The last year was eventful. We have not been riding much since Julie broke her shoulder last year and had wrist surgery this year. (A fact reflected in our lower motorcycle insurance rates this year…) The former forced an 11-week hiatus and the latter forced me out of the saddle for 27 WEEKS. That was rough. I started riding the purple girl again for the first couple of months and then graduated to Sheila. Sheila was also in the shop for 6 months getting some ergonomic improvements: lower and more forward foot pegs and a handlebar that comes back further, which required custom cables and cable extensions.
I wasn’t planning to go on this trip with Jaron at first. He had annual leave to burn, but since I couldn’t even open a jar I figured I’d wait and use my more limited PTO when I was more capable. But after working two weekends in a row and getting a graduation plan from OT, I decided I had to try and train up. Jaron said he was never trying to go on a solo trip. If my hand hurts and I need to take a break for a couple of days and come home, then that’s what I’ll do.
So Jaron’s idea for a trip was to go to the Michigan Upper Peninsula. I got in the planning game late but still managed to read/skim 8 books: Best Tent Camping (Ohio, Wisc, Mich), and Scenic Driving (Wisc, Mich), and Backroads & Byways (Ohio, Wisc, Mich). I mapped out the scenic drives. I really love this book series, and it’s going out of print. Guess I’ll have to pick them all up for my library. 🤷🏻♀️
Backroads & Byways has good restaurant and lodging (and ice cream) recommendations. I didn’t really READ read them, I just skipped to the end of each chapter and saved them to my google maps. (Their drives are not very scenic IMO.) Because they focus on unique attractions, lodging and dining, unfortunately a LOT of the locations were either temporarily or permanently closed. And these books are not that old – maybe 2018 at the oldest. The pandemic has been hard. I saved those locations anyway, maybe they will open again in the future.
I disassembled our helmets in order to wash the liners and cheek pads before we spent the next 2 weeks in them. Dude, they REALLY needed it. Putting it all back together reminded me why I only do this every couple of years.
After a stop at REI for a proper camping coffee maker, we were off!
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