life.
Rain started easing up by the time we started up the scooters to take off.
We were about to have bigger problems than the rain. The route was to follow the Lake Superior shoreline, through some awesome riding in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, but east of there is still pretty much dirt road. I made a major planning error by hitting the shore too far east. After 24 miles of rather boring riding on fairly straight roads through the forest, we arrived at a dirt road which continued 17 miles. Consensus was to turn around, adding 50 miles to an already long day. Fortunately the drizzle had eased off, but it was thin consolation. We finally arrived, tired and frustrated in Grand Marais, a scenic little town on Superior. We took off on the nearly new paved road full of hills, sweeping turns and frequent glimpses of the lake. Finally arriving in Munising, we met up with Bill, who was well-relaxed and had checked out the local scenery. We discovered a nice little patio serving wood fired pizza attached to a brew pub and enjoyed some decent weather (finally) and some cool lake air.
Next day, home stretch, about 250 miles of relatively straight roads taking us back to civilization. We began breaking up, gitder off first to see his parents along the way, Bill and the Sullivans off towards their house and wmak and I a more easterly route. Unfortunately another glitsch in navigation had us barreling down a 6 lane freeway for a bit, which wasn't all that bad, even with weekend traffic, at least for a short while. The weather was what it should have been the whole time, but at least we got a good day out of it and didn't get any deluges earlier.
880 miles over four days. Sometimes felt a bit like an endurance run, and for a short while I was ready to cancel any plans for a repeat, however I kept thinking how it could be improved in the future, so I guess maybe it's not dead yet. I'd definitely add an extra day. Mechanical problems are possible, weather can throw things for a loop, although with a busy tourist season changing overnight locations could be a real challenge. Maybe we're all getting older, but I think shorter riding days with more time to enjoy R&R would be a big plus. We had a great group of people riding, everyone knew each other pretty well, and it's a good bunch of good riders who at least up to now have put up with my not insignificant mess ups, as well as bearing up well under less than ideal circumstances at times.
So, lessons learned.... insist on fully prepared scooters. Nearly a thousand miles in frequently remote regions can prevent a lot of potential difficulties. I lost my floorboard as already noted, but my mirror and phone mount loosened with the vibration, and a good tightening of fasteners seems wise.
Confirming reservations seems like a grand idea.....
While my navigation system worked relatively well, obsessive review and recheck of the route is wise...it's still easy enough to miss turns, and even a brief glitsch can set one off course and waste time.
Finally, be ready for things to go wrong. They will find a way. If it's to be a fun and relaxing trip, extra time and contingency plans can make these things less painful. All probably pretty obvious, but never hurts to be reminded.
Appreciate everyone's showing up in the first place, making the ride more enjoyable and bearing up well under adversity.
