Last summer was my first on a scooter.
When I got “Flash” (my Genuine Scooters 50cc Buddy) I started with short rides around the neighborhood, then took some rides a few miles out of town, worked my way up to a 100-mile day trip to Lake Michigan and back, then went on an overnight camping trip down by the Indiana border, followed by an overnight just outside of Hell (near Brighton).
All of this was preparation for The Big Trip. It was a week on the scooter, exploring the north. I called it “a ride around Lake Michigan”, not because I actually went all the way around Lake Michigan, but because I spent most of it… “around Lake Michigan”. And I did go a large part of the way around: up the Lake Michigan coast to the Straits of Mackinac, across to Manistique, a side trip up to Pictured Rocks, then down the west side of the Lake as far as Manitowoc (near the city of Green Bay), then took the ferry across.
By this time I’d gotten the bug. As you can see from the multicolored map of Michigan at the top of the main page, I’ve been to more than two dozen counties in the state (plus a few in Wisconsin). And I began plotting (literally) additional road trips.
Last year I rode the entire length of the Michigan/Lake Michigan coast, from Indiana to Wisconsin. This year I’m going to do the Michigan/Lake Huron coast. Because I don’t live near that coast, that means I have a bit of a trip just to get to it, but that’s OK. It gives me a chance to cover some of the territory in between. So here’s the county map:
That’s starting in Kent County (the red one in the lower left), up to the Straits of Mackinac at the top, then down around Saginaw Bay, around the Thumb to Lake St Clair (the “little Great Lake” north of Detroit), then back across to home. I’m deliberately taking a somewhat northern route for the last leg, to avoid duplicating a route I’ve already been through. This will add 23 counties to my tally.
I’ll be doing this a little earlier in the year this time (since I don’t have to wait for the vacation time to accrue): from 15-22 July. The vacation time is approved, and I’ve made reservations at five of the six state park/recreation-area campgrounds I’ll be staying at (I haven’t made up my mind about the last one).
Somebody asked me what the title of this post was supposed to mean. I keep forgetting that not everyone had the same childhood that I did. 🙂 It’s a play on the title of Dream of the Blue Heron, a novel I read in elementary school about a Chippewa kid on a spiritual quest that involves him dreaming of… a great blue heron. Lake Huron – which I’ll be visiting for the first time (not counting Mackinac) – is also blue. No deeper meaning.