We took the I 94 South out of Chicago and what a busy freeway that is. I would hate to have to drive that each day. And the traffic chops and changes lanes in the blink of an eye. They are like French drivers – move over I’m coming through.
We crossed into Michigan an hour or so later and
found the drivers similar here so it was nice to get onto a lesser road. We had hoped to spend the night at Warren Dunes state Park on the shores of Lake Michigan but being school holidays and the middle of summer it was booked out. Resort to plan B and the trusty camping bible. There was one in Coldwater so off we went, traveling along lovely quiet country roads. The directions in the book to the campground were quite simple but proved to be totally incorrect so we had to rely on Marty’s hunter gather skills after getting some meager directions from a local. We drove right past the entrance on the first attempt. Not surprising when the sign is 50 meters back from the road. When Marty suggested to the owner that he should have his sign closer to the road he replied “that sign had been there for over 20 years and there had never been a problem with people finding the place. Besides we don’t get too many strangers here. Now about that motorsickle. You’re not going to be taking it off the trailer because we don’t allow motorcycles here”. After ensuring him that we wouldn’t be using the bike and paying our fee we set off into the camp but not before Marty gave him a quick check over to see he didn’t have 6 fingers and toes. We were sitting in the camper trying to decide where we were meant to park as we couldn’t see the large open area we’d
been told to park in when a guy came up and asked if he could help us. He told us where we could park and then told us off for speeding on the road to the camp and if that wasn’t bad enough we had also sped in the camp. He went on and on, making sure we knew he wasn’t anything to do with the camp just a camper who had been coming here for the last 35 years and of course we weren’t going to use the bike were we. We were wondering what sort of hill billy place we had landed up in this time. Had our tea then went for a walk around the lake before retiring to the camper for a game of cards. Shortly after the camp’s law enforcer turned up, this time he assured us his visit was purely social and her hoped we weren’t offended by his earlier outburst but that was the way things were done blah de blah de blah. He was a really boring man who reeked of alcohol.
Next day after a very leisurely breakfast and some housework we headed for Marty’s cousins place just north of Ann Arbor. A straight forward drive that I had planned on the map so it should have been no problem. Yeah Right as the Tui ads say. There was a misprint on the map. All went well until we hit Inter State 94. The exit we needed was marked as 179 so when exit 171 came up pointing the way to the 14 which we wanted I was thrown into a state of confusion which stayed just long enough for us to miss it. I still remained convinced we needed the 179 but as we traveled on and I studied the map more closely I could see we were headed in totally the opposite way that we wanted to be going. “Sort it” grumbled the driver so I did and we had a pleasant drive through the centre of Ann Arbor. Thankfully I never made any stuff ups and we were soon back on track. We only had one other navigation problem and that was caused by Marty’s shorthand. His ⅞ of a mile should have been written as 7 – 8 miles which caused a little hiccup and evened the score for navigational errors for the day. (Marty may not agree with this). It was a relief to pull into the driveway.
We were made very welcome by Michael and husband John. Their daughter and son in law came out for tea which was great as Marty had never met his 2nd cousin and it has been a long time since he had seen Michael. We also met their extended family - a lab called Daisy and her two pups, Guinness and Mack.
We had a lazy day there on Sunday before loading up the bike and heading off around the Michigan Peninsula for a few days.
We traveled along the shoreline of Lake Huron for most of the first days travel. It is very built up with houses occupying 80% of the shore. There are a few small public access areas so you don’t actually see much of the lake as you travel. We took a detour to visit a lighthouse in Saginaw Bay. The lighthouse keeper’s house has been made into a little museum and we found it really interesting. Spent the night on the outskirts of a town called Alpena.
One of the highlights of the next days travel was crossing the Mackinac Bridge. This is a suspension bridge that connects the upper and lower
peninsulas. It is about 5 miles long and 200 feet high. John tried to put the fear of God into me about crossing this bridge before we set out by telling stories of cars being blown off the bridge in high winds, truckers to scared to drive their trucks over and enormous sheets of ice hanging on the bridge. Thankfully we had a beautiful day without a breath of wind so it was great.
We rode up to White Fish Point which has a big Lighthouse Museum complex and is on the shore of Lake Superior.
The lake was like a millpond so it was very hard to imagine that it becomes very rough and a major danger to shipping.
We spent the night in Sault St. Marie a lovely town across the river from the Canadian border. It is here that the Soo Locks are situated and we timed it right to see a small boat going through. There are four locks here the earliest was built in 1914 and the latest in 1968. There are plans afoot to replace two of the locks with a new larger state of the art one capable of taking the larger vessels now operating on the lakes. More than 11,000 vessels pass through these locks every year varying in size from small passenger ferries to large 1000 foot ships carrying more than 72,000 tons of freight in a single load. Most cargo is, iron ore, coal, grain or stone. It would have been great to see one of these large ships go through but we weren’t that lucky.
We were tempted to nip across the border into Canada but after talking to one of the security men at the locks we decided not to. Apparently it isn’t always that easy to get back into the States.
We decided we’d rather be stuck in Canada when we have the camper and all our possessions with us so gave it amiss and just gazed at it across the water. It was like being in a candy shop and not being allowed any candy.
We traveled down the west coast of Michigan through some lovely towns. If my togs hadn’t have been buried in the panniers I would have had a swim when we stopped at a little place called Acme. The water was really warm. Next stop was the Sleeping Bear Dunes. Unlike many others there we opted not to climb to the top.
We spent the night in Ludington. I guess it is home to the Luddites. It is a lovely town and we were lucky enough to get a motel very close to the lake shore. 
After tea we strolled out to the Lighthouse and watched the sun go down on Lake Michigan. It was beautiful.
The lakes are so huge that they look like an ocean so it takes a bit of getting use to no salty smells. There were plenty of fish to be seen but the fisherman on the walkway to the lighthouse didn’t seem to be having any luck whatsoever.
We got a little lost in Grand Rapids the next day and it had nothing to do with me. It meant that we spent about ¾hr touring the suburbs and industrial areas. In the suburbs we went from rich to poor, back to white, the changes happening within the space of a few houses or a street in some cases. There were some beautiful old houses in all these districts.
Marty eventually negotiated us onto the ring road and west toward Hastings just in time to avoid being rained upon. We went to a bird sanctuary just out of Hastings. The brochure told of all the many different species of birds and mammals you could see there so when we passed 4 huge grey cranes on the road in I had great expectations, but alas it was not to be. We walked the 1.5mile loop track around the sanctuary and saw 3 cardinals and 500 flies. To say we were disappointed is an understatement. Maybe it was just the wrong time of the day, month, and year!!!
This little bit of excursion had made us both very thirsty so we stopped at a little no name town that had a general store and a couple of houses, for a drink. We struck up a conversation with the owner, a 70 odd year old machinist who had been running the family business for the last 30 odd years. He and Marty got onto welding and things so I was excluded from the conversation and left to get on with my drink – until Marty told him I had a lathe and mill drill then he thought I had engineering skills so I was included in the conversation. I had to appear very interested nodding and commenting in the appropriate places. It was very difficult to leave. He would have talked all night if he could but unlike the guy we had encountered back at the camp he was very interesting and knew lots of neat little welding and machining tips. We had an uneventful trip from there back to John and Michael’s arriving in time for tea. We had done just over 1000 miles.
We were up early next morning as Marty had arranged to meet a guy he had been in contact with thru a motorcycle Egroup on and we were to ride down to Wauseon in Ohio for a swap meet. We were 5 minutes late but they were quite a bit later as the guys on the Triumphs were having bike problems. The Matchless had no such trouble.
The swap meet was quite big, but nowhere as big as next weekends in mid Ohio apparently. There were truck loads of Harley bits for sale. Some very nice complete Indians and several Clevelands for sale. There was also flat track antique (classic) bike racing but we never saw
this as we were to busy looking for British bits. Marty found a couple of switches he needed then discovered a 750 Norton motor that would be just perfect for the racing sidecar outfit. Off he went to the money machine to get the necessary loot. Then we had to track down the guys we had come with to see if their mate who had a stall there could take it back. All was sorted and the engine purchased and loaded into the good Samaritans car before we headed for home. I spent $1.80 on a Garfield mud flap that Marty says will definitely not be going on the 350 comp. He will put it on my BMW but that is all. All in all a good day out.
When our Good Samaritan, Antero arrived home with the engine his wife was less than impressed and even less so when he told her that he was picking up the rest of it tomorrow. Having wound her up sufficiently he then told her the truth so she was quite glad to see us turn up. We spent a very pleasant few hours there and now have the engine safely stored in the camper. I wonder what treasures will turn up next weekend.
We have had a wonderful time here with John and Michael. Lots of laughs, too much food, just enough alcohol and lots of fun with the puppies. Marty has been earning our keep by helping
John split firewood,(it is John in the pic not Marty) chop trees down and other little tasks. I on the other hand have done stuff all. Getting the blog up to date has been my most time consuming and arduous task.
So that’s it from this end till sometime after the swap meet. If you are short of something to read get out your Harry Potter books.
We crossed into Michigan an hour or so later and
found the drivers similar here so it was nice to get onto a lesser road. We had hoped to spend the night at Warren Dunes state Park on the shores of Lake Michigan but being school holidays and the middle of summer it was booked out. Resort to plan B and the trusty camping bible. There was one in Coldwater so off we went, traveling along lovely quiet country roads. The directions in the book to the campground were quite simple but proved to be totally incorrect so we had to rely on Marty’s hunter gather skills after getting some meager directions from a local. We drove right past the entrance on the first attempt. Not surprising when the sign is 50 meters back from the road. When Marty suggested to the owner that he should have his sign closer to the road he replied “that sign had been there for over 20 years and there had never been a problem with people finding the place. Besides we don’t get too many strangers here. Now about that motorsickle. You’re not going to be taking it off the trailer because we don’t allow motorcycles here”. After ensuring him that we wouldn’t be using the bike and paying our fee we set off into the camp but not before Marty gave him a quick check over to see he didn’t have 6 fingers and toes. We were sitting in the camper trying to decide where we were meant to park as we couldn’t see the large open area we’d
been told to park in when a guy came up and asked if he could help us. He told us where we could park and then told us off for speeding on the road to the camp and if that wasn’t bad enough we had also sped in the camp. He went on and on, making sure we knew he wasn’t anything to do with the camp just a camper who had been coming here for the last 35 years and of course we weren’t going to use the bike were we. We were wondering what sort of hill billy place we had landed up in this time. Had our tea then went for a walk around the lake before retiring to the camper for a game of cards. Shortly after the camp’s law enforcer turned up, this time he assured us his visit was purely social and her hoped we weren’t offended by his earlier outburst but that was the way things were done blah de blah de blah. He was a really boring man who reeked of alcohol.Next day after a very leisurely breakfast and some housework we headed for Marty’s cousins place just north of Ann Arbor. A straight forward drive that I had planned on the map so it should have been no problem. Yeah Right as the Tui ads say. There was a misprint on the map. All went well until we hit Inter State 94. The exit we needed was marked as 179 so when exit 171 came up pointing the way to the 14 which we wanted I was thrown into a state of confusion which stayed just long enough for us to miss it. I still remained convinced we needed the 179 but as we traveled on and I studied the map more closely I could see we were headed in totally the opposite way that we wanted to be going. “Sort it” grumbled the driver so I did and we had a pleasant drive through the centre of Ann Arbor. Thankfully I never made any stuff ups and we were soon back on track. We only had one other navigation problem and that was caused by Marty’s shorthand. His ⅞ of a mile should have been written as 7 – 8 miles which caused a little hiccup and evened the score for navigational errors for the day. (Marty may not agree with this). It was a relief to pull into the driveway.
We were made very welcome by Michael and husband John. Their daughter and son in law came out for tea which was great as Marty had never met his 2nd cousin and it has been a long time since he had seen Michael. We also met their extended family - a lab called Daisy and her two pups, Guinness and Mack.
We had a lazy day there on Sunday before loading up the bike and heading off around the Michigan Peninsula for a few days.We traveled along the shoreline of Lake Huron for most of the first days travel. It is very built up with houses occupying 80% of the shore. There are a few small public access areas so you don’t actually see much of the lake as you travel. We took a detour to visit a lighthouse in Saginaw Bay. The lighthouse keeper’s house has been made into a little museum and we found it really interesting. Spent the night on the outskirts of a town called Alpena.
One of the highlights of the next days travel was crossing the Mackinac Bridge. This is a suspension bridge that connects the upper and lower
peninsulas. It is about 5 miles long and 200 feet high. John tried to put the fear of God into me about crossing this bridge before we set out by telling stories of cars being blown off the bridge in high winds, truckers to scared to drive their trucks over and enormous sheets of ice hanging on the bridge. Thankfully we had a beautiful day without a breath of wind so it was great.We rode up to White Fish Point which has a big Lighthouse Museum complex and is on the shore of Lake Superior.
The lake was like a millpond so it was very hard to imagine that it becomes very rough and a major danger to shipping.
We spent the night in Sault St. Marie a lovely town across the river from the Canadian border. It is here that the Soo Locks are situated and we timed it right to see a small boat going through. There are four locks here the earliest was built in 1914 and the latest in 1968. There are plans afoot to replace two of the locks with a new larger state of the art one capable of taking the larger vessels now operating on the lakes. More than 11,000 vessels pass through these locks every year varying in size from small passenger ferries to large 1000 foot ships carrying more than 72,000 tons of freight in a single load. Most cargo is, iron ore, coal, grain or stone. It would have been great to see one of these large ships go through but we weren’t that lucky.We were tempted to nip across the border into Canada but after talking to one of the security men at the locks we decided not to. Apparently it isn’t always that easy to get back into the States.
We decided we’d rather be stuck in Canada when we have the camper and all our possessions with us so gave it amiss and just gazed at it across the water. It was like being in a candy shop and not being allowed any candy.We traveled down the west coast of Michigan through some lovely towns. If my togs hadn’t have been buried in the panniers I would have had a swim when we stopped at a little place called Acme. The water was really warm. Next stop was the Sleeping Bear Dunes. Unlike many others there we opted not to climb to the top.
We spent the night in Ludington. I guess it is home to the Luddites. It is a lovely town and we were lucky enough to get a motel very close to the lake shore. 
After tea we strolled out to the Lighthouse and watched the sun go down on Lake Michigan. It was beautiful.The lakes are so huge that they look like an ocean so it takes a bit of getting use to no salty smells. There were plenty of fish to be seen but the fisherman on the walkway to the lighthouse didn’t seem to be having any luck whatsoever.
We got a little lost in Grand Rapids the next day and it had nothing to do with me. It meant that we spent about ¾hr touring the suburbs and industrial areas. In the suburbs we went from rich to poor, back to white, the changes happening within the space of a few houses or a street in some cases. There were some beautiful old houses in all these districts.
Marty eventually negotiated us onto the ring road and west toward Hastings just in time to avoid being rained upon. We went to a bird sanctuary just out of Hastings. The brochure told of all the many different species of birds and mammals you could see there so when we passed 4 huge grey cranes on the road in I had great expectations, but alas it was not to be. We walked the 1.5mile loop track around the sanctuary and saw 3 cardinals and 500 flies. To say we were disappointed is an understatement. Maybe it was just the wrong time of the day, month, and year!!!
This little bit of excursion had made us both very thirsty so we stopped at a little no name town that had a general store and a couple of houses, for a drink. We struck up a conversation with the owner, a 70 odd year old machinist who had been running the family business for the last 30 odd years. He and Marty got onto welding and things so I was excluded from the conversation and left to get on with my drink – until Marty told him I had a lathe and mill drill then he thought I had engineering skills so I was included in the conversation. I had to appear very interested nodding and commenting in the appropriate places. It was very difficult to leave. He would have talked all night if he could but unlike the guy we had encountered back at the camp he was very interesting and knew lots of neat little welding and machining tips. We had an uneventful trip from there back to John and Michael’s arriving in time for tea. We had done just over 1000 miles.
We were up early next morning as Marty had arranged to meet a guy he had been in contact with thru a motorcycle Egroup on and we were to ride down to Wauseon in Ohio for a swap meet. We were 5 minutes late but they were quite a bit later as the guys on the Triumphs were having bike problems. The Matchless had no such trouble.The swap meet was quite big, but nowhere as big as next weekends in mid Ohio apparently. There were truck loads of Harley bits for sale. Some very nice complete Indians and several Clevelands for sale. There was also flat track antique (classic) bike racing but we never saw
this as we were to busy looking for British bits. Marty found a couple of switches he needed then discovered a 750 Norton motor that would be just perfect for the racing sidecar outfit. Off he went to the money machine to get the necessary loot. Then we had to track down the guys we had come with to see if their mate who had a stall there could take it back. All was sorted and the engine purchased and loaded into the good Samaritans car before we headed for home. I spent $1.80 on a Garfield mud flap that Marty says will definitely not be going on the 350 comp. He will put it on my BMW but that is all. All in all a good day out.
When our Good Samaritan, Antero arrived home with the engine his wife was less than impressed and even less so when he told her that he was picking up the rest of it tomorrow. Having wound her up sufficiently he then told her the truth so she was quite glad to see us turn up. We spent a very pleasant few hours there and now have the engine safely stored in the camper. I wonder what treasures will turn up next weekend.We have had a wonderful time here with John and Michael. Lots of laughs, too much food, just enough alcohol and lots of fun with the puppies. Marty has been earning our keep by helping
John split firewood,(it is John in the pic not Marty) chop trees down and other little tasks. I on the other hand have done stuff all. Getting the blog up to date has been my most time consuming and arduous task.
So that’s it from this end till sometime after the swap meet. If you are short of something to read get out your Harry Potter books.
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