Gaylord, Michigan

Total km = 655

The weather gods have blessed us once again with motorcycling sunshine. Today found us mostly on the upper peninsula of MI, following the shorelines of Lake Superior and then dropping south to follow Lake Michigan intermittently (called the Lake Superior and Lake Michigan circle tours and the Veterans Memorial drive). Along Lake Michigan there were long stretches of beautiful white sands beaches with people swimming. Brrrr. Lake Superior averages 34F and I suspect this one is not much different.

We have a yet unproven theory. Every time we come across deer they stop, listen and go the other way. We are beginning to wonder if it is the sound of Raindancer’s stereo. They typically ignore engine noises. But this would be a different sound for them and represent an alert. It could by our choice of music, I suppose. Whatever it is we are happy to see them display this behaviour. We are not trusting our theory though and remain very cautious.

Saw a very interesting sign on the back of a truck when we stopped for lunch. Didn’t meet these people but would have liked them and had to agree with their sentiments - sorry Bruce and Stu!!!

We rode through the somewhat dilapidated community of Christmas and stopped to take a picture of the large wooden Santa outside one of the only stores still in business.

The freeway riding isn’t the greatest as even though the posted speed for trucks is 60 MPH none of them seem to heed that making it tricky to keep out of their wind tunnels and keep a decent speed.
Winds were light most of the day, probably not the norm in many locales we went through. Doug remembers the high winds during the trip across the Mackinac Bridge in 1980, The bridge connects the city of St. Ignace on the upper peninsula with the village of Mackinaw City on the southern peninsula. It is the longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the Western hemisphere (8.0 km including leadups). Today was an easy ride across this monster although the metal grating on the (permanently?) under construction part made Raindancer a little squirrelly (it is easiest not to fight and let him find his own way across these things). Norma’s role was to sit very still and just enjoy the scenery.