Corner To Corner - Chatper 11, The Wild Wild West

Another warm and sunny day this morning as we loaded up outside the Holiday Inn in Sturgis. We wore our “biker” ripped off sleeve button up shirts we bought yesterday for the ride out, after making one last loop through the Sturgis Main Street. Loading up the bikes every morning is a little ritual – hauling the suitcases downstairs, strapping them to the bike, putting my note-pad and pen to take notes with and my I-Pod in the tank bra, taping up my directions on the yellow sticky note, and spraying on sun-screen, strapping the helmet on, and so on. Tony and I do our glove touch and roll out.

After our detour down Main Street one last time, we headed West on SD-34. More and more bikers came in, and we passed an endless stream of them on the road headed towards Sturgis. I realized we have to come back and spend some more time as. As it gets closer to the rally starting, more vendors are arriving and setting up. One we saw setting up this morning was doing trike conversions on Honda Goldwings. Tony said "hell, might as well add a fourth wheel and call it a Civic". Everyone we talk to says we should come early and leave early before the crowds, which sounds like a plan to me for next year.

We headed up into the Black Hills on SD-34 towards the town of Belle Fourche. This town has intrigued me for quite some time. One of my favorite movies is “The Cowboys” one of John Wayne’s last movies. If you recall the movie, there are no cowboys to take the cattle to market, so John Wayne hires out the school kids – all 12 years old or so. He gets killed along the way and the cattle stolen and the boys become men by rounding them up and killing the guys who stole the cattle and then driving them into Belle Fourche. So for that reason, plus it sounds somewhat “romantic” in an old-west kind of way, so I wanted to see it. It was a small, charming town, with a lot of old west flavor still, and a rail-head with a large cattle lot – and to this day it’s used just like it was 100 years ago when the movie was set.

I got Tony a little biker bear that rides on his windshield as we left this morning -- its our 12th anniversary and this guy will keep him company on the long stretches as we head home. We turned west on US-212, which cut across the corner of Wyoming. As soon as we crossed the Wyoming line I felt I was getting closer to home – though not “home” as in Seattle. I grew up in Salt Lake City, and we spent a lot of time in Wyoming when I was younger – although it was the opposite corner the Southwest one. Still I was in Wyoming and that means we’ve come a long way from Florida and are getting closer to home.

One thing about the far west, the towns are a hell of a lot further apart. Even in sparsely populated South Dakota, we had small farm towns every 25 miles or so. In Wyoming and Montana, it’s more like 80! You go long long long stretches without passing a single car, or even a farm house. Somewhere in the middle of the Powder River Valley in the SE corner of Montana we stopped at the only town we’d come across, Broadus, MT, and the only gas station to fill up and get a drink.

As we were filling up a group of riders headed towards Sturgis pulled in. By coincidence they were members of a Harley Owners Group Chapter that’s affiliated with the Marysville HD Dealer. Small world. We chatted for a bit, and as we were wearing our Sturgis shirts they asked how it was and this was their first trip. Since we have been we are no longer Sturgis virgins so we could fill them in (like we know anything, but I guess we looked like grizzled veteran bikers). They were all excited to go, until I asked them where they were staying and they answered “we don’t know we’ll figure it out when we get there.” I guess I had a look on my face as they said, “you don’t think that’s a problem do you?” Lets see, 10,000 bikers invading a town and you don’t have a hotel reservation. Yeah, I think so. We quickly gave them the number to the Holiday Inn Express we stayed as as they had mentioned they had some cancellations and told them to get on their cell phone now. As we pulled out we could see them huddled around one guy who was on the phone – lets hope they got something.

A bit further West on US-212 we ran into every biker’s nightmare. Road construction. Miles of it. It appears they were widening and repaving the highway, and it involved us riding for about 9 miles on dirt and gravel – very slowly – and waiting for pilot cars in the heat. Fortunately the flagman walking the line said “why don’t you guys cut to the front of the line so when the pilot car gets here you don’t have to wait behind all these trucks.” Needless to say we jumped at the chance. I don’t know why they needed to widen the road though – we maybe passed 10 cars in 50 miles – there just ain’t a lot of traffic out here.
It had started to get a bit hot and dusty as we rode across the Crow Reservation, so we stopped at a small town with a great Indian name – Lame Deer. There were two restaurants – one a bar with a sign that said Welcome Bikers, and had about 6 bikes in front, and the other, a café that said “Shakes”. We opted for “Shakes”, and were sorely disappointed that their ice cream machine was broken. This was also a local gathering spot, and the food was good, so we didn’t mind.

Unfortunately US-212 merges with the dreaded Interstate 90 at Crow Agency, Montana – where Custer’s Last Stand was fought. I felt like I’d been over-run as well having to get on the Interstate, but we had no choice. It also seemed like the rest of the biker world was headed to Sturgis while we were headed in the opposite direction. I’ve never seen so many bikes headed east on the freeway and on US-212. We didn’t pass a single bike headed West. In a way it makes me wish we were headed back that way. Fortunately it was only 60 miles to Billings, MT where we have camped out for the night.
Today was also about the last stretch of unknown road for us. Virtually all of the remaining route home is on roads we’ve ridden before. Indeed we are getting closer to home.

Corner To Corner - Chapter 10, STURGIS!!!!

Oh boy did it feel good to sleep in – and an extra hour too since Sturgis is on the Mountain Time Zone. We really are headed west, and it’s noticeable as we cross time zones now. Sturgis is like Mecca for bikers. All we’ve ever heard since we started riding was “are you going to Sturgis” “Have you been to Sturgis”, “When are you going to Sturgis?” And even though the rally hasn’t technically started, we are here now, along with thousands of other bikers. Good Lord I’ve never seen so many bikers in one place, and this is apparently just a drop in the bucket of what’s to come.

This small town is completely overrun by bikers in August every year, and the town turns into one huge motorcycle event. The vendors are already set up or in the process of setting up. I’ve never seen so many t-shirt vendors in my life. But along with the t-shirts, leathers, patches with cute, funny, and obscene sayings on them, and biker accessories galore, all the major accessory vendors and bike makers are here, along with the custom chopper crowd, and enough food vendors to make the Puyallup fair look small. The one thing they were lacking is Port-A-Potties. We were drinking quite a bit because of the heat and all that water and soda had to go somewhere. The vendors all told us they don’t put the Port-A-Potties out until later in the week when the crowds really get big, and so we had to keep ducking into bars to use the facilities.

Tony and I spent most of the morning wandering among the bike vendors and t-shirt shops. Yes we bought some, I’m not telling you how many, but suffice to say we have to ship some home. We bought some accessories for the bikes, and Tony splurged and got his Big Blue Bike all decked out with blue LED lights. Tom and Dwayne from American Custom Cycles in Houston did a fantastic job, and boy does it look cool! These guys came up from Texas and do the bike shows installing lights and air horns and such. They set up an outside garage next to their 5th Wheel trailer and go to work on bikes during the rally. It took about an hour to wire up Tony’s bikes with the lights, which are sure to be a head turner when we cruise Alki on summer evenings.

It’s was quite hot wandering around Main Street in Sturgis, but getting on the bikes felt good after we started moving. Bikes and bikers as far as the eye can see. I kept getting hit on by girls too – who’d ask me if I was here with my wife or girlfriend, and I learned to reply, “now why would I bring my wife OR my girlfriend here – I couldn’t have any fun”.

We let it cool off a bit by relaxing around the hotel pool, and about 3pm decided to head out for a ride up to the Crazy Horse memorial and Mt. Rushmore. I have to say the Black Hills of South Dakota are really something. It was cool, the air smelled of pine, and the roads twisty. We went on a nice loop up through Deadwood and Hill City on US 14 and US 385. Deadwood and Hill City were nice old mining towns now turned gambling towns, and the bikers were everywhere, lining the streets and riding the highways. A car was indeed a rare sight.

The Crazy Horse memorial was amazing, and the scale is hard to contemplate. It is no where near being done, and my bet is that it never will be. When you compare it to Mt. Rushmore the size becomes evident. The head of Crazy Horse alone is as big as the four heads of Mt. Rushmore.

The loop was about 150 miles, and we rode it without helmets. My mother is going to have a conniption fit at that, but you know there was NO ONE riding with a helmet anywhere. We’d have been the only ones. (Yeah, I can hear it now, “and if everyone jumped off a cliff would you too?”) Nonetheless it was a bit un-nerving and not something we’ll do on a regular basis. But I have to confess it sure felt nice.

Riding down Sturgis’ Main Street at dusk with Tony’s blue lights was cool, and the town is up and partying for some time. I imagine this place becomes quite the zoo in a few days when the rally really gets going. I’m almost wishing we could stay, despite how I hate crowds. We rode past the shop where Tony got his lights done and told them all the positive comments we were getting -- and it made me want them on mine. So at midnight, these guys put the Dyna up on the lift and outfitted it with some hot red LED lights. Tony has his blue, I have my red, and we'll be the hit of Alki on summer evenings!
Tomorrow we’ll head out, maybe find some time to swing by Devils Tower before we head northwest into Montana and Billings or beyond.

Corner To Corner - Chapter 9, Conversations With Dusty

Does it count on the Corner To Corner Ride that I didn’t ride the motorcycle 129 miles today, yet the motorcycle and I are in Sturgis, South Dakota as is Tony who rode 345 miles, while I only rode 216 on the bike and for 129 miles the bike and I rode with Dusty in the tow truck? Do I still get credit?

Harley Roadside Assist sent over a very talented young tow truck driver named Dusty, who was able to get the bike up on the flatbed with no problems. He and I set out in the truck for the 129 miles to Pierre, while Tony rode behind on the Geezer Glide. There was a fair amount of road construction over dirt roads which were rough in the tow truck, and I could hear Tony cussing at it from 100 yard behind. It took us two hours to get to Pierre in the tow truck, and Dusty asked about the ride, and was a bit wistful since he said he’s never been out of the Midwest. He’s 27, and this is his family business – along with his Dad and brother. He was born and raised in Huron, and bought his first house – a 2200 square foot place on a quarter of an acre for $60,000! Needless to say he was shocked at Seattle housing prices. Huron is the pheasant hunting capitol of South Dakota, and Dusty says they experience an invasion of hunters every fall. About that time a pheasant flew out of the ditch and about knocked Tony off the bike! And of course they have that huge pheasant statute in the entrance to town. We talked of farms and crops and how they tow big implements out of the field when they get stuck. Dusty had more than a few stores of wrecks, and trucks plowing into wandering cattle and such.

He asked me if he had a few days to drive and see some scenery where should he go? I said “Go West”. Head up to Montana – see some mountains. He’d been to Detroit to see an old High School buddy and hated it, but he seemed intrigued about Seattle and why I loved it so much.

The two hours flew by, and we pulled up to the Harley Dealer in Pierre at noon. Dusty got the bike down and pushed into the dealer, where they tinkered with it and Tony and I went to the Longbranch Saloon for lunch (no Miss Kitty or Marshall Dillon). It was very hot in Pierre, almost 100, an we were feeling it when we walked back to the dealer. They hadn’t figured out what was wrong yet, so we sat, and we sat, and we sat, and we napped, and we sat some more. About 4pm they said that they had gotten it to act up once, but had not been able to get it to do it again – and they had tested and probed and run everything and couldn’t figure out what the problem was, and that it had started 15 times in a row with no problem. They charged me $60 and sent me on my way.

Our goal was to be in Sturgis tonite and spend a day here before the big Black Hills Motorcycle Rally starts later this week. In order to get their quick, and be along a well traveled route incase the bike acted up again, we decided, much to my dismay, to take I-90. It’s 225 miles to Sturgis via the freeway, and at 4pm in the afternoon heat, just a ton of fun. The freeway cuts like a knife through the prairie – and through my heart. It was long, straight, hot, and full of trucks. It didn’t move with the land, pierced it like an arrow. I would have rather continued on US-14 and SD-34 the back way through the Black Hills and taken the back way, but we thought it was wise to stick to the well traveled road. As it was the bike behaved and we had no problems.

South Dakota has a 75 mph speed limit on the freeway, and at that speed you get a lot of wind noise. I’ve been riding some with my I-pod, but with that much wind noise you have to have LOUD music on to overcome it. I had a playlist of what people my age consider rock and roll – things like the Eagles, Marshall Tucker Band, Styx etc. This playlist I had labeled “Fast Ski Songs”, for songs that I like to listen to while skiing fast. Apparently there are also a few show tunes and movie tunes on here – including songs from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. So picture it – I’m riding along, feet out on the travel pegs – arms level on the ape-hanger handle bars, arms very tan and muscles bulging from having to hang on at 75 mph, a glare on my face, doing a little seat dance, and foot tapping, and looking like a weathered grizzled old biker – singing along with the I-pod “I’m just a sweet transvestite, from transsexual, Transelvania…” No wonder the truckers were giving me odd looks.

So, despite singing along to Rocky Horror and a few other oddities, the time passed very slowly on the ride up I-90. The country was interesting – grasslands as far as the eye could see, and I felt like I was riding through the set of “Dances With Wolves”. Apparently Lady Bird Johnson didn’t remember South Dakota when she had billboard taken down off the Interstates. This stretch is lined with them – all for upcoming tourist things. Places like Wall Drugs, Wonderland Cave, and Gator World. I imagine this is what the old Route 66 and other major roads looked like back in the day – and to be honest, I kind of liked it. It helped pass the time, and had we had some extra, we might have stopped in on a few of them just for the silliness factor.

As we got closer to Rapid City and Sturgis, the countryside changed from the grasslands to some very pretty hills and I’m looking forward to riding through them tomorrow as we explore the area, and take in the experience that is Sturgis. We went into town for dinner, and already the vendors are setting up and there are a lot of bikers in town early. We’ll avoid the crowd and still have some fun. By Friday this street will be lined with 10,000 bikes!
I-90 is right outside the door, and we could take it straight back to Seattle and be home in a day – but I’ll be damned if we will.

Corner To Corner - Broke Down!

There is a song by Texas songwriter named Brian Burns that has a line that goes:

"I don't know why the hell I drove this far, and I wish I could be back there where you are, but I'm broke down in Tulsa, on a cold and rainy morning, crying on the shoulder of an Oklahoma highway, hoping I can get home.."

Well it isn't quite that bad, I'm in a hotel parking lot in Huron, SD. However the Dyna's electrical problems have resurfaced, and she won't start, and I don't get any indication of any sort of electrical system or indication of power at all. My ignition key has been sticky for the last few days, so I'm suspecting that's where the problem arises.

We have Harley Road Side Assist, which will tow the bike to the nearest Harley-Davidson dealer. From Huron, South Dakota, there is one in Watertown, SD, which is 112 miles back the wrong way, or one on Pierre, SD, which is 119 miles the right way we are headed - West. In dealing with Roadside Assist, the nice lady, who stuck religiously to the script she was given, insisted that they tow it to Waterton, even though it's the wrong direction, because it is the closest dealer. I offered to pay the 7 miles difference. I suspect that HOG will get a strongly worded letter when I get home.

Nonetheless, Road Side Assist is a great buy at $38 a year, for unlimited tows on the road to the nearest HD dealer.

We'll keep you updated as things progress -- but right now we are back in the hotel room waiting for the tow truck to show up.

Corner To Corner - Chapter - 8, Somewhere Out On the Prairie

It was good to rest for a day in Minneapolis and not ride a few hundred miles. After six straight days of hard riding, we needed it. We left Minneapolis late as well to avoid the commuter traffic. There is nothing worse than being on a motorcycle, in a strange big city, trying to read confusing freeway ramp signs, getting lost in a tangle of ramps that looks like a can full of worms, and dodging rushing commuters who are on auto pilot. As it was the short trips around Minneapolis on Sunday meeting up with friends were trying – and we missed ramps twice and ended up going all over town. It was a very pleasant morning once again, and we left Minneapolis in t-shirts. Riding along in the warm sun – bare arms out, fists in the wind – there is nothing to compare to the feeling, and I could ride for hours like that. We’ve really lucked out with weather on this trip – other than the two rain squalls, we’ve had sun. However, earlier in the day as I was noting out the route west and seeing how damn far we still had to go, I actually found myself thinking “maybe we could ship them home and just fly…” I know, a crazy thought eh? But truth be told, another day’s rest would have felt nice.

We headed southwest on a tangle of freeways out of Minneapolis, aiming for US-212 West, and out onto the Minnesota Prairie. Riding along this nice two-lane out on the prairie is great. It’s not so flat and boring, (like Florida), and the towns are about 15 miles apart. You can see them start to rise before you – grain elevators and silos – then you ride through a nice small town main street with two story brick buildings, and past the grain elevator and the farm implement dealer and out onto the prairie again – watching the town disappear in your rear view mirror. You ride through a few miles of corn or soy beans, and the next town starts to rise up before you – towns like Hector, Bird Island, Oliva, and Danube. Out here they still have 4-H and FFA clubs and town parks sponsored by the Rotary Club. If it’s a county seat, there’s usually a fancy courthouse built at the turn of the century. It’s really what middle America is all about.

Out here on the prairie we’ve lost the Baptists and their reader boards demanding that I ACCEPT HIM!!! And we’ve landed, as Garrison Keilor says, out amongst the Lutherans. Lutherans are not nearly as preachy as Baptists apparently and all the towns have a nice large Lutheran Church and the reader board only lists the Sunday service hours and when the next Church Supper is. Every town also has an implement dealer. I like the John Deere ones – with their green painted tractors. These beasts are huge! Especially the combines and corn harvesters. They dwarf most houses and no doubt cost as much.

We turned south on MN-23 and found ourselves motoring through the small town of Hanley Falls. Just outside of town we passed an antique tractor with a sign saying “Farm Implement Museum” with an arrow pointing to the town, and since we needed a break, we pulled in. The museum is housed in the town’s old school building – a two story building put up by the WPA in the 1920s. This is a classic old school, where Ruth the caretaker told us the town had all 12 grades up until 1965. On the hall walls were the class pictures over the years – in 1960 the high school class had 7 graduates. In 1964 they had 14. Evidence of the baby-boom in action. The ceilings were 20 feet high, and the doors all oak. All the rooms were filled with old farm implements and equipment, antique cooking stuff, cool “feed” signs, and the like. They must have cleaned out every barn in the County for this collection, including a bunch of old tractors in a garage out back! And inside, on a shelf, was a small bottle labeled “Mt. St. Helens Ash”. Hey, something from back home, all the way out in a museum in Hanley Falls, MN. Ruth had us fill out and sign the guest book and we put a pin on the map in Seattle – the only one from Washington. I guess the Farm Implement museum doesn’t get a lot of traffic. We gave them $20 in their donation bin and headed back out on MN-23, looking for a place for lunch.

The next town up was Marshall, and according to Ruth at the museum we’d be able to find something there. I told her we didn’t want to do “chain” places, we wanted real food, and I wanted some place with a swrily vannila ice cream cone on top and she assured us we would find it In Marshall. I had grave reservations however as we rolled south as the sign for the “Adopt a Highway” litter pick up was for the Marshall Starbucks. Now as an investor in Starbucks, I appreciate that – as a connoisseur of road food, any town with a Starbucks means the hunt for real food will be hard. It was. We cruised down the main drag – finding nothing but Mc Donalds, Carls Jr., Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Applebees, and then hidden off in the corner of a motel was “Mike’s Café”. It wasn’t a chain. So we did a U-turn and headed in. It was the best decision of the day.

Our waitress brought us menus and water and asked where we were from and going to – the typical question everyone asks traveling road bikers. We told her we were riding from Key West back home to Seattle, and said “ you are crazy!”, paused for a minute and said “Seattle” her eyes lighting up. Yep, we replied, she asked “what part”? We told her West Seattle and she said she lived in Puyallup for two years. Her name is Karen, and her husband took a job out there so they packed up and moved out for a couple of years despite being born and raised on the Minnesota prairie. She didn’t look it but she said she had a 20 year old son and a 16 year old daughter, and, she’d move back in a second. She said her son was in a class of 70 in Marshall, but graduated from a class of 900 in Puyallup, and she was grateful for the diversity and culture of Washington. She said she could talk with us all afternoon about Seattle, and how nice it was there, and how pretty and green, and the water, and the mountains. She just gushed – and we had to agree since neither of us can imagine living anywhere else. They were sad to have her husband’s job transfer him back to Minnesota.

About that time a table full of characters right out of the Andy Griffith show wandered into the café, including a deputy sheriff. I overhead someone say “tornado warning” and indeed the sky was getting dark. I decided to wander over and ask about it, and was invited to sit down for a moment. There was a mention on the weather about the conditions being ripe for a tornado, although there was no watch or warning. One of the farmers said he’d had one cross right in front of him last week and it took off the roof of a barn. I asked them “what should I do if we spot one”, and was advised to get in the ditch as quick as I could, and if possible crawl into a culvert. At my size, I don’t think there are many culverts that I could crawl into. They told me what to watch for, and said to listen to the radio. I’ve been teasing Tony about his “Geezer Glide” with all its gadgets, but right now I was very glad to know he had a radio. Then one of the guys said, “say hello to my sister in Enumclaw for me”. Small world indeed – at a café in Marshall, MN, we run into two connections to home – a waitress who would love to go back to Puyallup, and a farmer with a sister in Enumclaw.

For dessert I had peach pie and Tony had some sort of pudding concoction that was out of this world. Karen talked about how she missed the flowers from Pikes Place Market, and that it’s a big conspiracy to tell people that it rains a lot in Seattle. We settled up, and the farmers all wished us a safe ride, one of them even coming out to show us what to watch for in the sky. However, as an omen of things to come I noticed across the street from Mike’s Café a new Arby’s under construction – with the sign saying “Coming soon – the Excitement is building”. I think not. Lets hope that Mikes’ Café stays in business a long time.
We headed out, underneath a dark sky, keeping a watch out for swirling clouds, and flying cows, and passed the local BNSF Freight train. I was very nervous looking for any sign of a twister, but Tony kept an ear on the radio and said nothing was being reported. We passed a huge windmill farm with hundreds of giant windmills out in the corn. These things were gigantic and really fascinating to watch. A bit further down the road we turned West on US-14 towards the South Dakota state line. We also passed our first “Wall Drug” sign of the trip. This famous South Dakota tourist mecca in Wall, SD is famous for having signs all over the world pointing you to this kitchy little place. You know you are getting into the West when you run into Wall Drug signs on the highway. Us-14 is also signed as the “Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Highway”, as it apparently connects several of the settings from her “Little House” series of children’s books.

We crossed into South Dakota and up the highway we came into DeSmet, SD, which has a warring faction of Laura Ingalls Wilder booster clubs – one with the actual house they claim, and one with the “homestead”. The homestead is about a mile off US-14 and on a dirt road. I turned down it. Tony’s big geezer glide doesn’t handle all that well on dirt roads, so by the time he rolled up five minutes after I got there I got a look that said we should keep going. So we kept rolling west towards our destination – Huron SD, not wanting to contribute to the 21st Century’s South Dakota equivalent of the Hatfields and McCoys or having to endure Tony’s look.
We settled in for the night in Huron, SD after riding 297 miles today, and had dinner at a local dive that deep fried everything. Now we have a spectacular lightning storm to watch, along with listening for a tornado warning siren. Huron is the home of the "World's Largest Pheasant". My bike is acting up with some sort of electrical malfunction, but I was able to get it started after dinner and am hoping we can nurse it to an HD Dealer down the road. Tomorrow, we’ll take a short ride into Sturgis, SD. Now the famous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally doesn’t officially start until next week, which is why we could get a hotel room! We plan on spending the day exploring – there should be a number of early arrivals and folks setting up, plus riding to see Mt. Rushmore and Devils Tower. Then on Wednesday, we’ll keep heading West towards home.

Corner To Corner - Chapter 7, The Pasty Highway

The rain had washed the air clean and it was a cloudless morning when we rolled out of Manistique, Michigan on the Upper Peninsula about 8am. We are definitely in the north woods, as it was quite cool and again we needed our jackets, and the bikes, as well as any surface was covered with large bugs that looked like a cross between a mosquito and a crane fly, and if they teamed up could fly away with a small dog. Fortunately they didn’t bite.

We rolled West on US-2, which goes through the north woods of the U.P, and which I have now named the Pasty Highway. You see the road is lined with lots of small Ma and Pa motels and fishing camps, and even “tourist cabins” that were built in the 40s and 50s – most of which are still in business. These are the kinds of motels that used to line all the major highways before the chains took over, and it was almost like a step back in time. Almost all of them had big signs saying “PASTIES”, reminiscent of the “FRUIT’ stands that line the highway outside of Wenatchee and Yakima, or espresso stands in Seattle. I wondered if there was some sort of college for strippers nearby and there was a cottage industry of making the little tassel things that they put on their boobs. Tony, having spent time up in the U.P. said that they are “kind of like a Scottish sausage roll – a pastry filled with meat and potatoes or veggies, and they remind me of a beef stew.” However, that early in the morning, none of them were open yet, however one of them advertised on their reader board:

Pasties
JESUS SAVES
$35

So I have to ask, if He showed up at this little motel would He save $35 on a box of pasties while the rest of us paid full price?

In Escanaba, Michigan we set our watches back an hour as we entered the Central Time Zone. We’ve been in Eastern Time for the last week as we’ve come up North from Florida, so this really does indicate we are headed West towards home. Outside of Escanaba US-2 is joined by US-41. If you recall, this is also the Tamiami Trail in Florida and what we rode across the Everglades, and is a main street in Tampa, Tony’s hometown. Looking at the map, US-41 runs from Miami up to Marquette, Michigan. I’ve always loved the visual image of highway signs, and their connection to places that mean something to me. For instance, US-89 runs north and south through Salt Lake City and the West. While I lived in Phoenix, it was my connection to home – I could be on US-89 and know that if I just followed it, like Dorothy followed the Yellow Brick Road, it would lead me home. I felt a kind of peace when I got homesick if I walked US-89 in Tempe. So here we are in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, about as far away from Seattle and Tampa as we can get, and what do we come across? A junction that split US-41 South from US-2 West. We pulled up and reflected on that -- it was a telling moment for Tony – the pull of his two homes. He could go West on US-2 home to Seattle, or South on US-41 to his hometown of Tampa. We’ve gone through a lot this year, and this trip through the U.P. had been a retrospective for him as the last time he was here 12 years ago he was ending his relationship. We sat there for a bit and reflected on things, and then pulled back onto US-2 West.

Outside of Spalding, Michigan we rode past an outdoor display of finely cut iron work – images cut by a saw or torch into metal works – many on old saw blades. We saw one great “Welcome” one with a bear, and thought it would look good on the side of our new garage so we pulled in to get a closer look. The owner/artist came out to see us – his name was Eric, and he walked with a bad limp. He was a biker at one time, but arthritis made him sell it off. He’d created hundreds of these and sold them by the side of the highway. He invited us into his house to look at more, and we were very surprised to walk into his rec room to see a hardwood floor, mirrors floor to ceiling, some old leather couches, a bar with a metal Harley-Davidson sign, and in the middle of it all, a pole. A stripper pole. He caught Tony staring at it and said “yeah, it’s what you think it is.” He didn’t offer any explanation. Unfortunately it would have been rude to take a picture, although we discretely tried.

The bear sign we wanted was $500 with shipping so we’ll think about it on the ride home. I still want an explanation of the stripper pole.

We crossed into Wisconsin and picked up US-8 West, and in the small town of Crandon, we rolled through a wonderful small-town main street festival with artists, and a car show, and horse rides, and of course booths selling Pasties. I love small town festivals like this, but we needed to keep moving, and I would have no doubt bought stuff we didn’t have room to take back. We stopped for lunch at a small roadside tavern outside of Tripoli, WI with a few other bikes parked out front so we figured it had to be good. I wish I could figure out how to phonetically spell a Wisconsin accent. It’s quite nasal and drawn out – with similar but softer vowel sounds to a New England accent, with some Canadian in it, and they say “yah sure” a lot. They are almost as nice as Southerners and just as helpful.

After lunch we took off our jackets and continued West on US-8 as it dropped out of the North Woods and into the farmlands of Southwest Wisconsin. It was warm and nice, and as usual after lunch we got a bit drowsy. We’ve done six straight days of hard riding and we are finding we get tired a lot more – and we stopped about every 100 miles or so today. At a nice roadside park we even laid on the grass for a bit, and I had a hard time getting back up and getting on the bike.

A few miles after our siesta, we rolled into Tony. Literally – Tony, Wisconsin. Tony has his name on the water tower, and the store is called “Tony Depot”, conjuring up an image of shelves full of little Tonys.

Our ultimate goal was Minneapolis, as Tony has some friends here he wanted to see. I just love riding into a big strange city on a freeway, but we had no choice. Fortunately we had directions to the hotel and were able to navigate through the city OK. We arrived after 422 miles for the day, and had a nice dinner with some friends and watched a fireworks show over the Mississippi river. We decided to stay and rest a day and not ride, which is why this is being posted a day late. We’ll stay here Sunday and just relax, and then head West into South Dakota tomorrow.

So you get a break from us as well. Feel free to get up and move about the cabin. We are half-way home.

Corner To Corner - Chatper 6, To The Top Of Michigan

It was a beautiful sunny morning when we rolled North out of Holland, Michigan a little before 8am. We thought t-shirts would be sufficient, but after a couple of miles we decided we needed our light leather jackets again. We are definitely getting further north. Holland is a tacky little place on the shore of Lake Michigan – made to look like a Dutch town (Holland – get it?) Lots of faux windmills and giant wooden shoes. I’m sure it’s popular with the elderly lady bus tour set. We rolled out late again this morning – it’s getting hard to get up in the morning – we’ve been riding hard for six days now, and we’ve never ridden six days straight without taking a break, and I could use one.

One of our morning biker rituals is a morning “good luck” tap – where Tony and I bump fists before throttling up and moving out. Well I bought some new fingerless gloves at the Goldwing rally yesterday back in Ohio – and as you can see no self-respecting Goldwing rider would ever wear them – they are too “motorcycle-ey” for them. However, the little spikes gave Tony a nasty jab this morning, so maybe they aren’t such good luck after all.

We headed up US-31, which is another of these US highways that has been turned into a pseudo freeway – with a speed limit of 70mph that even the trucks exceed. I’m a little disappointed in the Harley-Davidson Road Atlas, which has been more or less our Bible on this trip. It shows this as a designated motorcycle ride with great scenery and places to visit. I was expecting to have some vistas of Lake Michigan and some cute towns – and what we got was miles of faux freeway, no views of the lake, and long strung out towns with slow traffic.

As we were rolling through Manistee, Michigan, we saw a group of three riders in a motel parking lot – two of them roared out in front of us, the third got caught behind us. After a few miles when it was safe we waved him up to join his group, and he paused and asked me where we were going. I told him the Upper Peninsula, and, as good Harley riders do when going the same way, invited us to ride along with them, and we accepted their offer. Well, we didn’t have much of a choice, since we couldn’t pass them. A few more miles down the road, he backed off and asked me where we had come from, and when I told him he said “no shit!” and rode up to talk to his buds. Another mile or so and he drifts back and says they are stopping for lunch in Traverse City and wanted to know if we would like to join them, and I said OK. Now these guys most definitely need to take one of Professor Tony’s classes in Group Riding, and their leader needs to take Dr. Gardner’s class in how to be a Road Captain. These guys had no idea how to ride in formation – let alone use hand or even TURN signals! The next thing we knew they were turning in – without warning – into a Harley dealership in Traverse City.

It was at this point we all got to introduce ourselves. The three all work together – as Prison Guards – at the State Pen in Muskegon, and were off on a four-day trip to the Upper Peninsula. When they heard where Tony and had been and were going, Greg, Jerry and Brock were a bit shell shocked and in awe. In fact one of them had just bought his bike a few weeks ago. We went into the dealership and all bought shirts (number three on this trip if you are counting). When they asked if we liked Mongolian BBQ, Tony practically ran to his bike to get going. We motored up the road to a nice joint and had a great lunch and learned that the prison portrayed on the TV show “OZ” is not at all realistic, and all of them were quite relieved to find out I was not a defense attorney. All had taken the job when there was nothing else to do after high school. The economy in Michigan is still not what it is elsewhere in the country.

After lunch, their “Road Captain” Greg took off and violated Road Captain 101 – make sure your group is ready to go with you, and do not make a right turn unless the entire group can go with you. He rode alone for 20 miles in beach town traffic before we could rejoin him. We stopped in a nice park on the shore of the lake for a break, and had a chance to talk more and pose for a picture. When we left the park, I was able to maneuver myself into being the lead rider, which if nothing else made me feel safer since I wasn’t having to watch for sudden movements and turns on their part.

When we got to the top of Michigan at Mackinaw City, just before the bridge to the Upper Peninsula, we stopped again at the Harley Dealership there and all bought shirts (four for us now on this trip.) They were going to take a different road at the other end of the bridge so we said our good byes there, and although they invited us to go with them up to Sault Ste. Marie on the Ontario border – and we were tempted because we were having a good time with these guys – we declined and decided to keep heading West.

That’s the thing about Harley riders – you are instantly part of a bigger family of riders, and its rare that a group of Harley riders won’t ask you to join up with them for a ride. You get to meet the most interesting folks, and its one of the true joys of riding.

Now the Mackinac bridge is really spectacular – a high suspension bridge that goes over the strait between Lakes Michigan and Huron and connects to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and is roughly two miles long. It’s also very windy and if you are afraid of heights, you don’t want to take this bridge. The views were unbelievable (as were the antics of our three new friends in weaving in traffic and taking pictures, and all to soon we were at the toll both. We waved goodbye again as Tony and I curved onto US-2 West and they headed up north on I-75.

US-2 runs due west along the shore of Lake Michigan, and this is what I was expecting the road up from Holland to be like – miles of shoreline. This road is not highlighted in the Harley Road Atlas – a serious mistake in my book. What we were not expecting is a towering thundercloud ahead of us. About 40 miles down the road we pulled into a rest area to answer the call of nature, and I thought maybe I’d put on my rain gear just in case – we’d seen a number of bikers heading east with their gear on. Just as we pulled it out of the saddle bag it started to sprinkle, and by the time we got into the gear it became a full-fledged downpour like what we’d seen in Florida. We thought it might be best to wait it out so we sat on the front porch of the log cabin rest area building and watched the rain come down. A lightning strike across the parking lot scared the bejeezus out of us as well, and we were glad to have stayed put. The storm was moving west to east, so we assumed it would let up, but while we waited we called down the road to get a hotel room and to catch up with friends and family back home. Ain’t cell phone technology wonderful!

After an hour the rain had slowed to a trickle and we decided to head down the road before it got much later. Forty very wet miles later we pulled into Manistique, Michigan and a Quality Inn. The storm had knocked out the cable and thus the Internet connection, but we were glad to get inside and out of the rain gear that is only 75% waterproof.

We’ll keep heading West on US-2 tomorrow – and could, if we wanted to, stay on US-2 all the way home to Seattle. We won’t of course, but I’ve always thought it would be fun to ride from Key West north to Bangor Maine on US-1, then turn West on US-2 to head home – or maybe to US-101 and ride down the coast of California, and back to Florida on US-98. As you know by now, I find highway numbers somewhat magical – especially when I can connect them with a place that means something to me – like home. I’ve been thinking of home a lot today – and to be honest, while we are having a great adventure out here on the road – the call of home is being heard faintly in the background.

Corner To Corner - Chapter 5, Farm Country

OK, that’s more like it. Today was the kind of day that road trips are supposed to be. The weather was perfect, for the most part we stayed off the freeway, we met come cool people, ate at non-chain places, and saw a lot of the country we’d not seen before. This is what this trip is supposed to be about.

We slept later than usual, but needed the rest, and finally got out on the road at 830am. I’d plotted a course that was 90% rural roads, but first we had to get out of Columbus. This city sprawls – we noticed it, and Tony complained about it yesterday as we rode the belt freeway around the city to get to the north end where we stayed. I agreed that it felt like we were driving around the world. We had to take the same loop out to get to US-33 which heads Northwest out of Columbus and into Indiana. It was warm, we rode in just t-shirts today and didn’t need our jackets. In fact, I don’t think it got above 80 all day so we were comfortable the entire day.

Like I said, US-33 heads Northwest out of Columbus, but alas it mimics a damn freeway for about 30 miles before it becomes a nice two-lane highway. I’m going to again quote some wisdom from the Disney/Pixar movie Cars, where Sally is expounding on the difference between a freeway and a two-lane. She says “back then the roads didn’t cut through the land, they moved with the land.” Freeways are designed to keep you moving, where traditional roads are designed to connect places and people. There is nothing ON a freeway, you have to get OFF to find it. On a two-lane it’s right in front of you. I’ll ask you which would you rather travel on – a road like the one at the top of this post, or this one? Both are the same road, US-33 in NW Ohio.

About 50 miles out, in the town of Bellefontaine, we pulled off to stop by a Harley dealer to get some new fingerless riding gloves. However as we neared the town we noticed a ton of motorcycles heading our way – all Honda Goldwings. Then we passed a sign saying “Honda Homecoming” and then a huge Honda factory. It all started to make sense now – this is like the 105th Harley-Davidson Anniversary party later this year, and the pilgrimages HD riders take back to Milwaukee, only for Gold Wing riders.

As we exited we saw a sign for a motorcycle rally as well, so we decided to take a little detour to check it out. We were the only two Harley guys – everyone else was on a Honda product, and 90% of them were Goldwings.

Goldwings are the Winnebagos of the biker world. They are large machines, covered with faring so there is no engine visible, and they have reverse gears and complicated dashboards. They also attract the same demographic – retired old white people. Large old white people. Many of whom convert their bikes into trikes! Some pulling little trailers. They don’t even look like bikers – and I’ll state for the record that a Goldwing is in my book, simply a two wheeled car. Motorcycles should have visible V-twin engines at least, and they should make NOISE. Goldwings are very very quiet. Where a Harley roars to life with a copyrighted sound of “potato potato potato potato", a Goldwing sounds like – well nothing. Hell, a Prius in electric mode makes more noise than a Goldwing. All the time people wait for me to start my bike or ask me to. No one ever asks anyone to fire up a Goldwing!

We wandered around the vendor area, and found the fingerless gloves we just paid $25 for at the HD dealer on sale for $6 at a vendor booth. Tony needed some night glasses as well, so we wandered into MisFits Eyewear, which is a traveling booth run by Mick and Sassafrass Zellar from the upper peninsula of Michigan. While Sassafrass unpacked, and I petted their dog, Mick expounded on the superiority of his product over the PanOptics I wear. He also complained about having to wear bifocals, and I said it comes with age. He is 62, his wife much younger. He asked how old I was, and I told him to guess – he said 50. I left the tent. He asked Tony his age, and said Tony was 35. Three years younger. Damn Asians. I came back in the tent and we joked around some more and Mick said the best things happen after 50 -- its when he married the much younger Sassafrass. Tony bought a pair of his goggles and we ambled back out into the sea of Goldwing riders. There wasn’t much to interest us so we got back on the bikes and headed out on the road towards Indiana, curving off US 33 on to US 224 West.

This is farm country – corn and soybeans as far as the eye can see. It is really very nice, with small towns, lots of farm implement dealers, freshly spread fertilizer in the air (mmm, smells good), and shirtless Midwestern farm boys riding tractors. We started to get hungry, and as we pulled into Markle, Indiana, underneath the smiley face painted town water tower, we found a little restaurant that had a sign saying “Indiana’s best steak burgers.” I sensed a story! So we pulled up underneath the happy water tower and went in to find out if indeed it was the home of Indiana's best steak burgers – only to find it closed at 130pm (my watch had 132pm) . She did say however that there was a McDonalds two miles up the road. Perish the though.

So we continued up US 224 into Huntington, Indiana. This is the home of Dan Quayle apparently, and the town is still proud of him. I kept looking for a roadside hamburger stand with a big swirly vanilla cone on top or something, and we found a nice outside car-hop kind of place where you order from a thing that looks like a drive-in movie speaker, so we pulled in there. They specialized in Coney Dogs, and if you bought the “basket” you got a free root beer. Well I was in the mood for a root beer float, so asked if they would make me one, and the girl on the other end of the speaker box said “no”, you have to buy a root beer float. So I said OK, I’ll do that, and she asked “do you still want the free root beer too?” At this point I became Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces. You remember the famous scene where Jack wants to order wheat toast and has to get a chicken salad sandwich on toast, hold the chicken salad to do it? I decided to tell her “Forget about the float, just bring me the free root beer and a small vanilla cone, hold the cone and just put the ice cream in the free root beer”. She said, that would be a root beer float then and she’d have to charge me for that. We are NOT in the South anymore. No wonder Dan Quayle came from here – he was the inspiration for “Are you smarter than a fifth grader” game show you know. I supposed she made the fries out of “potatoe” too. So I told her to just bring me the free root beer AND the small vanilla cone, so she did, and I dumped it in the root beer myself and it foamed up and made a mess, but I had my float and Tony did the same. The dogs were good by the way too.

We turned off of US 224 and onto IN-9 which goes straight north into Michigan. Through more farm country on a warm afternoon – bare arms in the wind, and tunes on the I-pod – coupled with a full stomach, one tends to get a bit drowsy. Not good on a motorcycle, so we stopped for some Red Bull, and chatted with a local biker for a while. Seems everyone we talk to is amazed that we’d ride from Key West all the way back to Seattle. The Red Bull snapped us wide awake as we motored across the state line into Michigan and into the town of Sturgis. No, not the Sturgis of the famous bike week – that’s in South Dakota. However, we can now honestly say we’ve been to Sturgis. They have a Harley dealer too, and so we bought shirts to prove it. Only the second ones on this trip, we are doing pretty good!
It was still great riding weather – sunny and in the 70s, and it was a pretty part of the country, so we decided to try and get to Holland, Michigan on the shore of Lake Michigan for the night. We wound through the countryside on US-12 (which we could ride straight home if we wanted to), and then north on MI-40 to Holland. Its amazing to me to note the change in the countryside from the swamps of Florida, to the heat and red clay of Georgia, to the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Carolinas, to the Coal Country of Kentucky and the rust belt along the Ohio River, to the farms of Indiana and the forest of Southern Michigan. It’s hard to believe that five days ago we were in Key West. We’ve come 1883 miles since then. Looking at a map it’s quite a distance – and still a long way to go.

Tomorrow we’ll continue up the coast of Lake Michigan, and up across the bridge onto the Upper Peninsula.