Like I said: more farmy.

The last half (third?) of the day’s riding was – as anticipated – less scenic than the rest. In fact as soon as I turned south onto M30 out of Rose City, traffic got a little ugly. It isn’t just the number of vehicles coming up behind, but the number oncoming as well, because the latter limit the ability of the former to pass. Needless to say, I took to the county roads as quickly as I could.

One car that refused to pass me for about a quarter mile eventually turned onto a side road – just the patient sort, it seems – where I briefly glimpsed him startling two deer in the road. I also saw a small herd of wild turkeys, and came within 10 feet of colliding with a crow in flight.

On one of the country roads (the one pictured above, on fact) I met a little black covered buggy driven by a young woman in a turquoise dress. I smiled and nodded; she briefly waved her hand, smiling politely.

A total of 185 miles today, in 9 hours of riding. That includes all time on sightseeing breaks, lunch, refueling, etc. So pretty much in line with my 20 miles-per-hour rule of thumb for how much territory I can cover in road-trip mode.

Black Creek State Forest campground is what I expect a state forest campground to be: quiet and rustic. I have t explored the whole grounds (I just took the first spot that looked amenable) but I only see one other camping party. Unsurprisingly, there is a creek and a forest.

I broke camp at about 8am, and headed south on M33 into Atlanta. Which is much smaller than the one in Georgia. I filled up at exactly 16600 miles, which helps keep track of how far I’ve gone.

From there I took my first diversion off M33, onto a nice wooded road paralleling it (but bendy). But that only lasted so far and I was back on M33. Fortunately the reason there are limited roads to choose from around here is the limited demand for them: traffic was sparse.

After passing through Fairview, I entered Huron National Forest, which was the “destination” for today. And it was a good one. I took a chance on a road running along the Au Sable River, and it paid off. It was a nice wooded, winding ride, and offered access to great views of the river an the various dam ponds along it.

One stop didn’t offer much of a view, but was worth the visit nonetheless. It was in the middle of an area that had been clear cut back in 1995, to allow a new planting of jack pines. The ornithologists reading this already know what this is about: Kirtland’s warbler. This is one of the few places (the others being west of here) where the warbler nests in the spring, and it only does so in stands of youngish jack pines. These used to develop naturally following wildfires, but humans control those now, so we have to simulate them by clear cutting.

At one point when I’d stopped to take pictures, I heard the growl of hawgs coming from around the bend ahead. A herd of a dozen of them roared past, and I gave them the two-fingered low-hand salute that bikers not-so-secretly share. Several returned it, and one waved for me to join them. Which might have been fun (if I could keep up) but I pointed that I was going in the other direction. 🙂

I’d planned two routes for today, one with a shorter (but less interesting) itinerary, in case I was getting tired of all the riding. I started on the longer route, but improvised a little, late in the morning. I was making good time (even with the sightseeing), I was enjoying the day, and i had enough gas, so I extended the route a bit.

It turned out I didn’t have enough oil. That surprised me, because I’d added a pint back at Tahquamenon. Probably the heat (air temp and engine temp) using up more than usual. The “add oil” indicator came on, so I dug out my emergency 3.2oz bottle of 2-stroke oil and put it in the oil reservoir, making a note to keep an eye open for somewhere to buy a full quart. Which I found a mile later (easily close enough to ride with the oil light on). At least now I’m set for the rest of the ride (and then some).

I stopped briefly at Rifle River Rec Area (which I didn’t stay at last night because it’s too far south, and won’t stay at tonight because it’s too far north. Not having a swim suit, canoe, or mountain bike, it had little to offer me today, so I went on into Rose City, where I found the Faull Inn (not a typo) restaurant and bar. The Philly cheese steak sandwich is on special, very large, and yummy.

I’m out of the national forest region now, so the ride will probably get more farmy and less fun. But my concerns that the ride at this point would have descended into anticlimax and just wanting to get home, have not come to pass.

That’ll be tomorrow.

Things I Don’t Like About The Showers At Clear Lake State Park

• There is no little shelf to put your soap on. It’s the floor or hold it.
• There is only one temperature. Even though they have those dials which both turn on the water and adjust its temperature, the only water that ever comes out is hot. Which isn’t very refreshing at the end of a day in the 90s.
• the lights and fan are controlled by a motion sensor… in the drying-off section of the stall. So every couple minutes you have to stick your hand around the curtain and wave.
• You can’t aim the shower head. Like to stay out of the water while trying to adjust the temperature.

Things I Do Like About The Showers At Clear Lake State Park

• There are showers at Clear Lake State Park. After hiking around Tahquamenon Falls, riding a bike around Mackinac Island, and close to 200 miles of scootering in hot weather, that counts for a lot.

The showers at Clear Lake State Park win!

I didn’t waste time in Mackinaw City. It’s 90% tourist stuff, and I’ve been there before. The park next to the bridge is nice, but it gets old. So I headed eastward on US23 toward Cheboygan. “US” normally stands for “UnSafe” in this context, but this one isn’t bad… for a US highway. I’d already ridden it a few times, when I did my Lake Huron ride. Having that stiff tailwind from the Straits helped. And it was just for 15 miles.

Heading south for there is an expedition into poor choices. The northeast Lower Peninsular isnt quite as bad as the UP in terms of having only one option for getting somewhere… but it’s close. I’d picked out a route along the Cheboygan River to get off M33 for a while, but it turned to dirt after a few miles. Another river route a little later turned out fine. (Tomorrow will pose similar challenges; M33 would get me there, but it’d be dull at best and miserable at worst.)

Clear Lake State Park is 10 miles north of the nearest town, and especially since I was running late, it made sense to stop in the town before for supper: Onaway. I’d identified the Woodwind as an option before leaving on this trip, and it was a good choice, a nice family restaurant and pizza take-out (Onaway is a small town) with kitschy gifts for sale. The bourbon-grilled turkey sandwich with bacon on multigrain bread hit the spot. So did the two glasses of cranberry lemonade. (Which I drank along with more than half a gallon of water from my travel bottle this afternoon, all without needing to pee. I sweat a lot today.) And really snappy wifi-enabled Internet access.

I arrived at Clear Lake a little before 7. I’m at the less-populated end of the campground apparently. My site didn’t have a picnic table (nabbed by someone for another site) but they brought me one pretty quickly. The park is on an appropriately-named small lake surrounded by woods. The hiking trails were surprisingly straight and wide… then I realized that they are cross-country skiing trails. I chose this park for its location rather than its character, but it’s definitely more my style than the one in Cadillac.

Conditions for crossing the Mackinac Bridge today were… not ideal. No rain, but… hot, 28mph winds, and the outside lane is under minor construction (as I’d seen a few days before, going the other way). I asked at the tollbooth to confirm that last point, which was the last straw. Wind plus metal grate was more than I wanted to deal with. The attendant called for a truck.

While I was waiting, Smokey arrived. He was stern about the fact that I didn’t belong on I75, period. I assured him that I’d just gotten there for the tollbooth, and that I had a ride coming. He checked my driver’s license, of course, but left after the Mackinac Bridge Authority truck arrived and confirmed that they were taking me the rest of the way.

The two young men in the pickup didn’t have tie-downs or much understanding of how to secure a scooter, just a rope and unpracticed knot-tying skills. But they were friendly and we went looking for the gear I said was necessary (after securing Flash enough for a trip to another part of the bridge compound). In the end we borrowed a coworker’s personal tie down strap, plus another knew how to tie proper knots with the rope. Meanwhile I talked with them about my scooter and my travels. They seemed suitably impressed… with my insanity. One was amazed that I drove a scooter around Grand Rapids, as if it were some freeway-choked metropolis like L.A.

As it turns out, most of the right lane was open, and I wouldn’t have had to ride on the grate. So the hour that all of this took… probably didn’t need to happen. But I’m not upset; more important that I got across safely then having the satisfaction of doing it myself.

My main activity on Mackinac island was to rent a bike and ride it around the island, along the shore. It’s an easy 8 mile ride, so I got a basic one-speed. It was fun, and I took an hour and a half to do it. It took a little getting used to coaster brakes, and the fact that I have to swing my leg over instead I’d stepping through on my usual ride.

I also visited Fort Mackinac, which I’d skipped on my previous two visits to the island. I obviously haven’t done everything there is to do on Mackinac, but I’ve hit all the major attractions.