It Was The Best of Times, It Was The Worst of Times.

Day 2 - North Lima, OH to Sault St. Marie, MI was an interesting day, best described by Dickens.


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We started out running the slab through Ohio (for the unintiated - motorcycle riders call any superhighway riding "riding the slab" or "slabbing". ) Slab was a good word for it too. Reminds me of my old College days when I took a Classics course called "Word Elements". It was a class where you traced modern english words back to their Greek and Latin roots. I wonder where "slab" actually came from, being such a verbally descriptive word? Well that's where our new feature called "follower participation" comes in. How about one of you followers go research the roots of that word and post it back as a comment for us?

We trudged across Ohio in rain and wind and trucks. It sure seemed like the worst of times.

Too bad it wasn't.

After that we headed up I-75 and I-275 into lower Michigan. Ugh what an ugly place. My apologies to any readers that are from that area or currently live there... I am sure there are "nice parts", but we didn't see ANY of them. Bad weather, bad roads and loads of traffic jammed into a corridor that really could have used a good old fashioned bombing run.

But then things got better. As we headed north it turned to farm fields, an occasional idled oil well (who knew?) and then turned into more northern forest of evergreen and birch. All this and not a single picture from me because I had my camera stowed due to the weather. As we headed north it got very cold - down as low as 59 degrees. When we stopped for gas I put on a fleece and turn up the grip warmers. Who knew it was July?

One word of caution. If you ever cross the Mackinac Bridge - that beautiful three mile span that connects lower and upper Michigan - don't do it in the center lane. As you get to the windiest, highest part of the span the center lane turns into a steel grate roadway making motorcycles weave like drunken sailors. Add to that a car that cut me off after Blackie moved to the right lane and held me out there for most of the span and you have a recipe for one P.O.'ed P-Rock.

We ran across the U.P. and made it to Sault St Marie before 7pm where we enjoyed a leisurely dinner (at Applebees - this place really could use a PJ Whelihan's WINK WINK!).... then I crashed hard around 9:30 while Blackie posted up his message.

Here's my repaired overboot for all to see, the only picture of the day.

P-Rock - well rested.