{"id":999,"date":"2016-06-09T21:18:25","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T01:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wherearemomanddad.com\/?page_id=999"},"modified":"2017-11-08T16:34:14","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T21:34:14","slug":"2016-ride-to-the-michigan-upper-pennisula","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/wherearemomanddad.com\/?page_id=999","title":{"rendered":"2016 Ride to the Michigan Upper Pennisula"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Three<\/a><\/p>\n

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Headed to the UP with my good friends Mr. Smith and Pietro.\u00a0We biked to Sanford on Day 1 and hopped on Amtrack for the overnight trip to Lorton, Virginia.\u00a0 Met our newest best friends, Bucky,\u00a0 Tony, and the lovely Becky.\u00a0 All long time bikers and\u00a0wonderful folks.\u00a0 They made the train ride even\u00a0better.\u00a0We then\u00a0off-loaded and started our trip through\u00a0West Virginia on route 50.\u00a0 What an incredible ride! Two hours and like 70 miles of twists, turns, switch backs, hooting and hollering as we wound through the Appalachian\u00a0Mountains of West Virginia.\u00a0 Easily on the Top 10 list of rides so far. Really technical, so much so that my left hand was tired from clutching so much. I’d love to show you pictures, but we were having too much fun to stop and take a photo. We spent the night in Bridgeport, W Va after a fun 200 miles of riding.\u00a0 On to Ohio in the morning.<\/p>\n

By the way, some fools tried to hack into the website, so the boys at InMotion had to suspend editing of the\u00a0website until I could be “re-validated”. Hey crooks, go find something better to do with your time! Anyway, I had to compress the first\u00a0couple of days, but you’ll get the flavor of our fun.<\/p>\n

Day 2<\/strong> – \"RnR<\/a>A great day for a ride!\u00a0 We had to\u00a0leather up though as temps in W Va were in the low 50’s as we headed to Cleveland, OH and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. We took 50 to Route 250 from Bridgeport which took us nearly all the way into Cleveland.\u00a0 More great fun riding and the chill was invigorating.\u00a0 You know how much I love the cold (NOT!). We will definitely be doing the “route 50\/250 run again! All told probably 200 miles of great technical riding with little traffic on weekdays.\u00a0The Rock and Roll Hall of fame was great as well,\u00a0 My favorite was the video montage of clips from the inductions through the years where you got to hear the music you remember and listen to the artists speak from their hearts.\u00a0 Spent the night in Cleveland.\u00a0On to Michigan in the morning.<\/p>\n

\"Bridge\"<\/a>Day 3<\/strong> – Temperature warmed up to the high 50’s as we left Cleveland.\u00a0 We had only clocked around 300 miles so far, so we decided over breakfast to make up some miles and white knuckle it about 450 miles to Mackinaw City just this side of\u00a0the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.\u00a0 Mostly Interstate 75 all the way, so not much to say other than we had a very safe ride in very comfortable weather. Mackinaw City sits on the northern most point of the Michigan Peninsula, separating Lake Michigan to the west and Lake Huron on the east.\u00a0 The city has great shops and restaurants and must be filled to capacity in the summer!\u00a0 Tomorrow we head across the Mackinac Bridge\u00a0onto Mackinaw Island of the UP which will lead us\u00a0into Wisconsin. Today we added\u00a0the 46th contiguous state to our collection of states we’ve ridden through.<\/p>\n

\"Mackinaw\"<\/a>Day 4<\/strong> – We left Mackinaw City all bundled up due to the 48 degree temps (don’t mind the local in the picture behind me with the sleeveless shirt on. To the locals,\u00a0this is “spring weather”!) and headed across the Mackinaw Bridge onto Mackinaw Island and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. From there, we headed along Route 2 west and then Route 8 west headed to Wisconsin.\u00a0 The ride was pretty and let’s say “placid”. After lunch, we jumped onto 52 west which took us through Wisconsin\u00a0lumber country and diary farms. 52 west was a lot more fun than Routes 2 and 8; we finally got on some twisties and curves, no hills though in the\u00a0 “Land-o-lakes”.\u00a0 After 335 miles, we bedded down in Wausau, Wisconsin where it is 90 degrees in the shade.\u00a0 We went from freezing our cuchungas to roasting our buns all in one day. Headed across Wisconsin towards Minnesota in the morning.\u00a0 Weather’s holding up.<\/p>\n

\"wabasha\"<\/a>Day 5<\/strong> – It was in the low 70’s when we left Wausau, Wisconsin\u00a0this morning. A great temperature for riding. We traveled through diary fields and sprouting corn fields as we rode from\u00a0Route 39 south to 10 west followed\u00a0by\u00a037 south and then 35 north.\u00a0 This is the America that\u00a0fed the multitudes who made us a great country (or “grate” country since Wisconsin is\u00a0known as the “Cheese State”).\u00a0 We then jumped onto\u00a025 west which took us across the Mississippi River and into Minnesota, where we stopped for lunch in Wabasha named after the Native American Chief Wapasha.\u00a0 After lunch we headed onto 60 west for some real fun twisties through the rolling farmland hills of Minnesota and eventually Interstate 35 south to our resting spot in Clear Lake, Iowa after a “warm” 340 miles. Tomorrow we head to Nebraska.<\/p>\n

\"Nebraska\"<\/a>Day 6<\/strong> – Boy does Iowa have a lot of corn growing! We left Clear Lake, Iowa bright and early to take advantage of the cool mid 80’s temperature and\u00a0headed to Nebraska.\u00a0 Route 10 west to Route 69 south took us on a peaceful Sunday morning ride through a hundred\u00a0miles of corn fields that were just sprouting.\u00a0From 69 south we headed west again on 30 west\u00a0which brought us into Nebraska, our last state to complete all 48 contiguous states!\u00a0 Reed Mapwell then got us onto Route 75 south which finally had some nice curves (temps in the mid 90’s!) and got us onto 32 east back into Iowa for a short time. That set us up to get on 29 south which took us into Missouri and to our resting spot for the night in St. Joseph, Mo after just over 400 hot\u00a0miles.<\/p>\n

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Day 7<\/strong> – We left St. Joseph, Mo early again, temperature was 82 degrees, and started onto Route 29 south back onto 69 south.\u00a0 We even got\u00a0a chance to ride a little on our old friend, Route 66, for a little \"METADATA-START\"<\/a>while.\u00a0 From Route 66 we jumped onto Route 60 headed east which took us back to Kansas and Oklahoma so Pietro could add a couple of extra states to his “Rookie” ride with us.\u00a0 From 60 east Reed Mapwell got us onto Route 90 south which is that great twisty road that we took previously through the Ozarks of Arkansas that brings us to our favorite resting spot in the Ozarks, Eureka Springs and the ever popular Cathouse Lounge.\u00a0 362 miles of partly cloudy skies and mild temperatures in the mid 80’s.<\/p>\n

\"oxford\"<\/a>Day 8<\/strong> – My newest favorite three words (just after “I love you” darling) are “crooked and steep”.\u00a0 What a great day of riding! We left Eureka Springs with temperatures in the high 70’s on route 23 south to route 16 east.\u00a0 These two routes had some great twisties and curves through hills of Arkansas. We had the video camera going, so we’ll hopefully have some video to share of that ride. We then jumped onto Route 7 for a little way until lunch and then decided to make up some time and avoid some ugly clouds by getting onto Interstate 40 east which took us to Route 49 east over the Mississippi River and into Mississippi.\u00a0 On the way, we visited the hallowed birthplace of Mr. Smith (even passed his elementary school and high school).\u00a0 Sorry, the actual town’s name will remain a secret. We eventually ended up on Route 6 east which took us to Oxford, Mississippi, home of Ole Miss and author John Grissom (this is a picture of the court house where Grissom’s attorney protagonist would fight for the little guy) after 430 miles of some really fun riding.<\/p>\n

\"goodbye\"<\/a>Days\u00a09 through 11<\/strong> – Mostly\u00a0travel.\u00a0On day 8 we took a quick riding tour of the beautiful Ole Miss Campus as we left Oxford, Mississippi under cloudy skies.\u00a0\u00a0From Ole Miss we\u00a0got onto Route 30 East which took us to 72 east\u00a0and finally 231 south which took us into Alabama where we said goodbye for now to Pietro after lunch.\u00a0 He headed north for home\u00a0and Mr. Smith and I continued south on 231 into Montgomery, Alabama where we will spend the night after 430 cloudy, but dry miles.\u00a0 From here, we’ll continue home for the next two days through states that we’ve ridden through many times before.\u00a0 Not much will be new, so I’ll sign off from this trip now expecting that we’ll clock about 4000 miles for the total trip.<\/p>\n

\nhttp:\/\/wherearemomanddad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Short-Snip-of-Rt-60-MN-Trial.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

We spend most\u00a0of our time riding, so there aren’t too many pictures.\u00a0Here’s little snip of one of our rides in Minnesota.\u00a0 Mr. Smith is in front, with me catching him on video right behind him.\u00a0 We’re still figuring out how to use the camera, conversion, compression, etc. and using a free trial of the video compression software for now, so please\u00a0disregard the watermark. Not bad for a couple of old\u00a0“baggers” huh.<\/p>\n

Check out the other pictures from our trip in the photo album below.\u00a0 Either click on the “slideshow” or arrow down to page through the pictures one at a time.\u00a0 Enjoy!\u00a0 Don’t forget to sign in\u00a0on our Guest Page! \u00a0

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