Last summer we accepted a little challenge to tackle the 1000 mile circle of Lake Michigan in 48 hours (on motorcycles - as you will see). This is the summary of that ride, the places we passed, stayed and ate in - and the fantastic scenery and weather we enjoyed along the way.
Day 1 - Friday
There were 3 of us who decided that we would join up and do the journey - all on separate bikes. Chosen weekend was July 22-24, 2011, and the plan was to leave early afternoon Friday, ride "anti clockwise" around the lake and avoiding all interstates once clearing the bottom of Lake Michigan (there are not many alternatives to I-80/94 past Gary, Indiana; and those that do exist you really don't want to take!). Friday July 24 started as a wet and miserable day - and the worry was that it would continue that way for the whole weekend as the forecast was for prolonged rain with strong winds and thunderstorms.... Showers came and went through the morning and died out by early afternoon - just in time for the initial ride out to the meeting point at Lincoln Oasis (Service area) on I-294 close to the state line between Illinois and Michigan. 3:30 PM was the agreed departure time - and with the rain still holding off we headed East. The first few miles under the belt went well - across the State Line and on into..... 20 miles of stopped traffic.... Aargh!
Welcome to Indiana - you are about to get plenty of time to enjoy staring at the scenery.....
Now we did have a rough plan of where we were going - as well as some target distance to cover on the first day. We knew the total trip distance was just over 1,000 miles, and it made sense to cover around 250 miles on the first day, 500 on the Saturday and another 250+ on Sunday, so Ludington, MI was the planned stop for the first night. Thankfully the odd shower had faded out as we sat in the stop/go traffic around the bottom of the lake (in the USA it is prohibited to split lanes - aka filtering - so that slows you down significantly compared to riding in Europe). Eventually we got moving again as the traffic dispersed to Ohio, Detriot and South Bend - or wherever the hell else Indiana traffic disperses to on a Friday evening - and we crossed the next State Line into Michigan (where we had to stop briefly so that the Harley rider in the party could remove his helmet) and turned off the Interstate onto the Red Arrow Highway heading North.
The run up the south-eastern side of Lake Michigan takes you through a string of really nice coastal towns that feature weekend festivals, great restaurants, small hotels and bars ( you know I like bars). Even though the populations swell with holiday visitors and weekend boaters, each town has its own charm and none of them ever feel too busy. (look out for my future "3 Nights" series which will cover a number of these little gems, including South Haven, Saugatuk and Grand Haven).
By 7 PM we had run completely clear of the mixed weather that was continuing to push across the Northern Illinois and Indiana region, and we were experiencing a beautiful summer evening all around us as we pushed on up to our overnight stop.
Rolling into Ludington at just before 9 PM the town had a great vibe about it as the High Street was closed off and there was clearly some kind of fair going on. Now a word of advice from the weary traveller - turning up on a Friday evening in mid-July in a holiday lakeside town without pre-booking somewhere to stay is not a clever thing to do..... Ludington has a good number of very nice small hotels and B&B's - however none of them had 2 rooms available on-demand. This town is also the eastern terminus for the Lake Michigan car ferry service that runs daily across from Manitowoc in Wisconsin - so any remaining rooms in decent hotels had already been grabbed by people rolling off the evening arrival an hour or so earlier. A few frantic phone calls later and we managed to secure 2 rooms at Stearns Motor Inn - a kind of landmark building on the edge of the downtown area that at least allowed time and distance to walk around and find something to eat and drink. Well - the hairs started to prickle on the back of the neck as we walked in through the main (only working) door and headed to the reception desk. I can't say there was a warm smell of colitas in the air, but I could have sworn I heard the soft tones of an Eagles song playing somewhere in the distance, and I would not be surprised to hear that the guy on the reception is a direct descendant of Norman Bates..... creaking floorboards, missing lightbulbs, 1950's decor - you get the picture! No Janet Leigh in the bathtub (alive or dead), but also no bar, food - or other guests either from what I could see....
A short walk down the High Street (now reopened as the "Friday Night Live" festival had finished) and we spotted what looked like an interesting and lively bar called 'The Sportsmans' - advertising fresh cooked food and a good selection of draft beers - with live music too. Always ready to enjoy a good band, we squeezed into a corner table just as the band stopped and the juke box started! Fresh cooked food was some kind of crap-in-the-basket and the beer was warm Amber Bock - quite tasty but so difficult to get the server's attention for the refills. Not somewhere I would go back to I'm afraid to say.
After fighting our way back through the drunken crowd (scenes from John Carpenter's "The Fog" we're coming to mind by now) we escaped the bar and walked down the rest of the high street to the lake front - a pretty and peaceful setting at that time of night.
Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes that is wholly within the United States of America - and is the largest lake in the world that has all of its shoreline within a single country. It has a surface area of 22,500 square miles - which is pretty big (half the size of England) - and a shoreline of over 1,600 miles. It is also known affectionately as "Lake Dick"... (look at it on Google Maps......)! The lake was the conduit for industrial development in the Midwest of the US during the 19th century as the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes Waterway opened up the Great Lakes to large vessels from the Atlantic. The Illinois and Michigan Canal was then built in the mid-1800's to connect Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River and provide access from the Great Lakes down to the Gulf of Mexico.
So.... A pleasant stroll back to Bates Motel (creak, creak) led to a surprisingly good night's sleep, a coppery taste in the mouth and a desperate need for coffee on Saturday morning...
Day 2 - Saturday
Saturday morning arrived with a light fog slowly pulling back towards the lake and a silent town at 8 AM. Bikes fired up, kit checked and ready to go and find food...
Heading East out of Ludington we all scanned the roadside for food (not Roadkill - that is only a southern state delicacy) - and as if by some Devine intervention came my first ever introduction to the Big Boy....!
So how do you describe a Big Boy...? Well, first and foremost - it's a roadside diner (stop it!) - and is a chain that started in California back in 1937 as a roadside hamburger stand. They do great breakfasts - and are home to the double-hamburger for those of you that need more than the average bear, boo-boo!
Big Boy welcomes all travellers...
After a world-class Breakfast of Champions we were ready to hit the road north - US-31 all the way from Ludington to Mackinaw City via Manistee, Traverse City and Elk Rapids. This is a GREAT road - not much traffic, the sun was shining and the temperature climbed into the low 80's by mid-morning. There was a big carnival event underway in Manistee which slowed us down a tad, but everyone was having so much fun it really didn't matter.
Early crowd out enjoying the sun and freshwater sardines in Manistee.
The great roads - and ride - continued all the way on to Traverse City, which sits at the head of Grand Traverse Bay and holds the envious position of being the largest producers of tart cherries in the United States..! It's actually a lovely town with wide pavements (footpaths), a super variety of small shops, beautiful waterfront and lots to do for the selective holiday maker. Boating and horse riding in the summer, skiing in the winter - this town has everything!
US-31 continues to wind its way north from Traverse City towards Mackinaw City and the route from the southern part of Michigan across the Straits of Mackinac to the Upper Peninsula
Elk Rapids - you can get by the lake anywhere around here!
Mackinaw City was about the mid-point for our day 2 journey, and is the main kick-off point for both the Mackinac Bridge that spans the Mackinac Straits and the ferry's that ply the waters out to the Islands in the area - the main ones being Bois Blanc Island and Mackinac Island. Mackinaw City is a small town that has a great little walkable downtown area with a mix of tourist shops, arts and craft stores and - of course - food and drinks! We had a good walk around the town and settled on a small "Fish & Chips" cafe in an arcade on East Central Avenue - it was fantastic! Sitting in the sunshine, shooting the breeze, halfway round the trip - what more can you ask!
Fully fed and watered, the road on to the Upper Peninsula was beckoning. Leaving Mackinaw City the Mackinac Bridge dominates the horizon - it is actually the 3rd longest suspension bridge in the world - and the longest in the western hemisphere. The total length of the bridge is over 26,000 feet and it opened to traffic for the first time in 1957 - prior to that the only way to cross the straits to the Upper Penninsula was by ferry (which was pretty difficult in the winter too).
Mackinac Bridge that spans The Mackinac Straits
Once over the bridge it was time to turn west.... Onto US-2, which runs 2,579 miles across the northern United States - the main part of which starts in St. Ignace, MI and ends in Everett, Washington. The part of this road that runs across the Michigan Upper Peninsula is a great road with little traffic even at the height of the tourist season, and has some great lakeside scenery for over 200 miles. To get an idea of the feel of this road, take a look at my YouTube clip:
For those not familiar with American roads.... It is pretty difficult to find anything but straight roads for miles on end anywhere in the Midwest. This is primarily because of the vast distances between ..... well, between anywhere, really. Why put a bend in a road if you don't need to? Just keep going straight until you hit the next town (everything being built on a common grid system also helps to keep this principle alive)! this was one of the pleasures of escaping to northern Michigan and Wisconsin - maybe not twisty roads like in other parts of the world that have real mountains, but at least a good number of curves, sweepers, bends and turns! Oh - and a delicacy that is widely advertised up in the UP is... the Pasty! Cornish Copper and Tim miners came to this area in the early 1800's and brought with them that staple meal of the Cornish Pasty! It has remained as a tradition in this part of the world and is sold at many roadside cafe's and there is even an annual Pasty Fest in Calumet, MI in early July (darn, we missed it!)
The day drew to an end in Marinette, Wisconsin... after enjoying the ride through some delightful small towns along the northern coast such as Manistique, Gladstone and Escanaba (where we should have stayed for our 2nd night)!
Marinette in a twin-town with Menominee, Michigan - situated on the bay of Green Bay (ever heard of the Green Bay Packers?) and separated by the Menominee River - which also serves as the State Line is these here parts. We stayed in a fairly tidy Best Western hotel - but after a short walk around it was clear that there was VERY LITTLE to do in this part of town. I think the lakeside area of Menominee would have been the right area to stay - remember that earlier comment about booking in advance....? Anyway, we had a healthy 2 mile return walk to the Rail House Restaurant and Brewpub which was actually half decent, although it was - literally - on the wrong side of the tracks......! Back to the hotel and the 2 local wedding parties were both in full swing - riding the elevator up with a drunken bride and 2 Best Men (where was the groom?) made it clear which side of the state line we had crossed into...!
Day 3 - Sunday
At this point we were only 200+ miles away from home - and the weather that had been lashing the western side of the lake all weekend was putting in a late and feeble appearance. A couple of cups of coffee led to a short blast south to find a decent breakfast place and a discussion around which route to take back down into Illinois. After an hour the sun put his hat back on and it was time to hit the road again - cutting west from Green Bay to New London (nothing like Old London), skirting Appleton, and taking US-45 down through Oshkosh and Fond Du Lac along the edge of Lake Winnebago (of the motor caravan fame!). Keeping west of Milwaukee and east of Fox Lake we crossed back into Illinois around 1 PM and ran the last 100 miles home in the next 90 minutes - 30 minutes inside the 48 hour target and with 1024 miles on the odometer.
Right - so, where next?
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