Getting Here

Truck speed limit is 25 mph and follow distance of 100 feet so it wasn't much of a risk to shoot these pictures through the windows while moving. Yeah, this is a damn big bridge that connects the "UP" with "The Mitten." Despite a lot of Michigan north of here in the the UP, this is referred to as Northern Michigan. They make a lot of maple syrup here and tourism is huge especially if water is involved.

I've got to tell you that a seriously loaded 26' bed U-Haul with a K5 loaded to the gunnels with tools on a trailer behind is quite the show, longer than a lot of semis. Using the words gas mileage in any other respect than connected with horrid doesn't address this mess. There was a vacume gauge on the dash that had green for best mileage and red for 'there's a vast hole in the bottom of your tank', it spent little time out of red and when out of it just barely. One two hundred mile stretch involved the wonders of just short of 5mpg, yeah - that's about 75 cents per mile for gasoline - though I did get around 8mpg other times and even saw 10mpg which would get it down to forty cents a mile. Did I mention 2200 miles and four days?

For all of those wishing me a good trip, no crashes or other disasters. A couple eye widening and jaw dropping moments, though. The horse in the opposite lane just over a hill at 60mph at dusk in MT was a surprise. Drove through several snows, enough to stick to the road in a few places and in the UP I got a real surprise.

Cresting a rather long hill in the UP at 60mph I found the whole show 45 degrees left on the road looking out the passenger window at the center line and I thought, "I can handle this." I cut back into the slide and nothing at all happened until I gassed it. That worked a bit too much and I was 45 degrees right and same thing with nothing happening till I gassed it and yup, right at 45 degrees and I thought, "This really sucks, my stuff will look stupid scattered in the trees." I cut it back as soon as it started coming around and got the vast improvement of 20 degrees right and managed to use the shoulder to get it pointed in the right direction. All that was, uh, disconcerting black ice is... difficult.

Arrived here in a driving rain and the radio talking about flash flood warnings, spent the night in a motel and the next day unloading in... rain. Everything except the dining room table made it in good shape, the table required extensive repair and while not perfect, is pretty good now. The important thing, the Harley, made the trip unscathed. I really like the landlady and the house is quite nice, if a lot smaller than the one I left. Living in the actual country is pretty darn nice and since I sit on a hill I have a view - and wind.