We started when Andy could get me up and around (I don’t do mornings); got going at about 8:00 AM.  We rode a lot today heading for the Volo, IL Car Museum.  First lunch:

You do not know America until you stop at a local cafe/diner in a small town.  This is where the good ol’ boys swap lies and fix the world.  This is the place with a hundred pickup trucks out front.  This is the place in town with the best food at a reasonable rate.

We found the Volo, IL car museum.  Andy had been here recently.  He was right about thinking that I would enjoy it!  Wow.  Pictures cannot do it justice.  First the entrance and then the Dousenberg Room:

Then some more:

They even had Andy’s Cushman Eagle:

You get the idea.

Some last day postscripts (It’s midnight, and I am tired):

1.  We always seem to have a good time on these trips.  It is because we are such close friends who appreciate and trust one another.
2. Both of us are very safe motorcyclists.  We have traveled at least 30,000 miles together in the last 10 years.  Thank you Andy for your skill and care.
3. We are blessed to be able to do this even when both of us are 71 years old and one of us has very bad knees.  Thanks for putting up with my limping, slow gate, Andy.
4. There is much more to say, but the hour is late.  Look for us next year:  we are thinking of a PutPut Golf Tour!

We intended to leave Cheboygan, MI early (7:00 AM); got all set and ready to eat breakfast at the hotel.  Opened the door–rain.  Nuts.  Ate breakfast leisurely; then went back to the room to wait.  I finished a statistics project while Andy started a new book.  Got the work finished for one of my doctoral students just as it quit raining.  All that got wet were our feet as we made it up to the bridge and across.  Fun running on a wet metal grate above the Mackinaw Straits!  Sunny in the Upper Peninsula.

This was a long 450-mile day all the way to Duluth–the new home of my niece, Heidi.  We arrived safely at about 7:00 PM. And had a great time.  Their house is HUGE (Trump speak)–5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths without the two bedrooms and bath finished yet in the basement.  Ten foot ceilings throughout.  Andy had his own room and bath.  I got to sleep with my wife, Lil, who is up there for 3 weeks.

Heidi is the cute mother of 5 boys talking with her hands.  Lil  on the left; Shane, Heidi’s husband, and Andy on the couch.

Heidi made pancakes in the morning:

Here’s the Andy photo for this day:

We could not resist this PutPut course:

Last time it was close; this time Andy beat me soundly (lots of luck, I guess). Made it to Antiga, WI before we stopped for the night.

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).

So we awakened in Bay City and made one last attempt to find the Saginaw River Lighthouse.  Google sent us to roads blocked by fences.  Finally we stopped at a local convenience store and asked.  The lighthouse is not accessible by land at all anymore.  It was time to hit the road.

Straight West on a 2-lane road to Midland.  Destination:  Grand Traverse Pie Co.  in Midland!  Just like the one in Traverse City.  Now we do not need to go to Traverse City.  And the pie was so very good (cherry) that I forgot to take a picture.  Best pie in the world since my Mom’s.  We bought a whole pie for just a bit more than the price of two slices.  We have 4 slices left!  And Andy will not let me eat it all today; I have to wait to have one piece tomorrow and one piece Thursday.  Nuts…perhaps while he is sleeping….

We hit the road North to find another lighthouse in Tawas:

They also had a beech:

Sturgeon Point was perhaps our favorite with a bonus of an old schoolhouse with no electricity.  The keeper took one comment from Andy, put him in a corner with a Dunce cap–priceless.  This was a very interesting exhibit.

And then there was a lighthouse.  At this one we read all the literature and toured two floors of the living area as well as the surrounding grounds.  Andy bought a T-shirt.

They had a private beech as well with one family enjoying it all.

We hit the road until we could go no further (shorter than that distance was 10 years ago!).  Found a place in Alpena.  Night all.  Last one up turn out the lights.

We woke up to a cloudy day; 70’s, but muggy.  Left Lapeer, MI at about 8:00 AM (yes the early start lasted just one day; Bob does not do mornings well).  It was a terrific ride straight across to Port Huron on the only road available in 1955 when my family moved from Lapeer to Port Huron.  Two lanes; small towns; very little traffic; no hurry.  Cool

In Port Huron we found the first of the lighthouses on the trip:  Fort Gratiot.  It was perhaps the nicest that we saw today.  See for yourself:

The we headed up Hwy 25 (the route we stayed on all day) to Port Sanilac.  It was about 40 miles; congested and slow at first, but it opened up soon enough with very little traffic.  This road runs all the way up the coast and around the Michigan thumb to Bay City.  Here is the Port Sanilac lighthouse (# 14 on the Lighthouses of Michigan map Andy brought on the trip).

Next was Harbor Beach up the road a ways:

Then came Pointe Aux Barques:

And finally Port Austin, which is hard to see over the break water, but it is there:

By the way–yes fans, it was time for the annual put-put golf match.  #@#$# it, Andy won by one stroke.  We will have to play again on this trip; this is not right!

And, by the way–we found this ancient covered bridge which had been transported from Plymouth Rock in the 1600’s by the Iroquois Indians.  That’s our story and we are sticking with it.

It was too hot; we were tired; we could not find the lighthouse that is supposed to be at the mouth of the Saginaw River in Bay City.  Found a motel instead.  “Good night, John Boy.”

We had agreed to start an hour earlier on this day in an attempt to avoid heat.  Great ride N on 127. It was about 70 degrees under clouds.  For the first several miles there was a partial rainbow in the east from the mist in the clouds.  But it did not rain–yet.

I had told Andy that I wanted to stop and take a picture at the state line.  So we did.  Here it is:

While stopped, I checked the radar; good thing; massive storm over almost all of Michigan just N of us.  Andy pulled in at a McDonald’s.  We sat there after coffee for just about 5 hours!  We felt like part of the staff by the end.  We munched, read our books, munched, and sat there the whole 5 hours.  This was our corner nook:

Verlin Rice, Andy’s friend from Ft. Wayne called Andy while we were there.  He had read the blog and knew that we were going up 127.  He and his friend Doug had been touring Michigan and were heading home.  Verlin had bike trouble (needed plugs) and had stopped at a shop just 20 miles N or us.  They also were waiting out the storm.  We agreed to call if we left McD’s; they agreed to call if they left the motorcycle shop.  Turns out that they called first and came down to meet us.  We had stopped at about 10:00 AM, and we met them at about 4:00 PM.

We had a great visit at McD’s until it was time for us all to part ways–Andy and I north, and Verlin and Doug South.  Here we all are in front of Doug’s Honda VTX 1300.  First, Andy, Verlin, and Doug.

Then Andy, Doug, and Bob:

It cleared up and was sunny when we left.  It did stay cool and eventually clouded over again, but we did not have more rain.  We wanted to get to Port Huron, but we got tired.  So we snuck on I-69 East for 45 minutes (snuck on because we usually brag about not doing Interstates).  Got tired in Lapeer, MI and stopped for the night at about 7:00 PM.  Night all.

We left Frankfort, KY at about 8:00 AM heading North on Hwy 127.  At KY 22 we turned East toward I-75 to get to the Ark Encounter near Williamstown, KY.  Andy hated this road; I loved it!  It reminded me of Hwy 30 West from Dayton, TN.  Nice curves that my nephew, Travis would take at 70 MPH + on his Triumph Rocket III (2300 cc’s).  Great road.  The morning hours are the best because of the cooler weather (in fact, we decided to leave earlier tomorrow to take advantage of the coolness).

Two exits S. on I-75 we got off and went to the Ark Encounter (I know, some of you are not great fans of Ken Ham and his view of young earth–still a colossal exhibit.   His primeval chronology is messed up by his misunderstanding of ‘begat’ in Hebrew.  It can mean father, grandfather, great-grandfather, or great, great, etc.).  But Wow.  Look at this:

Andy standing by the Ark and the pile of 12 stones (Yes, I do know what they mean).

Final shot on the way out.  They are still finishing the landscaping obviously.  Good tour through the three floors of the humongous thing.

We got up through Cincy and back on Hwy 127 N and up as far as Greenville, OH for the night.  Great day.  But hot–very hot.  Still going north; maybe as far as Port Huron, MI.  We have decided to visit as many lighthouses on the Great Lakes around Michigan on this trip.  (Why not?  It’s as good an excuse as just driving around Lake Superior, isn’t it?)

A secondary goal is cherry pie in Traverse City Pie Co.  Can’t wait.

Bob speaking.  I started out from Dayton, TN at about 8:30 AM after wasting a half hour looking for my passport.  Didn’t find it; must have put it in a ‘safe place.’  Decided to leave anyway.  This eliminated the possibility of visiting Canada.  Will have to break the news to Andy when we meet.

Determined not to use the interstate system, I went up Hwy 27 to Spring City and up 68 to Crossville, TN where I got on Hwy 127 N and stayed all day.  This goes through Fentress county through Pell Mell, TN, the birthplace and burial place of Alvin C. York.  He grave is pictured below.  Sobering place; I have been here many times (you must remember the movie with Gary Cooper).

Thought you might like to see my loaded bike at the York grave sight.

In KY  I went  by this state park that brings back memories of Lil and I on our Senior Trip 49 years ago!  Learned a life lesson there that week:  Lil is smarter than I am; she spent her time with her friends instead of me.  Went I complained, she explained that she hoped to see me every day for the rest of our lives, but we may not see these friends again for a long time, if ever.  I spent my time with some great guys.  Good lesson.

 I traveled the rest of the day uneventfully to our motel meeting place in Frankfort, KY.  Andy left at about 1:00 PM after a busy morning and traveled by Interstate to make time.  He arrived at 7:00 PM because of terrible traffic in KY.

Good night’s rest.  Andy got up early for coffee; I joined him later for breakfast.  Then we hit the road for Day 2.

Sorry to have left you all hanging for two days; I had no bandwidth through my cell phone for the iPad.  We left you hanging after our failed attempt to see the Augusta National Golf Club. That afternoon we were to hot and tired to go far, and we were dodging a heavy thunderstorm around Augusta (managed to stay dry).  We traveled west on I-20 (now you know we were tired because we were on the interstate) looking for a good place to stop for the night.  Found a place at Hwy 78 and I-20 and kicked back in AC with a nice flatscreen TV.

The next day we headed on 2-lane highways to Toccoa to see the College and the Falls.  This might have been the best riding in the cool of the morning on the whole trip, but it always seemed that way in the morning–cooler, shaded by the low sun with little or no traffic.  We were almost sorry to find the town and college. but we did.  Here are the notable pix:

Toccoa Sign

I had not been on this campus in many years.  A Trinity Divinity School classmate of mine, Carlos Vega, went to work at Toccoa in the same year I went to work at Bryan, 1971.  I asked about him; like me he was semi-retired.

Best view of the falls

This is a good view of the falls.  They are only about 100 yards up from the campus bookstore and welcome center at the back of the campus.  It seems very smart of them to make you go through the giftshop to get to the falls.

This is a memorial to the devastating flood at Toccoa in 1977.  I remember that day; it sobered all of us at Bryan College to learn that 49 people lost their lives on our sister campus in Georgia.  Near this site is a stone oblisk with the names of the victims inscribed on it.  The saddest part is that several families lost 4 or more in the flood.

We both enjoyed this stop.

From Toccoa it was an easy and beautiful ride up Hwy 441/23 to Franklin, NC (my second home).  We stopped for lunch at Fatz Cafe (my favorite place to eat).  Had a good lunch and reminisced about the trip.  After lunch, Andy was eager to get as far north as possible before dark (he got within 40 miles of Lexington, KY), and I went shopping for food before going up the mountain to our house (we call it Hope House).

Saturday Andy got home in the early afternoon (I think; can’t remember), and I slept until 10:00 AM!  He was safe; I felt like I was in heaven.  Here are some pix to let you know how I felt.

Hope House from the Driveway

This is the view of Franklin valley and town over my bike.  The house sits on a 4,000 foot ridge with almost a 360 view.

I left for home Sunday at noon.  The best part of that trip was the best babyback ribs in the world at Rib Country in Murphy, NC.

I traveled 2,160 miles; Andy had an extra 500 miles on each end of the trip–probably 3,100 miles at least.  It was a tour of museums and cities with some old friends in the middle.