Day 23 - Ashland to Bruce Crossing

Greetings:  I packed up the car, left the Bayview Motel and headed east along US Hwy 2, east from Ashland, Wisconsin - toward Michigan.  Due to weather, lunch was served inside a Wisconsin Visitor Center - a place that was dry and had indoor toilets :)  Upper Michigan is known for its' many waterfalls - so when I saw a sign pointing toward one - I turned and headed down a narrow country road.  After about 3 miles of nothing (and no other signs) I turned around and headed back.  Along the side of the road were two deer - who were probably laughing at the tourist who had no clue where she was going.  My contribution to the wildlife update.

Our resting place - just south of Hwy 2 in the small town of Paulding.  You turn south at the town of Bruce Crossing - one gas station and one market.  I had to get a picture for my brother Bruce who lives in Hawaii. 

Patty on the road

Notes from Jerry:  Sorry for the "blackout".  We journeyed from Ashland, WI to a small place called Bruce Crossing in Michigan on Tuesday, 17 July and Patty found a cute little resort nearby that had little log cabins and wifi - only the wifi wasn't strong enough for the blog.  Patty and I loved the place with a cozy living room, two bedrooms and a full kitchen.  Tom thought the place was a little too "rustic".  Better yet, Patty had shopped for dinner and breakfast, so we grilled steaks and chicken and Patty cooked our own hearty breakfast the next morning.  Patty will definitely be sainted when we are done.

Talk about goofy weather, the other day when we rolled into Ashland, I said the temps were warm but not too bad, just windy.  Well within an hour or so of getting there in the afternoon the temps  soared up to 97 degrees and the wind stayed at a steady 25- 30 knots!!  This would rival Bakersfield or Palm Springs with a very dry hot wind!  The next morning we awoke to socked in low clouds, low 60's and mist that turned into light rain!  Just like riding in California June gloom (fog/ mist/ rain) next to the coast.  It just sucked!  We both went though several jerseys and Tom even swopped out his riding shorts, complaining that the moisture negated his Chamois Lube which is the only thing protecting our sensitive butts from disaster due to friction with the ever present bike saddle!

Tom saw what we deduced was a dead wolf next to the road which was really interesting, plus many crossing deer, one of which we had to slow down for because the deer was stopped in our path on the side of the road deciding when to cross.  When she saw us she didn't know what to think until we were about 60 ft away and then she really took off.  I had never seen white tailed deer (Loooong tail that is white underneath) before this trip and they are all over the place from ND on.

The upper peninsula of MI is very scenic and like you would expect from the North Woods, lots of beautiful lakes, mainly coniferous forrests with ferns, logging trucks and lots of little towns established in the 1880s for either lumbering or iron ore mining.  Tom and I finally figured out the great iron ore loading docks that we have seen in Duluth, Ashland and Marquette.  These docks are monstrous concrete structures going pretty far out into Lake Superior that have two sets of railroad tracks on top.  Near as we can figure, the trains dumped the ore into the middle of the concrete stucture which is elevated at least 2-3 stories high, the ore is then channeled into long chutes that are located all along the length of the dock and are attached at a pivot point half way down to the water that can be raised or lowered to allow the ore to flow to the ships.

Notes from Tom:  This day was not on my "faves" list.  The misty rain, after almost expiring from heat the evening before, made it quite uncomfortable.  It wasn't raining hard enough to put on the full "scuba gear" like we wore in Washington, but it was warm enough that we got wet either from the misty rain or from sweating inside our rain coats--we just couldn't win.  We rode 87 miles, so it wasn't that long of a ride, just not great conditions.

As Jerry said, I'm fairly certain we saw a dead gray wolf along the road.  It had a very large head and paws, and was the color of the gray wolf we had seen displayed at the visitor center in Ashland, but without the long winter fur.

We left Wisconsin and entered the U.P. of Michigan.  I'm sure glad we entered Pure Michigan--we wouldn't want to be in the impure part.  Michigan is our 7th state, with 4 states and a province left to go.  We'll be in Michigan 7 or 8 days since we'll go across the U.P. and then go south and cross into lower Michigan for a few days.