Life on the frozen tundra of South Dakota Life on the frozen tundra of South Dakota

Day 2 - 07/11/2009 - Bemidji, MN to Marquette, MI

Day 2 - 07/11/2009 - Bemidji, MN to Marquette, MI

The first leg of the day's journey.

The second leg of the day's journey.

My alarm went off at 7:00 AM. It was very cold, and my sleeping bag was very warm. I noticed my air matress had lost a little bit of air, but I didn't think much of it. It was just at that perfect spongy amount to fit my body comfortably. The last thing I wanted to do was get out of bed.

After snuggling in the comfort for a few minutes, I came to the realization that I had to get up. After the previous evening's stress I could have easily rolled over and gone back to sleep for a few hours. Today's ride was going to be a long one covering nearly 450 miles on back-roads. If I wanted to make it to Marquette in time to enjoy the evening, I was going to have to get moving.

I've learned that there's a big difference between 450 miles on the interstate and 450 miles on back-roads. 450 miles on the interstate can be easily accomplished in less than 8 hours of riding, as long as gas and lunch stops are held to a reasonable time frame. On back-roads though, the average speed drops around 20 mph which turns a 450 mile trek into eleven or twelve hours in the saddle.

I climbed out of bed and decided to go check on my wet laundry. As I stepped out of the tent, I realized I had made a critical packing error. The temperature was in the mid 40's, and it was downright cold! I had considered packing a sweatshirt, but due to the lack of space in my bags I decided not to bring one. My reasoning was I would have my light jacket, and if it got cold enough I would wear that. It never occurred to me that I would want a light jacket and a sweatshirt in July!

In the laundry room, I was pleasantly surprised that my clothes were actually dry. Apparently the breeze coming through the windows was enough to allow the air-drying method to work. This at least was a small victory, as I was not looking forward to wearing a wet jacket on a cold morning like this. I really wasn't expecting the clothes to be dry, as I was literally wringing water out of them just a few hours earlier.

Waking up on a very chilly morning.

I packed up my clothes and broke camp. Originally, I had hoped to be on the road before 8 AM where I would stop and get some breakfast along the way. However, getting into bed late made me change my plans and sleep a little later. So by the time I had the bike packed it was eight o'clock.

The KOA office.

The KOA office opened at eight and featured a "continental" breakfast (ever wonder where that term came from?) I figured rather than stopping a few miles down the road and paying to eat, I would just eat here for free. Besides, I reasoned, that way by the time I hit the road the day would be warming up.

I had a cup of coffee, a jelly sandwich and a big bowl of oatmeal. The breakfast area was busy with lots of families scurrying about trying to get the kids fed. As I sat and ate in my leather vest, parents eyed me suspiciously and children eyed me with curiosity. I watched them and thought this might be a fun area in which to return with the family some day.

Most of this area of Minnesota is heavy forest.

After I finished eating, I was ready to hit the road. I still had a half tank of gas left from the previous night, so rather than stopping right away to top it off I decided to run a ways down the highway and then fill up.

Packed up and ready to hit the road.

As I got out on the highway, the temperature immediately made itself known. I started shivering, which I hear is a very effective but uncomfortable way to burn calories. I watched the sun get higher and higher in the sky, but didn't feel the day warming up as I would have expected to happen on a mid-July day.

A little ways down the road, I crossed the Mississippi river. I stopped and took a few pictures.

Crossing the Mississippi river.

It's amazing that the mighty Mississippi, the fourth longest river in the world starts as this humble creek that hardly looks big enough to fish.

The mighty Mississippi in its not so mighty beginnings.

I continued to head east on highway 2. Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, and I think I passed half of them. You could barely ride a mile without coming across another one.

Lots of lakes and forests.

The ride was pretty, although the road wasn't too exciting if you like twists and turns. The highway basically cuts a straight path through the forest.

The road was pretty straight through Minnesota.

As I passed Leech Lake, I wondered how it got its name, and who would want to swim there? It looked like there was a bustling vacation scene happening in the area.

Traffic wasn't too bad.

The miles slowly passed, and I became more and more cold. The day didn't seem to be warming up at all. My shivering was becoming more and more pronounced. I decided that I was going to have to stop and purchase a sweatshirt if I was going to continue on much further.

It seems that most towns larger than a few thousand people have a Wal-Mart, and usually it's right on the main road through town. So I started to keep my eyes open.

As I entered Deer River, I decided that I needed gas and a momentary break from the freezing wind. I stopped and filled up, then bought a ham and cheese sandwich thinking that perhaps some food would help warm me up. As I ate my sandwich, I witnessed an odd sight. What looked like a group of gang-bangers pulled into the gas station. The only difference is that they were in five or six trucks and SUVs, and they were all pulling boats and campers. It was a strange sight, a conglomerate of urban and rural cultures.

I left Deer River and saw nary a place that might have warm clothing for sale (at least along highway 2.) Grand Rapids was coming up in a few miles, however, and I knew that that town was large enough to support a department store of some form or fashion.

Many more picturesque sights than I was able to capture.

Pulling into Grand Rapids with my teeth chattering, I started to look for somewhere I could stop and purchase warmth. I rolled through town, not seeing anything. Once I got to the east side and started leaving town, I decided I couldn't push on any further without settling this dilemma. I don't know how I would live it down if I wound up in the hospital because I became hypothermic in July.

I turned around, and not knowing anything about Grand Rapids, started riding around looking for a commercially zoned area. After exploring for a while, I came across a K-Mart. I figured that was close enough to a Wal-Mart so I stopped.

Stopping to buy long underwear because I was freezing to death.

My experience at this K-Mart was nearly an adventure worth writing about by itself. My schedule for the day was tight, and this was an unplanned stop. I wanted to get in, find a sweatshirt and get back on the road ASAP.

Unfortunately, I searched through the entire clothing department and found nary a sweatshirt. Nothing even close. Not believing this to be true, I made another pass through the area, carefully analyzing all clothing racks.

I was about to give in and buy about five long-sleeved dress shirts that I could wear all at once, when I thought to check the sporting goods section.

Well, there were no sweatshirts, but I did find packages of long underwear. Momentarily amusing myself with the irony of buying thermal underwear in July, I looked through the selection and found a package that featured a man wearing a top and bottom set. "Perfect," I thought, and it was even on sale at 50% off. Honestly, the original price was probably about twice what the underwear was worth, but I wasn't in a position to quibble.

Already spending more time that I had hoped on this stop, I made my way to the front of the store. The whole building was a ghost town, with hardly a customer in sight. When I got to the front, there was only one checkout lane open with a single customer making a purchase. I got in line, and immediately observed that the man running the cash register was impressively slow. He seriously reminded me of the "old man" character that Tim Conway used to do on the Carol Burnett show. If I wasn't in such a hurry it would have been fascinating to watch how this guy accomplished anything!

Finally, the lady ahead of me finshed her purchase. Then I noticed that there was still merchandise on the counter. Much to my frustration, she was going to make her purchase in three separate transactions! So I stood for nearly 10 minutes while Tim Conway tried to figure out the cash register, each time like it was a detonator waiting to explode if he cut the wrong wire.

At long last, it was my turn. At that point I looked down at my package of long underwear and realized I had grabbed the wrong size! Arrrrghhhhh! I ran back to the sporting goods section, grabbed the correct size, and returned to the lone checkout line. Somehow, during my 30 second absence, the only other customer in the whole store decided to check out.

So I stood and waited once again for Tim as he decrypted the purchase process and made small talk with the women. I was steaming mad by this point, which was an interesting phenomenon as by body was still chilled to the bone.

After waiting, it was finally my turn again. When the long underwear was passed over the scanner it rang up at the original price, not the sale price. The original price was twice the sale price, but at this point I was in no mood to wait for the checkout guy to decypher this whole situation so I decided just to pay the full amount. I threw the exact amount of cash on the counter and grabbed my receipt. I've noticed that for whatever reason, K-marts print out about 3 feet of stuff with their receipts. I didn't feel like waiting for the tickertape to finish, so I took off.

Suddenly Tim Conway turned into Bruce Jenner shouting, "You forgot your coupons!" and chasing me down. I told him I wasn't interested in coupons and he didn't seem to either care or believe me. He kept coming after me, holding out this yard long stream of paper. I basically had to outrun him to get away. I beat feet over to the restroom where I could put on the thermal underwear and hopefully shake this chill.

I unwrapped the package and was dismayed to find that although the picture on the front displayed a full set, the package only included the top. I looked at the wrapper and didn't see anything apparent indicating that this would only be the top half of a long underwear set. So I blew a bunch of time and paid twice as much for only half of what I was expecting to get.

I was pretty miffed at this point, but was in no mood to attempt to return the package and go through the ordeal again. So I put on the long underwear top under my shirt, then stormed out of the store.

Out in the parking lot a couple other bikers pulled up next to me and we had a chat. They had just come from Michigan and were on their way to California. One of them was particularly interested in my beaded seat cover. The chat actually helped me calm down a bit, which was good. I hit the road again, 45 minutes after the ordeal started.

Many parts of the highway were tree lined.

When I left that morning I was hoping I could hit Duluth by 11 AM. Now, it was looking like I would hit it closer to noon. This means my afternoon ride wouldn't be as leisurely as I had hoped.

I did notice that many small towns I encounted on this trip had some sort of military display.

I noticed many small towns had some sort of military display.

The closer I got to Duluth, the less tree lined the roads became. There were still pretty areas, but they were interspersed with stretches of open farmland. Much of northern Minnesota reminded me of the Black Hills, without the hills. So I guess it just reminded me of the Black.

It reminded me of the Black Hills of SD without the hills.

I pressed on eastward. The thermal underwear top improved things, but I was still freezing. The temperature was now around 60. It was partly cloudy. When I was in the sun, I was cold but could maintain. When the clouds covered the sun, I would start to shiver. I believe my body temp had dropped significantly that morning and was not recovering very quickly.

Highway 2 merges with I-35 as you near Duluth, which is down in a river valley. It is very pretty as you come into town. Unfortunately there was construction and the traffic was fairly heavy, so I couldn't enjoy the sights too much. I had to focus on the road.

Duluth is down in a river valley.

Looking out over the city, I could see a rather large bridge off in the distance. I speculated that this was the bridge I would take to get into Wisconsin. As it turned out, I was correct. The closer I got, the bigger this bridge looked.

I'm not a big fan of heights, but I made it over the bridge without incident. I was now in Superior, Wisconsin. Unfortunately there was no "Welcome" sign of which I could take a photo.

Looking out over Duluth.

It was now lunch time, and I decided that I needed to get off the bike for a bit and see if I could warm up. The temp in Superior was in the upper 60's and the sun was out. I rode along but nothing really appealed to me. I was in the mood for something a little lighter and maybe a glass of soda. I finally settled on Subway which was about as non-exotic of a choice as one could make.

I ordered a sub, some Sun Chips and a soda. I relaxed at a table and reviewed my map. The air conditioning was blasting which I'm sure felt good to everyone else who were in t-shirts and shorts. I sat there with my leather, jacket and thermal underwear and froze.

Back on the road, I headed east for a bit, then caught highway 13 north which takes you on a peninsula loop along the edge of Lake Superior. I had originally planned on taking this route even though it probably added an additional hour to the trip. As it turned out, it was the best riding and the best scenery I experienced all day, so I'm glad I made the addition.

Now I'm riding through Wisconsin.

Along this road I got my first glance of Lake Superior. I had never seen Superior before. The view was awe-inspiring.

The first time I set eyes on Lake Superior.

I must admit that the rest of the day I had "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" running through my head.

This lake is just awe-inspiring.

As I rode along the coast, both sides of the road were tree-lined. Occasionally the lake would be visible to my left.

The lake was often visible through the trees as I rode the coast.

As I looked up, I could swear the sky was so blue that you could look right into outer space. I tried to capture this in a photo, but the picture doesn't do justice to the actual experience.

I swear you could see into outer space, the sky was so blue.

I continued to ride and look at the beauty of the area. When Superior would become visible on my left, I was mesmerized by it. I told my wife that on the right side of the road there could have been girls in bikinis handing out free pizza and I wouldn't have noticed. I was quite taken with the view of the lake.

I kept pulling over to take pictures of the road.

The whole experience was so intense that I began to worship my creator, giving thanks that such beauty was given for me to look at. I am not making this up. It truly was a spiritual moment.

There were plenty of roadside stops along the lake.

At Red Cliff the road heads back south and follows the east side of the peninsula. Red Cliff looks like a neat little town. Lots of tourists were milling about and it looked like there were some cool shops to explore. The whole east side of the peninsula was a lot busier than the west side.

The road made for some great riding.

The temperature peaked out about 68 degrees, but now the sun was out in full force and it made for a beautiful day of riding. Unfortunately I still had my bone-deep chill.

The afternoon was about perfect.

Back down on highway 2, I made a gas stop in Ashland. I found it interesting that there is so much coastline available along the Great Lakes that waterfront property doesn't appear to command much of a premium. I took this picture from the gas station where I filled up. It was located right along the side of the lake, and it doesn't look like they even tried to take advantage of having water front property.

There is so much coastline available, even the gas station had shorefront property.

The afternoon was now waning, and I was getting tired. Looking at my odometer, I estimated in my head that I had about 80 more miles to go. My body was getting achy, I was still freezing cold and I was mentally starting to feel the stress of the day. I then saw a road sign that said Marquette was 180 miles away, not 80. I had added wrong in my head.

This was very disappointing. I thought I had about 1.5 hours left and realized I had about 3.5 hours left. The travel was going slower than I anticipated, plus I hadn't anticipated the fiasco at the K-mart that sucked up almost an hour. I was starting to worry I wouldn't get to Marquette before the campground office closed.

At long last I reached the Michigan border. Nothing I could do but press on and accept that for the second night in a row I wouldn't have much evening in which to relax.

Welcome to Michigan.

Just over the border I went through Ironwood, MI then at Wakefield I headed west on highway 28. There was a beautiful lake at the junction with an interesting statue.

An interesting statue in Wakefield, MI.

I had been pretty achy the previous day, and started the day the same way. By this point however, my body was in full-on pain mode. My joints and muscles were screaming for relief from the bike, and my head was beginning to throb. I thought I had packed some ibuprofen in my shaving kit, but discovered that I hadn't. So I had no resources to alleviate my situation other than to press on and seek relief when I arrived.

A cold wind really picked up out of the north, which just compounded my chill. I needed something to occupy my thoughts, otherwise I would just dwell on my misery. I began playing with my camera, taking pictures while I rode.

The road going by.

People occasionally ask me about the single spur I wear on my right boot. My buddy Robert gave it to me, and he wears the other one. It's a brotherhood thing, to remind us that no matter where we go we aren't alone.

Despite my mental state, I was still able to smile for the camera.

A self portrait.

The trees were still beautiful to look at. Something I don't see too much of in South Dakota.

Watching the trees zip by.

A lot of this area was cultivated for farming.

Farm equipment for sale.

Now here's a picture that made me think. I was riding along and screwing around with my camera. I snapped this picture of the road, without thinking too much about it.

When I got home and downloaded all my photos from the trip, I saw that in this picture there were two deer (doe and a fawn) standing on the left shoulder.

I never saw them when I was riding. I was too busy dinking around instead of watching what I was doing. They could have easily darted out and killed me. Shame on me! No excuses on this one, I screwed up. Thankfully I survived, but I need to be more diligent about watching the road in the future.

Look out for deer.

As I got closer to Marquette, I noticed something kind of cool. The Michigan highway patrol still uses the single round light on the top of their patrol cars, like you used to see in the '60s cop shows. Retro baby!

About 8 PM I finally pulled into Marquette. I pulled over and dug out my detailed map on how to get to the campground. Back on the road, I turned where the map indicated and immediately was presented with road construction and a detour. No problem, except the detour assumed I knew how to get around Marquette. It veered me off onto a side road, then no more signs were to be seen on how to get back.

I fumbled around for a few minutes, then eventually figured out where I was and made it to the campground. This didn't do much for my frustration level of the day. I was getting to the point where I was about to snap.

Once I found the park, the office was still open (thankfully) and I checked in. The park worker told me my campsite number and pointed me in a general direction. I rode around to the camping area parking lot, got off my bike and started looking for the camp site. I found all the other numbers (which were occupied) but not mine.

So, in a fine mood I trudged back to the office and asked the worker to help me find the campsite. He acted like I was a complete newb, and walked me out to the site. He said, "The number's right here... hmmm.... Wait, there's no number on this site!" No kidding!

I then proceeded to set up camp. The sites were pretty close together, and on one side it looked like there were a ton of college aged kids. I set up my tent on the side closer to one guy who looked like he was camping alone.

The wind was really blowing, making it a challenge to get the tent up. At one point I had the poles in and one side anchored down, when the whole thing blew over upside down. I fought the wind and righted the tent (like fighting a sail) then anchored things the best I could. In the process of the tent blowing over, I broke a tent pole which meant that side of the tent was now inverted. I wound up bracing it from the inside with my luggage.

The up side is once I got the tent up, I had a very pretty view.

The view from my camp site.

So I was tired, achy, cold, mad, starving hungry and had a broken tent. I decided I needed to alleviate my pain first, then get something to eat and rest.

I had passed a Wal-Mart on the west side of Marquette, so I knew where that was. I rode back and went in and grabbed some ibuprofen.

While I was there I decided to look and see if they had any sweatshirts. The selection was quite limited, with the only options having "Michigan State Wolverines" imprinted on the front, along with a $20 price tag. My wife is an Ohio State Buckeye fan. I knew as soon as I walked in the door with that sweatshirt she would rip it from me and burn it, and I decided it wasn't worth throwing away $20. Myself, I'm a University Of Sioux Falls Cougar fan, so I don't have a dog in the Ohio/Michigan fight.

So I walked up to the checkout area and saw the "express" lane for people with 12 items or less. Holding a single bottle of ibuprophen in my hand, I qualified, so I started walking towards that line.

Then, from my right side a lady with a cart full of stuff saw me and literally ran to cut in front of me. I couldn't believe what I just saw.

I stood there a moment dumbfounded, then weighed my options. I could confront her, which given my mental condition at the moment would probably result in me being hauled off to jail on assault charges, or I could find another line.

So I chose another line. They were all busy, so I got in one that had only a few people in line. I stood and stood, then realized that once again the lady at the front was paying for her purchases in three separate transactions! What's the deal with this? What are the odds that I would hit this situation twice in the same day?

I silently stewed and finally got up to the cashier. He rang up my purchase, then asked if I wanted a bag. I stated quite loudly, "No, I'm going to eat them here!" This caused the guy in line behind me to bust out laughing. So at least my duress brightened his day.

I downed the pain killers, then got on my bike and rode next door to a Culvers. Another non-exotic eating location but at this point I just wanted food.

The food was good, but like most Culvers I've been to, the air conditioning was on full blast. I sat there and froze my tail. The frozen custard probably didn't help, but you can't go to Culvers and not order frozen custard!

Back at the camp site I arrived to find a full-on college party going on at the camp site next to me. This day was just getting worse and worse!

I called my wife to check in, then grabbed my towel and shaving kit to hit the showers. When I got to the building, I discovered there was no shower. Weird, as I remember on the website that there were supposed to be showers. I shaved and sponged myself off the best I could using only my flashlight (no lights in the building), the trudged back to the tent.

I crawled into bed and read a while, then tried to get some sleep. I would drift off, then one of the partyers would do something to wake me up. At one point there were two girls just within earshot to keep me awake, but far enough away that I couldn't catch everything they were saying. I could tell one was crying and the other was consoling, so I just assumed it was the same drunk garbage that goes on at every party.

I laid there fuming, but what could I do? I had the presence of mind to know that approaching a bunch of drunk college kids was a recipie for getting my butt kicked, or at worse discovering some other retaliatory measure taken against me. So I just remained in my tent, catching snoozes between the hoots and hollers and revving car engines.

About 2 AM, the party settled down and at last it was quiet. I fell asleep. At 3 AM I rolled over and realized I was laying on the ground. My air mattress had gone flat. I pumped it up and discovered that it would stay inflated about 1.5 hours. So throughout the remainder of the night I had to keep pumping up the mattress.

So this undoubtedly became the worse day of my motorcycle touring history. Let's hope it remains that way!

The end of a long hard day.

Continue on to day three...

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