Mackinaw City, MI to Duluth, MN: 472 miles
The title of this blog post is very apropos. First, these words were sung by Duluth's famous son Bob Dylan and we rode through a crap load of rain today!
We left Mackinaw around 7:30am. We crossed the Mackinaw bridge under very little wind...that is a good thing. The weather made for an easy crossing. At the highest point of the span, the bridge is 298 feet above the lake surface. To top that off, the bridge has four lanes. Each direction has a paved lane and a grated lane. Of course, due to construction the paved lane was closed. That made for a very interesting ride. Luckily the bikes didn't wiggle too much.
Once we crossed into the Upper Peninsula we hit fog as shown in the picture below:
We eventually got through the fog and we were greeted by rain. It continued to rain for the next 300 miles. At some points, the rain was almost at torrential downpour status. Our route took us along the coast of Lake Michigan and we eventually met up with the coast of Lake Superior. The pic below shows a rain storm that we had just ridden through. Don't worry, we were only dry for like 5 minutes before the next rain storm hit.
One thing that was really neat today was how the clouds looked. In the pic below you can see how the dark rain clouds are accented by fluffy white clouds. We saw this quite often today.
Since we were constantly in the rain, we didn't get pictures of Wisconsin's or Minnesota's welcome signs. In fact we didn't get very many pictures at all today. We didn't stop for lunch, only gas stops. We were hoping that eventually we would ride through this front and hit some sun. No such luck.
We entered Minnesota at Duluth around 4ish this afternoon. We made a quick stop at the Aerostich Store. Aerostich is a company that specializes in motorcycle riding suits and other motorcycle accessories. Doug's suit finally made the return trip to where it was created.
Gumby and Pokie had a long day in the tank bag. When they finally reached Duluth they felt that they needed to experience what Shawn and Doug experienced today:
Tomorrow we leave Duluth with a lunch stop at Itasca State Park to walk across the Mississippi River and a final destination of Fargo, ND.
Shawn is such a skilled photographer. I'm sure that Gumby and Pokie will appreciate his efforts to document their trip. How much are they paying you to photograph the trip? It reminds me of Ewan McGregor's adventures on the bike with his buddy Charlie.
ReplyDeleteHmmm.....rain in Michigan....I seem to remember three days of riding in the rain off and on when we went to the rally out there 2 years ago....wonder if the sun ever shines there? Keep dry and ride safe! We're loving the updates! Better than postcards! Say hi to Gumby and Pokie for us!
ReplyDeleteI thought you were tough? A hotel? You should have camped in the weather you rode in. Be safe and I will keep loolking for updates
ReplyDelete