July 12 - Thursday - Sault Ste Marie ON to Saginaw MI - 282 miles

 I slept exactly -1/2 hrs last night. So up at 3am and checked the weather map, and, crap, again, a storm coming in over Lake Superior. Payback for 203 weeks of prefect weather. The beauty, usually, of being on a motorcycle, and I guess the thrill is beating storms. The I huffed the saddlebag (Giant loop) down at 3:30 and the front desk guy seemed surprised, but I told him I wasn't checking out until the sun came up at 6am. So made some coffee  (still have a little "camp coffee" left, much better than whatever sheep droppings they put in those motel coffee machine packets (yeck- magic word for the day). A couple leisurely hours of drinking coffee, checking maps and checking radar, oh yea, washing out socks. I have to cross the Mackinaw Bridge today which I have heard is a bitch on a motorcycle because it is steel grate for 5 miles over water (don't look down, trust me). A couple YouTube videos show it paved in one lane so maybe my almost bald front tire (13K on a Kenda K761) will be ok. Gotta find a bike shop to get a new tire or tires. I actually found a shop in Bay City that also is a Kawasaki dealer so they may be able to put one on.
I finally rolled at about 5:45, just before the sun came up. Google girl ran me around in circles at the boarder crossing, same thing happened when Jeff and i came through a few weeks back. Bad signage. the Canadians want you to stay!

Over the bridge and customs guy mumbled the usual stuff in his early morning only one cup way and I said no to everything he asked, whatever it was, and on my way.
Paid money to someone for a bridge and then a long stretch of kidney punching road (yes our crumbling infrastructure) with no traffic but a minimum 55mph speed limit (weird) until I got to the Mackinaw Bridge. It was sprinkling just enough to not put my rain stuff on, but just enough to make me nervous about a wet steel grate 5 mile bridge with a bald front tire. And no breakdown lane on the bridge to put rain stuff on, thus getting soaked, getting moldy and hypothermia and dying (see how us worries plan). So at the toll lineup (short), I decide to duck into the police barracks next door and put all the rain stuff on. I was waiting for the Michigan Mounties to see my tire and complain, but they just waved. So it did rin a bit on the bridge as I left the toll booth and YouTube was right about the paved lane, but YoutTube did not include the construction going on (in the paved lane) a mile in, nor did it show the "Merge Left" sign forcing me into the dreaded steel grate. Wet steel grate with bald front tire turned out to be ok, The 1" crack between the grate sections was a bit trickier, key is do not panic. So a mile of relief followed by 3 miles of death grip on the handlebars, followed by a mile of cool down.

Just after the bridge you turn left (so I can follow the shore on the eastern side) but Google girl wanted me to go back over the bridge, so ignore Google girl and just follow Rt 23. Sheboygan (I love that name, makes me want to bowl or throw curling stones) is first up and i stopped for gas, just to say I filled up in Sheboygan. Not a lot of happy people there getting gas or waiting to pay for coffee, weird.
Found a McDonald's for a nice cup of senior coffee, and back down Rt 23. At 9:30 I called the Kawasaki shop and the woman in service said she had 4 machine torn apart and the tire guy was on vacation so "Go Fish". She sounded a little miffed that I was trying to get a drive by tire change and had no suggestions about where else to go. So I found what turned out to be the Honda shop a 1/4 mile from her shop that said hey had a front tire that size but no back one and just stop by and they would fix me up (wow). I said I'd be there in a few hours.
This eastern side of Michigan is ok, not great. A lot of private lots so the public can't really see the Lake (Huron), but every now and again a public spot where you can use the lake. At one point there was a nice bike path all along the lake shore for probably 10-20 miles or so. But not too exciting lake shore.

I turned inland to pick up some time and again, nothing spectacular. I got to bay City and drove write by the Kawasaki shop with the tire guy on vacation and 1/4 mile later the Honda shop appear. The guy behind the parts counter was not the friendliest, but he was efficient. He checked the tires they had, checked my bike to make sure i wasn't fibbing about the tire size, rode my bike out back and an hour later it was out front with a shiny new Dunlop D404F in stead of the Picasso looking cup-city Kenda tire with 13K miles on it (it served admirably these last weeks). The rear Kenda still has plenty of rubber so it will make it home. $80 for the tire and $80 to put it on. So now it can rain all it wants and I'll be able to stop in an emergency.
After the shop I got a coffee and then decided to crash at the motel another 1/2 hour down the road in Saganaw. Google girl go weird again so I turned her off and back on again and she got me there. She gets icked off if i don't do things her way and then just doen't talk to me ("fine, go figure it out yourself you jerk").
Budget but friendly and clean motel. Took a two hour nap (more than i slept last night) then walk down th road for a beer and a Caesar salad ( with anchovies, yumm), then back to the ranch. Nice feeling having a new tire.
Odometer = 29386 - 29,104 = 282 miles today
29,386 - 18,289 = 11,097 so far this trip.