Wednesday
9/11-39 miles
We woke to sunny
skies which was nice, but we had a problem.
Susan’s knee, that had been bothering her yesterday, was now swollen
and she was hobbling around. She iced it
during breakfast, and of course used it as an excuse to slack off on
packing. We had a knee brace with us
(old people carry things like that just in case), and Susan put it on. That, with ice, had helped, and we started out
for Brimley State Park. The good news
it was a short day. The bad news was we
headed back the way we had come. I did
some quick flashbacks in my head and could not remember seeing any roads
between us and Eckerman’s Corner. That
meant we climbed the big hill we hit 40 mph coming down two days ago.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! But yes, we climbed it.
I was worried about Susan’s knee but should have been worrying about my
own problems. She did fine but I was
almost asthmatic by the time I reached the top. At the top I did the sensible thing and told
Susan I thought she should rest her knee.
About 5 minutes later we took off again.
Today’s ride was
now sandwiched between Lake Superior on the left and the forest on the
right. We kept hoping to see some wild
life but never did. A moose, bears,
deer, porcupine, anything. We did see a
few porcupines flattened on the road but that was it. The UP is a big hunting area and I’m guessing
the animals are pretty good at hiding. It is certainly rural because we saw very few
yoopers either.
We arrived at
the camp site under a bright sky and quickly picked out a grassy spot. This time the bath house was just a short
walk away. After setting up we walked to
the lake shore and looked across a lake that looked as massive as the
Atlantic. We could not see other
side. Or maybe we could see Canada? I’m not sure.
All these shore line views have begun to run together. It is still a big lake though.
After drinking
our evening coffee I noticed the clouds rolling in. This was not good. The tent has been leaking more, even in the
light drizzles. I covered the tandem
with the tarp we carry for that propose and got into the tent just when the
storm hit. It was bad. The wind blew and the rain came down in
buckets. Where before the tent fly seams
had leaked and dropped random drops on the tent mesh below it, now it was a steady
stream pouring in from multiple places. We had a serious problem and I had an
idea.
I grabbed my
rain gear and went out into the storm. I
pulled the trap off the tandem and quickly covered the seats with garbage
bags. I then took the tarp and threw it
over the tent and bungeed it down. Just
a side note: what would life be like
without bungees? I use’em more than
WD-40. Anyway. I got the tent covered and grabbed a towel
from Susan and ran to the bathhouse to dry off.
After a quick toweling I walked out to moon breaking through the
clouds. No, really. It was clearing off and the rain had stopped. As we mopped up the tent floor at 1:00AM in
the morning we decided to finish the trip in hotels. About half the folks were in hotels anyway,
and the luggage truck came by and still picked up your stuff so it was the
plan. It was a great plan, and it did
not matter that it never rained again the whole trip. It did get cold.
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| Lunch break along the way |
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| We saw this guy checking us out. |
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| I think they misspelled that first word on the bottom sign. I think it only has 3 A's |
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