I’m being a little more pro-active in planning for this trip than I have in the past. For example, I’ve already picked out some restaurants to eat at along the way, and figured out which ferry (10:30am) to take to Mackinac Island. Unless I change my mind.

One reason for the additional planning is that much of this ride is more middle-of-nowhere than previous ones. Riding along the shores of Lakes Michigan (2009) and Huron (2010) meant that there was always another town just ahead, so there was no worry about finding a place for lunch. Riding through well-populated southern Michigan (2011) was similar. But on this trip I’m specifically going through the “left over” parts of northern Lower Michigan, and away from the lakeshore the UP is especially… sparse. For example, the route I’m planning for Sunday starts at a state park about 10 miles past the nearest village, and ends at a national forest 20 miles short of the nearest city, passing through exactly one town (population 1500) along the way. I kinda wanted to make sure I could find a couple meals somewhere on that route, at the times I expect to be hungry. (Thanks to the internet: I can.)

The other reason is that I’m stretching things just a little in terms of how much territory to cover each day. My rule of thumb for a nice scenic ride is 100 miles per day, but six of the eight days on this trip will be 125 or more, and one of the others includes a side trip to Mackinac Island. I want to make sure that I’ll have time to do and see all the things I want to see and do.

There’s some danger of this turning into If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, but I don’t think that’ll happen. I’ll still keep my eyes open to other possibilities, and I’m sure I’ll adjust my plans along the way. Then again, if I find myself in Belgium on Tuesday….

Following my ride to Amish country and back, I decided to replace one more piece of gear for the ride up to Hiawatha Country: my sleeping pad.

The one I’ve been using for camping the past 10 years is getting a little beat-up… but that’s not the reason I’m replacing it. It’s because I’m getting a little beat-up. It’s a simple foam pad, intended solely for insulation, not comfort. Sleeping directly on the ground in a down bag in a nylon tent in cold weather can suck the heat out of your body, so you need some kind of barrier between you and the ground. That’s all this does. It provides just a little padding, and with the wear and tear on my body of the past several years – especially the back surgery last year – that’s becoming a problem.

So I went shopping for something more comfortable, and… great scott! You can easily spend well over $100 on these! I probably spent about $15-20 for my current pad. But to get the kind of padding I’m looking for, I need something air-filled, and those are a bit more expensive than just a rectangle of foam, especially if you want it to last.

The next question is self-inflating vs. not. The self-inflating kind have just enough internal rigidity that they fill with air on their own; you just need to seal them up before lying down on them. The down-side of this is that they take some work to deflate. The other kind require you to blow into them. I’m OK with that, and the fact that they’re easier to deflate and stow for travel is another plus. And they tend to be cheaper. Relatively.

I ended up buying the $60 Big Agnes Air Core Mummy. Big Agnes gets good reviews, and this line is the least expensive of Big Agnes’ pads. They also sell a rectangular one, but the shape of my tent calls for the tapered “mummy” design. They also have an insulated version, but I don’t do a lot of camping in the spring/autumn, and when/if I do, I still have the foam pad to use with it.

Some people check out gear at local brick-and-mortar shops, then buy it online for the best price. I do it the other way: I use the Web to research products, then buy them from a local outdoor-gear store. (Which is really handy when you discover that you accidentally grabbed the rectangular version and need to exchange it for the mummy version: no shipping!)

This change of gear poses another change: how I pack the scooter. Because it deflates, this pad packs up much more compactly than the old one. That was even bigger than my tent; this one is even smaller than my sleeping bag. So I’ve had to reshuffle the positions of things on the rear rack, ending up with what looks like a more aerodynamic bundle that will also be easier to rainproof. Win win!

Next month I am going to be riding across the Mackinac Bridge, twice. I’ve ridden it northbound before, which meant I didn’t have to stop for the toll booth until after I’d already crossed, so there was no one to stop me from taking my “moped” on those five miles of Interstate. But this time I’ll also be crossing the bridge southbound, and that could mean an overly zealous attendant stopping me before I can do it.

Understand: there is no practical reason why my scooter should not be allowed on the Bridge. The speed limit is 40mph and I can just barely keep up with that. And the speed limit for trucks is only 25mph, so if I follow one I won’t impede traffic in any way. Scooters just like mine but with a bigger engine are permitted. Mine is not, purely due to a technicality: the Bridge is an Interstate and my engine is below the specs required for riding on them. But this is not a typical Interstate, and the reasons for that rule don’t really apply on such a short and slow segment of it.

The only way a casual observer would know that my scooter isn’t Interstate legal is the lack of a license plate. So I bought one. A fake one, the kind of novelty plate you might put on a… well, I’m not sure what else you’d put this on. I’m putting it on my scooter. It would never pass for a legit plate if you looked at it closely.

I won’t be leaving it on all the time. I’m not trying to commit fraud. I just want to make it easier for a tollbooth attendant to mistake my Buddy 50 “moped” for a Buddy 150 “motorcycle”. If they catch me, I’ll tell the truth. I just want to avoid that if I can.

I again got on the road early, around 7:30 this morning. Most campers were understandably still sleeping, so after packing the scooter I pushed it to the entrance of the campground before starting it. Don’t assume this was an heroic feat; I was in campsite #1. 🙂

I stopped in South Haven to walk out to the end of the pier, then got back on the Blue Star Highway, which I rode almost to Holland. Hardly any traffic, so it was a pleasant ride; Blue Star is a two-lane road much of the way, so it can be problematic if you have a lot of people behind you who want to go 10-15mpg faster. I voluntarily detoured through farmland to avoid Holland, then took Chicago Drive (with a mandatory detour around a mile of construction) into Grand Rapids. There was a cool northwest wind blowing all morning, which made for a chilly ride. Sometimes it gave me an extra boost of speed; most of the time it was just annoying.

The house was as I left it. I’ve parked the scooter, dumped my small bundle of clothes in the laundry basket, and am about to fix myself lunch.

I’ve now accomplished what I set out to do… last August. I’ve stayed at the campgrounds I missed last year, seen the places I wanted to go, and visited all of the counties I’d intended to reach: 9 in Michigan (3 of them new) plus 3 counties in Indiana.