Ripshod
06-15-2008, 09:15 AM
My riding buddy and I take a yearly two week trip in August. For the last 4 years we've gone to see a friend in Maine, sometimes through Canada, always taking in as much of the northeast as possible. This year we plan to take in Michigan's U.P. instead.
This year we'll be doing about 3500 miles in 16 days. The Aerostich rally (http://www.boringrally.com/) in Duluth just happened to coincide with our plans so we made that our destination and the only place we'll be pitching tent for more than one night. We've pretty much perfected our own riding style. No big hurry. 200 to 300 mile days are just fine with us, and no slab allowed. We camp when we can, but we do it because we like it, not because we have to. The way we see it, we're grownups with credit cards so if we've ridden in rain all day and face the prospect of pitching our tents in the rain, there's no shame in getting a room.
Our first night destination is Brown County, IN. Sort of poetic, don't ya think, Nashville, TN to Nashville, IN? We haven't picked a campground yet but the area is full of them and we're open to suggestions. The second night is still up in the air. We'd like to find a good place to camp near the MI/IN border, maybe near Elkhart. And who knew there was a Sturgis, Michigan? That would be another destination that's fun to mention. Any suggestions of a good place to pitch tent in that area?
Many thanks to Crazymactech for the link to Cycle-Moore in Interlochen (http://www.cycle-moore.com/) in another thread. My buddy has family to visit in Traverse city so that'll work out fine. We have lots of MC campgrounds here in the East TN/Western NC area but most are too close to home to make it practical to camp there so I'm always thrilled to find one in another part of the country.
We plan to stay at Cycle-Moore on a Monday night. The campground for the rally opens at 10:00 Thursday morning. We'd like to find a good camping spot about an hour or so east of Duluth on Wed. night so we can get there early and pick a good spot. We can't win the 'Coolest Campsite' award if we're wedged into a crappy sloped sliver of dirt now, can we?
So as of Tuesday morning we'll have two riding days to go about 550 miles (or more, including detours for sightseeing). After crossing the Mackinac onto the U.P. we'll be looking for the scenic routes and a good place to camp that night, then more good routes and another campsite on Wednesday, close enough to Duluth to make for a quick trip to the rally check-in. Any suggestions about where to ride/camp the U.P. would help us out a lot.
After the rally we'll be heading west to Bemidji to jump across the Mississippi River, then we'll have 6 days to meander down the Mississip to Memphis or thereabouts before heading east for home. We always like to leave the return trip unscheduled but if we're armed with lots of good info it makes it that much more interesting. My buddy has bought Alton Brown's book about eating his way down the river but I hope to get lots of pointers from the non-celebrities here.
Sorry this post is so long, but in case you haven't already figured it out, we get pretty obsessed with anticipation about this time of year. The planning is almost as fun as the doing. Thanks for the help!
This year we'll be doing about 3500 miles in 16 days. The Aerostich rally (http://www.boringrally.com/) in Duluth just happened to coincide with our plans so we made that our destination and the only place we'll be pitching tent for more than one night. We've pretty much perfected our own riding style. No big hurry. 200 to 300 mile days are just fine with us, and no slab allowed. We camp when we can, but we do it because we like it, not because we have to. The way we see it, we're grownups with credit cards so if we've ridden in rain all day and face the prospect of pitching our tents in the rain, there's no shame in getting a room.
Our first night destination is Brown County, IN. Sort of poetic, don't ya think, Nashville, TN to Nashville, IN? We haven't picked a campground yet but the area is full of them and we're open to suggestions. The second night is still up in the air. We'd like to find a good place to camp near the MI/IN border, maybe near Elkhart. And who knew there was a Sturgis, Michigan? That would be another destination that's fun to mention. Any suggestions of a good place to pitch tent in that area?
Many thanks to Crazymactech for the link to Cycle-Moore in Interlochen (http://www.cycle-moore.com/) in another thread. My buddy has family to visit in Traverse city so that'll work out fine. We have lots of MC campgrounds here in the East TN/Western NC area but most are too close to home to make it practical to camp there so I'm always thrilled to find one in another part of the country.
We plan to stay at Cycle-Moore on a Monday night. The campground for the rally opens at 10:00 Thursday morning. We'd like to find a good camping spot about an hour or so east of Duluth on Wed. night so we can get there early and pick a good spot. We can't win the 'Coolest Campsite' award if we're wedged into a crappy sloped sliver of dirt now, can we?
So as of Tuesday morning we'll have two riding days to go about 550 miles (or more, including detours for sightseeing). After crossing the Mackinac onto the U.P. we'll be looking for the scenic routes and a good place to camp that night, then more good routes and another campsite on Wednesday, close enough to Duluth to make for a quick trip to the rally check-in. Any suggestions about where to ride/camp the U.P. would help us out a lot.
After the rally we'll be heading west to Bemidji to jump across the Mississippi River, then we'll have 6 days to meander down the Mississip to Memphis or thereabouts before heading east for home. We always like to leave the return trip unscheduled but if we're armed with lots of good info it makes it that much more interesting. My buddy has bought Alton Brown's book about eating his way down the river but I hope to get lots of pointers from the non-celebrities here.
Sorry this post is so long, but in case you haven't already figured it out, we get pretty obsessed with anticipation about this time of year. The planning is almost as fun as the doing. Thanks for the help!