Day Seven, Milwaukee, WS to Escanaba, MI, 260 Miles

Friday, August 13, 2010

Greetings faithful blog followers. We appreciate your interest and readership. It's 10:45 PM in Escanaba, MI, on the west shore of Lake Michigan. We're now 2,600 miles from home.

We departed Milwaukee, WS, this morning headed to the local Harley dealer to get parts to fix Bill's oil leak. Lesson learned, never use two different GPS's manufactured by two different manufactures to navigate anywhere. Bill and I were both giving Lane, who was leading the pack, different directions to the Harley dealer and all we managed to do was confuse everyone and get us hopefully lost in some rather seedy areas of downtown Milwaukee. We were nowhere close to the Harley Dealer, but close to the new Harley Museum, purely by accident. So, we opted for the museum with only one GPS and actually managed to find it. The museum is truly a must see attraction for any Harley enthusiast. The museum has 480 motorcycles, but only 150 on display at at any one time.

There are individual displays commencing with the early years, 1903 to 1906, the history of the company, and engine history display, the AMF years, the board track racers, and a back room look at the restoration shop. Our tour guide Diane also took us to view the 330 Harlies not currently on display in a specially designed and constructed three-level storage rack, automated for easy retrieval. We lunched at the museum and departed for Greenbay, WS, where the GPS's once again got us hopefully lost when we encountered a closed off ramp from the freeway and repeated detours.

Once back on track we headed north for Sheboygan, MI and the route 43 Harley dealer. En route, the skies began to darken and a few raindrops began to fall. At the dealership, the staff was most helpful and we were able to repair Bills oil leak with nothing more than cleaning the offending area with brake clean supplied by the staff and tightening the loose oil filter. While we were there, the staff began to roll all of their bikes indoors due to severe weather approximately 30 miles to the west with possible tornado's heading our way at 35 MPH. They offered to store our bikes, but we opted to beet feet for Green Bay at 80 MPH to outrun the storm, which we did. Kuddos to the staff at Route 43, you're the best guys. Thank you

While motoring northbound toward our destination I was just settling into a Zen meditation cruising state when lightening started flashing on the horizon. Without warning, I simultaneously hit a bump on the road, which caused my built-in helmet sunglasses to retract with a loud crack back into my helmet, and suddenly the sky was bright leading me to believe for a second that I had been struck by lightening. When I realized what had actually happened I had to snitch myself off to my riding companions who all enjoyed a good laugh at my expense. Sometimes you're cool, sometimes you're the fool.

The best portion of our trip today was probably the last 60 miles along the Lake Michigan shoreline dotted with cottages and spectacular lake homes to Escanaba, MI. We checked into our hotel, and had to thaw out the air conditioner condenser due to the high humidity in the room, and enjoyed an excellent supper at the hotel restaurant. Tomorrow, we're off to Canada, Eh!

Well, it's midnight AGAIN my friends, so I'll sign off. Until tomorrow, I remain your faithful scribe, John "The Horck" Vander Horck