As I pulled out of the back parking lot of our motel in Alpena, I waited at the highway for Andy to catch up.  No Andy.  Turned around, and as I suspected, we had trouble.  Andy’s bike would not start–weak battery.  No problem for the moment; we can start the bike.  Big problem to find a specific Yamaha battery in northern lower Michigan.  We jump-started Andy’s bike from mine thanks to the cool set of motorcycle jumper cables that I made 30 years ago and always carry with me.

Second problem took some time.  We drove right to  a Yamaha dealership following GPS.  But it was just a steel shell of a building under construction.  Long story short:  the dealership had burned to the ground a year ago.  The dealership was operating out of a trailer in a storage facility roughly down the road.  But it took awhile to find it.

They did not have the battery, but they found one in Cheboygan (80 miles north and west).  It is amazing what a dealership will do for ‘travelers.’  No problem; an hour and a half later we were there.  The dealership was waiting with the battery all charged and ready to go.  Andy installed it; I watched.  Like new!  Now what do we do?  Let’s eat pie!  McDonalds; coffee and one slice each.  Andy would not let me eat tomorrow’s piece.

Decided to stay in Cheboygan and use the library.  I had some work to do for a doctoral student, and Andy loves libraries.  He read; I worked until the WiFi went out in the library.  What a day.  Finished the work at a Burger King.

We heard about a lighthouse at the mouth of the Cheboygan River.  Found it:

The bridge from this pier:

That was about it for the day.  Checked in.  Take a look at our balcony:

Had supper overlooking the Cheboygan River from this balcony.  Now to read and watch baseball (guess who did what).