The End of the Line

So, I'm sitting in my hotel room near Toronto airport.  My bike is safely delivered to the shippers, and I hope it will get on the plane with me tomorrow night.  According to my satnav I've travelled 7,561.5 miles with a driving time of 6 days, and an average speed of 49mph.  I didn't check the odometer to see if the bike and satnav agree.

My last day's riding into Michigan was uneventful, though it may have been on that day I came to the Heath M Robinson Memorial Bridge.  I expected it to go in a circle or stop half-way, but it was just an ordinary bridge, so I guess it's a different Heath Robinson.  The Michigan welcome centre sported good figures to celebrate its history of being a state of the working man.

I arrived safely at Aileen and Steve's and spent a couple of days being lazy and keeping out of the 90℉+ heat.  In a walk round Ann Arbor we came across these fairy doors.  I'm assuming that they are just that, and if you want a more detailed explanation I'm afraid you will need to rely on Google.  There are quite a few of them in town.

And this is the town.

We stopped for an ice cream and this lovely red brick building was nearby.

We also stopped for a coffee and Steve and I had the Nitro Brew.  This is iced coffee dispensed from a keg by pressurised nitrogen.  The result is like draught Guinness in look and texture and is an outstanding drink.

We also had a ramble round another town nearby, Dexter.

And that's it really.  I will go into Toronto to rubberneck tomorrow, but it is to pass the time, not to provide blog material, so I will sign off now.  Hope you enjoyed the travelling as much as I did.

Almost There

I didn't see any sign of the weather warming up when I got up, though I was early.  I was going up the west side of Lake Michigan though, so I am sure that big body of water has an impact on the weather locally.  I took a couple of pictures of it, just to show the scope of the thing:

It's like an inland sea, and it's not even the biggest one.

These were from a scenic overlook, but not really that scenic.

You may not be able to see it, but there is a bridge on the left of the next picture and an oil tanker in the middle.  The lakes are still an essential means of transporting stuff around, and there are so many industrial cities on their shores.

You can see the Mackinac bridge more clearly here.  It looks just like the Forth Road Bridge, but twice its length.  It's got metal gratings on it though which are horrible to ride on on a bike.  They drag your wheel all over the place.

The weather changed like someone had flipped a switch when I got off the bridge and into lower Michigan.  It was suddenly sunny and hot.  The rain jacket and the mid-layer came off in quick succession.  It was also very windy.

This is a rest area off the I75, so much more pleasant than our service areas, but you don't get food or petrol.  You have to exit the interstate for them.

Then I was at my motel for the night and ready to tuck myself up with my book and some music.

I'm having a couple of days off from my blog as I'm staying with friends near Ann Arbor, which I will reach tomorrow afternoon.  I go to Toronto on Wednesday, so will post Wednesday or Thursday.

Just Wandering

A heavy dew and a cool start.  A sign of more northerly climes perhaps.  It does seem to take a while for the day to warm up.  Of course I'm experiencing it on the move, so the wind chill is always going to bring the temp down.  3 to 6pm is when it is at its warmest I think.  High heat and humidity is looming for the weekend apparently.

I headed south into Wisconsin today, just to have a look at the place.  Very much vacation land, but farming too.  Some nice small towns:

It's all very clean and tidy too, which is nice.

This is the sort of countryside I was riding through.

And we need to see one of the many lakes, full of fishermen usually.

This 60 mile section of the road was just brilliant.  Beautiful surface, winding sweeping bends, not another vehicle in sight for most of it.  It was glorious, and quite exhausting.

One of the many rivers.

I arrived at my motel in Marinette to find them making my bed, literally.  Installing a new king size bed.

I ate at the family restaurant next door.  I don't know how they get their lasagne like that.  I guess they use about a pound of mozarella.  Good though.

I'm refusing to read about the election, mostly, so I'm off to finish my book and listen to some music.

Go East, young man

Well, all that hail, rain, wind, thunder and lightning cleared the air at least.  A nice fresh morning, and the Weather Channel said 0% chance of rain in Grand Rapids.  Of course, I'm leaving there, and there looks like some storm activity hanging over Hibbing.

You can see what a fresh morning it is, and the remains of the rain:

You can also see how lovely the countryside is and good the roads are.  It doesn't have the drama of the west, so photos tend to look the same, but it is great to ride in.

As promised I visited Hibbing and found a fairly poor ordinary little town.  No sign of magic there, so he must have got it somewhere else.  I took a photo of the high school.  Note the cheerleaders practising. They have renamed the road in front of it Bob Dylan Drive, but no other sign of him.

I came across this huge statue, a monument to miners in an iron mining district,and opposite it a Vets Memorial.  Even the statue commemorated the contribution iron made to winning various wars.  A bellicose lot the Americans.

I couldn't leave Minnesota without a picture of a lake.

Again, really lovely country, but not as exciting as the west.

This was a fairly traditional diner, where I had my corned beef hash.

And some more roads before arriving at my motel.  It was built in 1953, and I suspect has only had one upgrade since then.  It is immaculate.

There's not a lot to the town of Ironwood on the Wisconsin/Michigan border, but there is a Mount Zion which gives an overlook, supposedly to Lake Superior, but I can't see it.  Just trees.

I'm getting worried about my approach to food.  I had meatloaf in a family restaurant tonight, and when it arrived I was horrified by how much of it there was, and was sure I would leave half.  I left some, but not half.  I need to get back to sane portions.

Ho Hum in the wet.

Yesterday wasn't a bad day for a technical hitch to suspend the blog.  The road from Devils Lake to Warroad proved to be no more interesting than the road to Devils Lake.  It's hard to believe that there can be so much flatness around.  I thought it might change when I got into Minnesota, but of course it didn't.  I did take a couple of pictures of a town on the border:

and of a rest area cum visitor centre which gets so few visitors I had a job getting away from the guy manning it.

There are many, many lakes in Minnesota, and this is fishing country.  All holiday and recreation seems to revolve around it.

I had headed north to almost the Canadian border since the Minnesota tourist website had made a big deal about how good the countryside in the north of the state was for motorcycling.  I had resolved to follow their advice and was heartened to see that my map also showed the route I was planning as being scenic byway.

It was drizzling when I left this morning and it didn't get any better for the first 100 miles.  Scenic in Minnesota seems to mean that there are trees on top of the flat bits:

It's nice enough, just not scenic or very interesting.  I was tempted to divest myself of rain gear since it seemed to have cleared up, but I didn't which was fortunate as the next hundred miles was plagued with sudden, quite heavy downpours.

The Mississippi starts somewhere in Minnesota, and I crossed it as a very little river.

It dried up and warmed up for the last miles into Grand Rapids.  Not much to see in town.  The old railway station, now a visitor centre:

An old hotel, now some boutique shops:

Downtown:

The old school building which is now also boutique shops:

Magnificent inside:

And City Hall, whose original inscription has it as Grand Rapids Village Hall.

It's been dry all day here in Grand Rapids, and was 86℉ when I arrived.  There is some thunderstorm activity about though and we've had a few warning showers.  I can hear thunder now.  I just hope it gets rid of it all tonight, so that I can have a dry day tomorrow.  I will persevere with the scenic routes, and since I am so near will pop into Hibbing.  I couldn't not do it.  Just see what gave rise to young Mr Zimmerman.  Off to read my book.

Ooh, the heavens have just opened.  I hope it lasts long enough to exhaust itself.

PS.  Hailstones, torrential rain, thunder and lightning:

Glad it wasn't like that on the road.