Here's our original planned route. As you will see below, it's not exactly the way we took.
The alarm went off at 6 AM, like clockwork. Wait a minute, aren’t all alarms clockwork?
I reluctantly rolled out of bed and got ready. I pretty much had packed everything the night before, so by the time Jon got moving I had everything ready to go. I went ahead and loaded up my bike while he was packing. I figured this would work out because I could start eating my large breakfast while he was loading his bike, which would allow us to be rolling by 7:00.
Almost. I ate waffles, oatmeal, a cinnamon roll and coffee. When Jon finished loading his bike he came in and had some juice. We were chatting about the day when I realized it was 7:10. Oops. I made a final check of the hotel room to make sure nothing was forgotten, then checked out. We were on our bikes and rolling about 7:20. A little later than planned, but not bad.
The highway 2 bridge over the bay was closed due to construction. That would have been our most direct route. Instead we were detoured up to the 535 bridge but in reality it wasn’t that much farther. Once over the bridge we were in Superior, WI and picked up highway 53 heading east. It was getting into rush hour traffic now, and while it wasn’t super heavy there were plenty of cars on the road as we went through town.
East of Superior the traffic had lightened and we turned north on highway 13 to ride up over the peninsula by the Apostle Islands. I had ridden this route back in 2009 and felt it was nice enough to ride a 2nd time. I hear taking the boat out to the Apostle Islands is a nice trip, but that didn’t fit into our schedule so we didn’t do it.
We rode along, enjoying the twists and turns of the road. Nothing that would induce floorboard scraping, but curvy enough to be interesting. Occasionally you could see Lake Superior visible through the trees on the left.
In one little town I noticed a curious sign that made me do a double take. I quickly slowed to a stop. Jon pulled up next to me and I asked him, "Did that sign just say what I think it said?" He agreed that it did, so I decided I needed a picture of it and turned around.
Jon was kind enough to take a photo of me posing with the sign. So here's a rare photo of me on my own website.
Not 100% sure what the Testicle Festival is, but I hope it involves Rocky Mountain Oysters and not other activities.
Speaking of signs, similar to what I experienced in 2009 in northern Michigan where everywhere I’d look there would be a sign selling pasties, in this area of Wisconsin there was a constant barrage of signs for wild rice. Apparently wild rice is the thing in this area? Not sure how it would be different from what Uncle Ben would sell me? And what makes it wild? Seems like if you’re purposely growing it to sell it should be called tame rice. But I digress…
It turned out to be a beautiful day.
We continued down the road all the way to Red Cliff, then headed south where the road junctioned with highway 2 at Ashland.
At this point we had ridden about 100 miles and my body was telling me I needed to stretch so we pulled off in a park next to the lake. I used the restroom and drank some water.
The park had a drinking fountain that looked like a lion. Growing up, there was a park in Sioux Falls called "Denace The Menace Park" that was the favorite of all children in town. It too had a lion drinking fountain. Seeing this one brought back memories of my childhood, so I snapped a picture to remember the occasion.
We got back on the bikes and road highway 2 all the way to Ironwood, MI. We were going to head south on highway 51 which actually junctions just a few hundred yards from the Michigan border. Jon hadn’t been to Michigan before, so we passed the junction and rode just far enough into the state to reach the visitor center and snap his picture.
We doubled back Wisconsin and headed south on the highway 51 junction. Just a few miles down the road we stopped for gas. I also spent a couple minutes scrubbing the bugs off of my windshield so I could see once again. Not having had breakfast, Jon was inquiring about my plans for lunch. It was about 10:45, and I was still full from my morning meal. Jon said he could wait a while and we decided that if we came across a town with some restaurants and it was close to noon that we would stop. He bought a snack to tie him over and I grabbed a large diet Pepsi.
I like Pepsi. My father was a big Pepsi fan, and would always have a six pack of the old glass 32oz bottles sitting under the kitchen table. Every night after he got home from his 2nd job he’d pour himself a 4 oz glass of Pepsi, grab a vanilla sandwich cookie and relax. That six pack would last weeks. Well, at least until my brother and I got more stealthy and started stealing some of it. Anyway, now that he’s gone Pepsi is one of those things that triggers memories of dad. So when I’m looking to drink a soda I’m now often leaning towards Pepsi. I know you were just dying to know the mental state that drives my soft drink selection.
Just down the road there was a tank and a helicopter on display. I noticed that nearly every small town in Minnesota and Wisconsin has a "Veteran’s Memorial Park" and quite often they have some sort of retired military item on display.
We continued south on highway 51 for more than 50 miles. While the scenery was pretty, I was uncomfortable due to my aforementioned loss of padding in my contact points. Thankfully, overall I felt better than I did the previous day. At the end of the trip both Jon and I agreed that our 2nd day was the toughest ride, even though it was one of the shortest mileage-wise.
To combat my boredom and take my mind off my discomfort, I started to come up with alternate ways to do the "biker wave." Motorcycles would come by the opposite direction and they would casually stick their hand out sideways, at least 20 degrees below parallel and often bending their hand to form a lazy peace sign. When doing this it's also mandatory that the riders do not make direct eye contact. I was contemplating how all riders do this and how weird it would be for one rider to start breaking that tradition. So when I encountered the next biker coming down the road, which happened to be a guy on an old Honda trail bike, I looked right at him and gave him the Black Panther "Power To The People" salute with a fist raised up over my head. The guy didn’t even bother to respond, but Jon thought it was kind of funny. I wound up doing that on much of the remainder of the trip.
On the north side of Woodruff we rode by a Harley dealership. Jon likes to collect poker chips sold at the dealers and he keeps them in a book designed to display all the different places he’s ridden. I pulled over along the shoulder and asked Jon if he wanted to go back and get a chip. He hadn’t even seen the dealership when we passed. He must have been hungry because he opted that we press on and get some lunch.
For lunch, I didn’t have a lot of opinion because I was still somewhat full from breakfast. Jon requested no pizza or burgers. I was keeping my eye out for something interesting that was a local restaurant. Most everything we encountered was either touting their burgers, or was closed. We pulled into a couple promising looking places only to find the lights out and doors locked. We finally pulled into a parking lot at a major intersections and parked. There were a few places in walking distance and I figured that Jon could pick whatever looked promising.
Across the street there was a bar and grill that looked sketchy. Down from that was a Chinese place that looked even sketchier. Two blocks down Jon spotted a little cafe and selected that as our lunch location.
The Woods Cafe was a very small little place that was an obvious hangout for the locals. In fact, they didn’t seem too used to any strangers walking through their door, let alone two guys who just climbed off of motorcycles. We perused the menu. Jon went with the daily special which was a hot turkey sandwich. I had been craving a Rueben for a few weeks and saw they listed one on the menu, so I went in that direction.
While we waited for our food I used the bathroom. Woodruff touts itself as the home of the world’s largest penny. We didn’t see it so I can neither confirm or deny that this is true. However, I can confirm that the bathroom in the Woods Cafe may possibly be the world’s smallest.
Our food arrived and we dug in. My Rueben was good. Very good. In fact it may have been the best Rueben I’ve ever had. They stated that they make their own sauerkraut, and I think that was the secret as to why the sandwich was so tasty. The sandwich came with chips and coleslaw as well. The chips were ok, but the slaw was very good too. Not as good as the Rueben though.
After we ate we walked back to our bikes and prepared to hit the road. We were roughly halfway to our day's destination and I was getting a little tired and sore. Not as bad as the previous day though, which was a good sign.
Out of Woodruff we headed east on highway 47 to Rhinelander, where 47 merged with highway 8 for a while. We stayed on highway 8 all the way to Crandon where we headed south on highway 55. At Langlade, the original route I mapped out had us going east on highway 64. This is where I modified our route when writing out my own directions the previous night in the hotel. I realized that if we just stayed on highway 55 all the way south down to Shawano there were a lot fewer turns to take and as a result, a lot fewer chances for me to screw up and miss a turn. Also from the perspective of a map it didn’t look like the modified route would short-change us with any scenery.
This was the happiest accident of our trip. Highway 55 between Shawano and Keshena turned into one of the best stretches of highway I’ve ridden. For 25 miles we rode down a twisting highway with very few intersections, many times through a canopy of trees. The curves occasionally had us dropping down a gear, but were fast enough that we didn’t have to slow down too much. It was a blast. I highly recommend this stretch of highway if you’re in the area.
On one section of this road we were happily tooling along when suddenly a car passed us going very, very fast. This was a winding two lane road with a 55 mph speed limit, and the double line signifying no passing allowed. We were cruising around 60 mph. The car came by so fast it startled me. I suddenly heard the blaring exhaust and for a split second thought something went terribly wrong with my bike until I saw the car pass by. At our next stop Jon brought up the car passing and mentioned he had the same reaction I did.
We stopped for gas in Keshena. The day was getting warm. After filling my tank I went inside to use the restroom. When I was walking through the store towards the door, Jon had struck up a conversation with the girl behind the counter. She told us a story about her dad’s motorcycle which didn’t paint the dad’s girlfriend in a positive light. In fact I felt a little awkward about the story and quickly got myself outside.
My body was registering its complaint about sitting on a motorcycle for the past three days, so I wasn’t in any hurry to climb right back on and ride. I walked around and tried to stretch out my joints a bit. I texted my wife to get an update about my son’s golf tournament which should have wrapped up by this point in the afternoon. Turns out he placed eighth and this was a pretty large tournament, so that was cool to hear.
We rode south out of Keshena where we were going to catch highway 29 into Green Bay, which was a four lane express. The scenery changed in this stretch of road, from winding highway through foliage of trees to a straight treeless road. We hit the town of Shawano and followed the road signs leading us to highway 29. Unfortunately the signs didn’t take us on the most direct route to the highway and instead routed us through town. It was now later in the afternoon and traffic was quite heavy, which was surprising for how relatively small a town Shawano is.
After what seemed like forever we finally got to highway 29 and headed east. It was roughly 40 miles until we would reach Green Bay. I don’t care for freeway riding as much, but at this point in the day I was getting ready to be done with riding and relax a little so the extra speed we gained on this route was welcomed. There wasn’t much for scenery on this stretch though. In fact, it looked an awful lot like the scenery of the interstates around the Sioux Falls area.
Shortly before 4 PM we rolled into Green Bay and took I-41 north for a few miles. Jon wanted to stop at the Harley dealership in Green Bay, so we pulled off on the exit. Of immediate concern and note, there was lots of road construction on the interstate in this area and our exit was literally an "exit only" as the on-ramp back onto I-41 was closed. It actually wasn’t so much as closed as it was missing. There was a large pile of dirt where the former on-ramp was once located. While waiting at the stoplight I pointed this dilemma out to Jon and we decided we’d have to get directions at the dealership about how to get back onto the interstate.
We pulled into the dealership parking lot and immediately were awestruck with the outside appearance of Vandervest Harley Davidson. It was pretty apparent that this store makes money and lots of it. Walking into the showroom the number of bikes they had in stock was impressive. Also impressive were the prices. Not impressively low, though.
Jon inquired about a cargo net he wanted to buy, and I browsed around the bikes. When my beloved Road Star finally wears out I probably will move to a dedicated touring bike like a Harley Ultra. I was in complete sticker shock looking at the amounts that were written on the price tags. Even some of the used bikes were in the $30k range. This firmed up my decision that I won’t be buying a replacement bike any time soon, and when I do I’ll be going the Craigslist route. Seriously these prices were insane. I’ll let someone else buy new and take the major depreciation hit, then I’ll swoop in and pay cash. I started saving my money for the next bike several years ago knowing that it would be easier to put a little money aside every month over time than to suddenly try and come up with the whole amount at once, or worse yet financing. I’ve yet to finance any of the motorcycles I’ve owned and it’s my personal opinion that doing so is not a wise decision. For that matter, I’m of the opinion that financing anything (except perhaps for a reasonable house mortgage) is not a wise financial decision. Basically when you finance you’re trading what you want right now for less of what you could have in the future. Probably the reason the dealership is able to charge these outlandish prices are because financing is so easy to get, and too many people don't worry about how much total money they're spending and just look at the monthly payment amount. Not smart.
That being said this is a motorcycle travel log and not a financial web site, so getting back on track: while the Ultras were nice and had lots of creature comfort, I’ve put so many miles on my current bike (it rolled past the 56k mark on this trip) that it will be hard to give up on it. I told Jon that to replace her now would almost feel like betraying a friend. I think I’m going to run the Yamaha until it quite literally falls apart and isn’t fixable.
Speaking of which I did notice a few things on this trip that I will have to fix on my motorcycle before I take another trip. First, at one of our stops I happened to look down and notice that one of my exhaust pipes was coming off the header. I suspect that it has just rattled loose over time. Also, my front brake needs some work. It has become very "notchy" so when pulling the lever it’s not smooth but feels like it clicks. Unfortunately one of the clicks takes me from no brakes to almost locked up. By the end of our trip it was getting very bad so I need to fix it sooner rather than later. Third, I’m suspecting I’m wearing out the rear suspension spring. When I am fully loaded and hit bumps it feels like at times the suspension is bottoming out. Given the fact that this is happening even after I've lost 50 pounds means something is definitely wrong back there. It may need something as simple as adjusting the pre-load on the spring, however it I may also be due to replace the spring and shock. If so I would probably upgrade to a progressive version.
After Jon paid for his items I inquired about the best way to get back on the interstate. I stated that ultimately we wanted to be on I-43 heading east. Without road construction we were about 1/2 mile from the interchange to this highway. Unfortunately with road construction we had to backtrack west for a couple miles, then head north. The lady said, "Go west a couple miles and turn right at the 2nd roundabout. That road will take you to the interstate." It probably would be 10 minutes longer than the direct route, were the construction not taking place.
We pulled out of the parking lot and followed her instructions. They did indeed take us to the interstate. Unfortunately I misunderstood which interstate it was supposed to take us to. In my mind we went west and then turned north, which meant we should intersect with I-43 heading west. What I discovered was that the road intersected with I-41, and I didn’t realize this until we were on the ramp at which point there was no way to turn around. I voiced my frustration to Jon, but there was nothing I could do at this point but merge into the freeway. I figured we were going to have to ride all the way back down the interstate to the exit for the Harley dealership, then ride the big circle detour again.
However, once we were on the freeway I realized where I had misunderstood her communication. We did indeed wind up back on I-41, but a couple miles down the road we encountered a ramp that took us to I-43 heading east. So I felt an odd combination of relief that we wouldn’t have to retrace our steps, but embarrassment because I freaked out about being on the wrong road. I probably looked like a complete buffoon to Jon at that moment, but then again he’s probably used to it by now.
We stayed on I-43 for a few miles until we reached highway 57, which we then took northeast into Door County. When I planned out the route, 57 looked like it ran right next to the lake. Well, perhaps it is right next to the lake from a relative standpoint, but unfortunately we rarely saw the lake as usually it was at least a mile or so from the road. At least the highway was four lane all the way to Sturgeon Bay and traffic was surprisingly light for almost being 5 PM. The 40 mile stretch between the two Bays (Green and Sturgeon) passed slowly for me, as I was getting towards the end of my comfort zone for sitting on the bike.
Our hotel was in Sturgeon Bay. We hit town about 5:00. However, I had planned on riding an additional 60 miles around Door County before we stopped for the night. I was tempted to stop and check into our hotel and then go out and ride the Door County loop, but I knew that once we got off the bike there was little chance we’d be willing to get back on again tonight. I hated the idea of riding all this way to Door County without seeing it, so I pressed on up highway 57 with Jon following me. I wasn’t sure how he was feeling at this point so I was kind of under the assumption that if he needed to stop he would have flagged me down.
We rode along highway 57 up the east side of the Door County peninsula. The scenery was pretty, but not breathtaking. I was disappointed that we rarely ever saw Lake Michigan, and the few times we did it was just glimpses through the trees. When I planned the route the map made it look like the highway ran right along the coast a good chunk of the time. It turns out the road is actually a few hundred yards from the coast, with a layer of buildings and trees separating the two and usually blocking our view.
Traffic was growing heavier the further up the peninsula we got. After about an hour of riding we made it the 20-some miles to the town of Sister Bay where 57 ends and we were going to take highway 42 back down to Sturgeon Bay on the west side of the peninsula. Sister Bay was a hopping town. The tourists jammed the streets. We pulled over for a couple minutes for a stretch/adjustment break. When we got back on the bikes the traffic was so heavy that we pretty much had to force our way out into traffic.
Before heading back to Sturgeon Bay I wanted to ride 42 all the way up to the town of Gills Rock. I had no real reason to ride up that far, other than just to see what was up there. As it turns out, there wasn’t much. Most of the tourism stops at Sister Bay. We snapped a couple pictures, then turned around and rode back.
Coming back down highway 42, the traffic in Sister Bay actually had gotten heavier in the 20 minutes we had been gone. We rode through town in bumper-to-bumper gridlock. I kept waiting for us to get to the edge of town and out on the highway where we could start moving more than 10 mph, but we discovered that on this section of highway 42 the towns and parks pretty much connect, so things were moving very slow for quite a while. Being tired is never a good thing when I’m in these situations and I started to get frustrated. By now I had figured out what Door County was about, and I just wanted to get to our hotel.
What was Door County about? Well, here’s my perspective: Door County is a tourist area full of cherry orchards, parks, beaches, museums and boutiques. Door County is not a great place to ride a motorcycle, at least for someone looking for exciting and scenic travel. It would be a great place to bring your significant other for a few days of relaxation and exploration. It is not a great place to be when you’re tired and at the end of a 500 mile day on your motorcycle.
The sun was now getting low enough in the sky that it was making it hard to see. In one of the little towns I was heading straight into the sun when suddenly I realized that a couple ladies with strollers had walked out directly in front of me. I jammed on the brakes and thankfully stopped before I mowed them down. Luckily I was only going about 10-15 mph at the time. I’m not sure why they just walked out like that. And they also continued walking, seemingly oblivious that I had almost ruined all of our days.
Finally, as the clock got closer to 7 PM we got far enough down highway 42 that we were out of the prime tourist area and could actually ride 50 mph. There was still traffic, but it was moving faster. It was on this stretch that we were passing cherry orchard after cherry orchard. Door County is known for its cherries. Many of the orchards had signs touting, "Pick your own cherries!" To me that sounds like you’re paying to do gardening. I’m not a big fan of gardening myself. If I’m going to pay through the nose for a quart of cherries they better at least pull them off the tree for me!
At 7:05 we pulled into our hotel parking lot in Sturgeon Bay. We unloaded the bikes, then went inside and checked in. Our hotel room was a bit nicer than what we had in Duluth, although the beds were a little harder. It didn’t matter though, because we were going to sleep well that night even if we had to crash on the floor.
Both of us were starving hungry and were in the mood for steak. We inquired at the front desk about a good place to get a steak in town, and the girl directed us to the Nightingale Supper Club just a couple blocks away. She did mention that it was a bit on the fancier side, but we might be able to get away with what we were wearing. Neither of us were in the mood to change, nor did we bring anything fancy to change into. So we just went as-is. Once we got there we discovered that it was so close to the hotel that it would have been just as fast to walk.
Every time I heard the name "Nightingale Supper Club" I kept thinking about my wife’s favorite movie, "Frequency." In that movie the protagonist hunts for a serial murderer known as the "nightingale killer." He works on solving the case with help from his father 30 years in the past. It’s a pretty good flick. Didn’t do so well at the box office, but it’s definitely worth watching.
Anyway, our first challenge at the Nightingale was to figure out how to get in. We opened the door and walked in to an entryway. Inside the entryway there were two doors. One had a small window and we could see people at tables eating. That door was locked. The other door had no window and didn’t look like an entrance to a restaurant, but more like a solid metal service entrance door. Because of the way it looked we didn't bother trying it. We thought maybe we accidentally went in the back door by the fire escape. So we went back outside and began to circle the building. We ran into another group of guys in the parking lot who were also trying to figure out the way in. Together the five of us returned to the first entrance we’d tried and then confirmed that what looked like a service door was actually the door into the restaurant.
The woman taking reservations said it would be something like 1/2 an hour before they could seat us. I was really tired and hungry and wasn’t sure if I wanted to wait that long, but on the flip side we didn’t have any other ideas for another restaurant so we agreed. I really didn’t feel like standing the whole time either. Then the woman said we could sit in the bar area and help ourselves to the cheese and cracker hors d’oeuvres while we waited, so the promise of immediate snack food made the decision easier. Plus there was a baseball game on in the bar area and I was all for watching some of that.
We relaxed in the bar area and ate cheese and crackers. I actually showed just a little restraint and didn’t get ridiculous about eating too much, as I wanted stomach room for my steak. They also had what appeared to be pate foie gras, which I didn't try. My reasons for avoiding it were twofold. First, the way in which ducks are force fed prior to slaughtering them to make foie gras is rather inhumane. Second, the stuff just looks gross.
Jon went up to get some cheese and struck up a conversation with another guy. The man lived in the area and asked Jon how long we were out on our trip. Jon replied four days. The man said, "Four days? You need to stay here about four weeks!" We thought that was funny. Maybe I could hang out in Door County for a week, but that would be at the absolute maximum my sanity would allow. Two or three days would feel more realistic to me.
Finally our table was ready. I’m sure the wait just seemed longer than it really was because we were both tired and hungry. We looked at the menu, and for some reason steak no longer sounded quite as good. I ordered the full rack of ribs. Jon stuck to his original plan and ordered the steak. My babyback ribs were ok, but nothing special. Jon reported his steak was very good. I should have gone with the steak.
After supper we walked out to the bikes and I reminded Jon about our plans for ice cream. I could tell he was stuffed too full and was too tired to get ice cream. I too was full, but I could have squeezed some ice cream down my gullet (which would cause my liver to make a nice foie gras.) On the other hand I was also tired, and relaxing in our hotel room and taking a shower sounded equally appealing. We just rode back to the hotel. We thought, "Maybe we can get ice cream at the ball park tomorrow night."
We took turns in the shower, and called home. My son gave me a hole-by-hole account of his golf tournament from earlier that day and my wife was happy that he now had someone else to talk to about the topic. My son loves golf. My wife not so much.
Tomorrow’s route only had us riding about 400 miles. However we wanted to be in Minneapolis in plenty of time to not feel rushed before the Twins game, so we wanted to be on the road by 7 AM the next morning. To help expedite things in the morning, I got my clothes out that I was going to wear and got my bag packed the night before. In the morning I would just have to throw a couple of small things in the bag and fasten the straps and I would be all set. We set our alarm for 6 AM and turned out the light.
This room had a mini-fridge. Every time the compressor on the fridge turned on it sounded like a muffled civil defense siren. We weren’t storing anything in it so I got up and unplugged the dumb thing.
Our hotel room in Duluth had an air conditioner fan that would constantly hum at a fairly high volume. This insulated Jon and I from the noises that two guys make at night, especially when they’re beat tired after being outside all day. This room didn’t have that feature. As a result, Jon started snoring in the middle of the night rather loudly. I didn’t know if I had permission to poke him or not (turns out I did have permission, but I didn't learn that until morning) so I tried more passive-aggressive methods of trying to get him to roll over. At one point I knocked on the headboard hoping he’d think someone was at the door and answer it. The technique didn’t work. Jon slept through it.
After a couple hours the exhaustion finally got to me and I fell asleep anyway.
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This page last updated on 06/28/2018