Minninsota August 3, 2002

Riding from South Dakota through Minnesota was plane boring after what we had seen in the previous part of the trip. North Central SD is just plain empty, not much of anything, not even any Antalope. The eastern part of SD is farming, and so is MN, at least the central part. The rain started about 11:00 and continued all night. We stopped in St. Cloud about 2:30 and got a motel. At times the rain came down at 2” per hour. Not much fun riding in that kind of weather. So we waited it out until Monday and left St. Cloud in great weather, 70 to 72 deg all day. Quite a difference! I did not take any pictures in MN or so far in WI. So as all you get is this text. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow.

Ashland, Wi

Monday we left Ashland, WI which is close to the border of upper Michigan heading east on Hwy. 2. There is not much to see all the way across except trees and some times Lake Superior.

Tahouamenon Falls

Whitefish Pt. was very interesting, or at least the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum was. There has been 6000 shipwrecks on the Great Lakes since the 1850’s, one of the latest and the largest was Fitzgareld in 1975. All twenty nine crew members died in one of the worst storms in recent history 100+MPH winds and waves 30 ft. high. The Fitzgareld was fully loaded and riding low in the water.

Tonight August 7th we are staying in Paradise, MI only 11 miles from Whitefish Pt. Tomorrow we will head south then east to Sue Saint Marie, but instead of going on into Canada and around Lake Huron we have decided to go south across the Macinaw Bridge and follow the east cost of lower Michigan south.

We will follow I75 South to Lexington, KY to meet the friends we were suppose to meet in NY two weeks form now we are a little ahead of schedule. We will ride back up to NY with them when they get off work.