day 4

Rain, rain and hard wind! We traveled from Ashland to Mancelona, continuing to follow Hwy 2 and a planned eight hour drive which lasted twelve hours. It was cool and pretty good traveling until Iron Mountain, where we stopped for lunch. But from them on it was miserable. We’d looked forward to crossing the Mackinaw Bridge. But sadly the wind was blowing 45 mph and it was raining hard. Paul reports he was more frightened than he’d ever been on his bike. He’s worn out the front tire and he had to be careful to not ride on the metal grate. 20 mph was maximum speed, worrying that we would slip or blow over. As we turned south to go to Mancelona, we missed a turn and continued following Lake Michigan further than we should have and added more miles than we’d figured. It was good to finally get to Walter and Lori’s home. Paul will go to the Ann Arbor area to a BMW dealership to purchase and have a new tire put on and I’ll go to Hillsdale and visit our nephew Reed and my oldest brother’s widow, Marilyn. Paul and I will meet up in Ohio and continue on.