It seems every year around this time I begin to have reservations. You know: for campsites.

Scouting out the state parks’ online reservation system, I can see that some of the more popular campgrounds are already starting to get reserved up. Since I have the vacation time approved, there’s little reason to hesitate about making my own reservations.

The only arguments for waiting are 1) it means spending the money now instead of some later date, and 2) something could happen between now and later that would require me to cancel the trip. But despite money being tight due to the past year having a lot of unexpected expenses, I can come up with the couple hundred bucks that I’ll be spending on camping. And I worry too much about “what if”. So I’ve committed.

It turns out that I’ll only be staying in state parks 4 out of the 7 nights I’ll be on the road. That’s Mitchell SP (Cadillac) and Petoskey SP on the way up the Lower Peninsula, Tahquamenon SP at the northern end of the ride in the UP, and Clear Lake SP on the way back down through the LP.

The first two are what I think of as “suburban state parks”: located just outside of small cities; these are the ones that were starting to get reserved already, presumably by families taking the RV out for a week or weekend by the lake. The last one is similar, but without a nearby city. My goal with these reservations was to make sure I got sites that would be to my liking: a little out of the way, hopefully trees, suitable for pitching a tent… electrical hookups and ease of parking an RV, not so important.

Tahquamenon SP is more of a “tourist state park”: people go there to see the Falls. I’ve camped there once before, as a stop on the way to my first visit to Isle Royale, 10 years ago. On that visit, I selected the most rustic campground in the park; I was getting ready for a week in the wilderness, after all. This time I opted for a site at one of the campgrounds closer to the Falls themselves… more touristy, but the site I picked was described as “unlevel”, “elevated”, and “no camping pad”, all of which sounds simultaneously bad for an RV and attractive to me.

The three non-state-park nights are all going to be at “forests”. These are usually more rustic than state parks, without electric hook-ups and often without plumbing. The first is DeTour State Forest, on my first night in the UP. They don’t do reservations. The second (on my last night in the UP) is Brevort Lake, which is part of the ubiquitous Hiawatha National Forest; I’ll have to reserve that separately. (I considered staying again at nearby Straits State Park, which has a great view of the Mackinac Bridge, but decided I’d been-there and done-that a few years ago.) The last is Black Creek State Forest near Midland, which I selected almost entirely for its location on my route home. They don’t do reservations either.

At the state parks, I tend to stick out as an oddball, because I’m traveling by scooter (instead of an RV), visiting solo, and sleeping in a tent. At the forests, I tend to stick out as an oddball, because I’m traveling by scooter (instead of a truck or car), and not fishing or hunting. I never really fit in anywhere. But that’s what it means to be me.

I’ve upgraded my photo equipment a bit this year. It’s been kind of a one-step-back-two-steps-forward thing.

The camera I brought on last year’s ride was actually a little bit of a downgrade from the year before. My newest camera (an Olympus SP570) had been ripped off, so I was faced with the decision of whether to replace it, or go back to my older Olympus SP500, which I’d kept as a backup. My itinerary for 2011 didn’t feature the same kind of photo ops as the lakeshore rides of the previous two years’ rides, and money’s been a bit tight, so I just used the older camera.

Well, I’ve saved a little money, the ride I’m planning for this year is a bit more photogenic, and it’s been another year for camera tech to evolve. It’s time to buy a new one.

I’m rather picky about my cameras. I bought a few of them when I was a teenager, until I found a 35mm film camera I was happy with: the Pentax ME Super. If it weren’t for the advantages of digital cameras, I’d probably still be using it. But as digital cameras have improved, I’ve tried to find one that duplicates the features of the ME Super. That’s impossible (in part because the ME Super could still be used even when the battery was dead), but digitals are getting closer. Still, there are few things I demand.

The first essential feature is either interchangeable lenses and/or optical zoom (like my 35mm camera had). “Digital zoom” is a lie, and a single fixed-focal lens is just too limiting. Even my first pocket digital had a 3X optical zoom, the equivalent of a 30-90mm with 35mm film. The SP500 was designed for more serious photographers: it has a 10X zoom (equivalent to 36-360mm), and the SP570 had a 20X zoom (26–520mm), tantalizingly close to the standard set by my 35mm kit, which included 24mm and 500mm lenses. (28mm was always the standard “wide” lens in the film era, but I always found that just a little cramped when taking landscapes.)

The second must-have feature for me is manual focus. Autofocus cameras always sucked in the film era, and I never understood the appeal. My first digital camera (like almost all of them), was autofocus-only, and I found it frustrating. I’d try taking a picture of a flower off-center a little with a field in the background… and only the background would be focused. Grrrr. The SP500 had a feature that sold me on it: a manual focus option. It’s an awkward system, controlled by two inconveniently placed buttons, and it’s badly handicapped by the low-res viewfinder. But it worked. The SP570 improved on that (and convinced me to upgrade) by using a ring around the lens to control zoom and manual focus instead of buttons. It was still done by little motors, so the zoom and focus lagged, but it was more like an SLR.

OK, so why not… a digital SLR? Three reasons: the price, the size, and the price. Just a DSLR camera body with a 3X zoom lens costs several hundred bucks. Equipping it with lenses comparable to my old 35mm kit would add even more. (Did I mention that money is tight?) Also, DSLRs are kinda big, especially with the additional lenses. So the last couple cameras I’ve bought, and the one I went shopping for this time, were “bridge” cameras, that incorporate features normally found in DSLRs into a camera with a non-interchangeable lens and a digital viewfinder.

I’ve liked the Olympus cameras, but this time the winner of my search was the Fujifilm Finepix HS20 EXR. As far as I can tell, it’s the most SLR-like digital camera today that isn’t an SLR. The lens zooms from 24-720mm (30X)… a bit ridiculous, to be honest, and it affects image quality, but I’ll take it. I finally have a digital that matches the wide angle of my old film gear. This machine improves upon the manual-focus/zoom ring of the last camera by including one ring for each. The zoom ring is nice and big…. and actually mechanically zooms the lens! It’s a little stiff at the far end of the range, but it responds directly and instantly to every twist of the ring. The manual focus is still servo-driven, and also suffers from a digital viewfinder that isn’t as sharp as an SLR’s focus screen, but since the only way to get around that is to invest in a DSLR…. I’ll settle for it. Especially since I managed to find a used one for under $300.

The bad news is that when I say that the HS20 is a lot like a DSLR, that also applies to the size and weight. It dwarfs either of the Olympus bridge cameras, especially the older 10X one, and especially with the zoom extended. If it had been up to me to design it, I would’ve gone with a more modest 24-480mm zoom range and kept the package smaller. But this is the combination of features that’s available; there is no camera that matches perfectly what I’d like. It’s an exercise in compromise, but I think I’m going to like it.

When l last checked in, I was having a bad day… make that a bad week. The Big Ride for 2011 had just ended prematurely on a down note, and I was in no mood for chit-chat.

Fast-forward four months.

The scootering season in Michigan has all but come to an end. The roads here are mostly clear and dry today, but there have been a few days already when they were covered in ice or slush, and I’ll probably be bringing the scooter indoors for hibernation before long. So naturally, I’m starting to make plans for next year.

When I had to skip the last few days of my ride across the Wrist of Michigan back in August, I briefly considered replacing my tent and finishing the ride over a weekend in September. What stopped me was my spine. No, not my lack thereof, but some complications from the surgery I had back in April, to fix a pinched nerve at the base of my neck. The nerve was getting irritated, which meant similar symptoms coming back. While this didn’t prevent me from continuing with most regular activities, I had to be more careful about how I slept, which meant that sleeping on the ground in a tent was not a good idea.

I’m doing better now, thanks, and by the time traveling weather rolls around next year I expect to be fit for camping. And finishing the Wrist ride would be a good way to confirm that, and to give a new tent a shake-down cruise. I only missed two camp sites on the 2011 itinerary (Pokagon State Park in NE Indiana, and VanBuren State Park on Lake Michigan), so I can ride out from GR, pick up the route around where I left it, and complete the trip in three days. A long weekend. I’m thinking of doing it in mid-May, beating the Memorial Day crowds.

If all goes well, that will clear the way for the next Big Ride. I have two options to choose from: A) crossing Lake Michigan to Wisconsin, touring the western UP, and returning; and B) riding up through the northern LP, taking in the eastern UP, and returning by a different route through the LP.

I think I’m going with option B for next year. Mostly because it’d be a shorter and easier ride. Yeah, I’m getting cautious and practical in my old age. But I’m also getting ambitious. Let me explain:

If I’m going to ride through the western UP, I’m going to the Keweenaw Peninsula. It’s part of the territory, and it’s oh-so-worth-it. If I go into the Keweenaw Peninsula, I’m going all the way to Copper Harbor. Because I’ve done it by car, and it’s a great ride. And if I’m in Copper Harbor, I’m sure as hell going to get on a ferry and go to Isle Royale, one of my favorite places on the planet, where I stayed for 10 days last time I was there. Now, I’m not going to try to work in a 10-day backpacking trip in the middle of a scooter ride, but the point is that a ride to that part of the state is going to require more than just the time it takes to get there and back. I’d really want to make a two-week trip out of it. So for 2012 I’m going to go with the ride that I can do in “only” a week.

So the rough outline of the 2012 ride is as follows: riding north from Grand Rapids through northwest lower Michigan to Mackinac, across the Straits then eastward to Detour (at the tip of the UP) and north to Sault Ste Marie and the Soo Locks, to Tahquamenon Falls, down through the eastern UP to Mackinac, then southward through northeast lower Michigan, and back to GR. I have some tentative selections of where to stay, which would work out to a 7-night/8-day ride. But that’s best saved for another day.

As before, I brought two cameras on this trip: the iPhone, primarily for taking pictures for the blog, and my “real” camera, an Olympus with an optical zoom lens, etc. for the better pictures: the nature shots, the ones that require zooming in, and so on. Only one of cameras worked properly: the iPhone.

The Olympus glitched yesterday afternoon and briefly showed the memory card as blank. I restarted the camera, and the pictures were back, but I switched memory cards, just to be safe. Well, now I can’t read the first memory card at all, either in the camera, or with my computer. Looks like those pictures are gone. This isn’t as heartbreaking as it would have been to lose my “good” pictures from the previous years’ two trips. Those trips were more about going to scenic and photogenic places, where I took hundreds of pictures instead of the maybe 100 that I lost on this trip. But it’s still really frustrating. At least I still have the few dozen photos I took with the iPhone, and a handful that I took on the second memory card, today.

Perhaps what’s saddest is the fact that this sort of thing just doesn’t surprise me any more. I never expect it to happen, I hope for things to work out. But they don’t.

UPDATE: I’ve managed to recover some of the files from the zapped memory card. Most of them have errors/garbage in the recovered files, so they aren’t very usable, except for reminding me of what they were images of.

And I’m home. A bit of construction/rush hour mess in the last few miles into home, and the gas tank is sitting at E again, but I made it. The house is as it was. Which might be a good project for the next couple days.

I left M50 at Lake Odessa. It had served me well as an easy to follow, good condition, fairly low-traffic route homeward, but I no longer needed it. I consulted my map software one last time, and a made a mental note of the handful of county-level roads I’d need to get me to Saranac.

I know my way home from Saranac. I’ve been here several times, just on bored weekend afternoon rides. I’m not home just yet; I have another 25 miles to go. But from a scootering perspective, it’s in my neighborhood. It’s like arriving at your city’s airport; all that’s left is the familiar route to your house.

I wonder what’s for supper?

This section of M50 has made the SE Michigan section look like an LA highway at rush hour by comparison. It hasn’t quite been deserted, but aside from lacking the country-road charm of Springport Drive, it’s been fine. (It also lacks the will-it-run-into-a-dirt-road “charm” of those country roads too.)

I neglected to fill up before leaving Jackson, which led to a little anxiety as the road stretched on. I didn’t have to tap into the reserve fuel, but I managed to put a record 1.294 gallons in the tank when I got to Eaton Rapids.

I also neglected to go potty after lunch, which is the primary reason I’ve stopped at a public park in Charlotte.

I made the mistake of going into downtown Jackson, since it was more direct than going around, and it seemed a reasonably good place to get lunch. It’s not that kind of downtown: too big a city. Just lots of one-way streets and traffic and frustration. At least half an hour wasted.

I finally just figured out which way was northwest, got myself on a road heading that way (stop and go traffic) and finally made it past the airport and over I-94. And there was a good place for lunch: Hudson’s Classic Grill, kind of a slightly upscale burger joint with car parts, a stuffed deer, and a tractor hanging from the ceiling.

Google Maps puts me 90 miles from home by the most direct route. That includes a long stretch on M50, which I have doubts about. That’s what I took out of Monroe, and it wasn’t bad, but… as a rule: beware of roads whose name starts with a letter and ends with a number. They’re fine as long as traffic is light enough that there aren’t cars and trucks pulling up behind you every couple minutes, and those that do pull up have a chance to pass quickly. But if not, you wind up with a bunch of angry drivers – some of whom are also complete morons – piled up behind you. Fortunately there are some other roads with better names that branch off M50 for long stretches in that direction, so I think they’ll work. I won’t be home before supper, but still plenty of time before dark.

Stopped at a stop sign. “Skiff Lake” sounds very familiar. I just figured out why. I remember this sign for Skiff Lake Bible Church, congratulating Tim and Josie on their wedding. Just the other day I passed this same intersection going east (not north) and with the right of way (not stopping). I saw the same sign, thinking “I wonder if they’d be as happy if it were Tim and José “becoming one”…?

Even though I was already stopped, and got off the bike to snap a picture, I didn’t change the sign. It was locked.

Not that I checked.

No, not those Two Towers. Not the other Two Towers, either. I’ve stopped at the other Two Towers, of the Irish Hills area. I was considering coming by here on today’s trip, but it was detouring a bit north of my destination. But with my new plans, it’s right on the way. Which is good, I guess, because they aren’t all that impressive. They probably offer a good view from the top, but they’re closed to that now. Too run-down, I’d guess.

I just hit all 1s on the odometer, just east of Britton MI. To be a complete geek, I tried to go an extra 58 feet and 8 inches past 11,111.1, so that it would be 11.1(repeating) kilomiles.

I slept OK… at least comfortably last night. I woke around 7 again, and with less to do and less incentive to loiter, I’m ready to go an hour earlier than usual: about 8.

The scooter’s still there. I’ve never left it in a parking lot overnight before.

There’s a line of rain showers coming across Lake Michigan. If I stay south enough it might miss me. Since staying south was the original plan, I’ll sort of follow that route, at least until the rain passes or it just makes more sense to turn northwestward toward home, regardless. I have rain gear and/or I can find a place to wait for it to pass.

I have a few stops planned along the way, and 160 miles or so shouldn’t require excessive time in the saddle. I’ve gone further in a day, and I’ve done close to that a few times.

OK, a little more tine to reflect on the missing tent. I still can’t decide which is the more likely explanation for its disappearance: neither falling off nor being taken off seems probable. But as my old friend Sherlock Holmes used to say: once you eliminate the impossible (e.g. spontaneous evaporation, or, I sold it for crack), whatever remains – no matter how improbable – must be true.

I’d just finished an ode to the tent, saying how much I liked it (except for its limited headroom) and bragged about it to my lunch companions (which is how I’m sure it was on the bike then). It was a good tent. But as I’d also noted, it was showing its age. One thing I am resolved about: it WILL be replaced. This has NOT been my last scooter road trip, nor was my latest backpacking trip a few years ago my last. I will require another tent.

I also require sleep. And this motel room will just have to suffice for that… tonight.

After checking in to the Motel 6 {sigh} I rode in to Monroe itself for dinner. Of course I got lost right away. But I managed to find my way back to the designated Street Where Stores And Such Are Still In Business, and saw the place I needed to go for dinner. It said so on the sign: Beek’s Bar and Grille. For those who don’t know me from my early college years, that was my name then (sometimes extended to “Beeker”). One or two of you might know that I cohosted a college radio program called “Beeker & Rottin’s Bar & Grille”.

Combined with the fact that I needed both food and a drink, this was about as clear a sign as I needed. OK, it’s basically a sports bar, with little TVs at each table, and a row of them above the bar, and 2/3 of the patrons are wearing shirts with big numbers on the back. So it’s not exactly “my” kind of place. But they have Molson on tap, and a nice-sounding chicken Philly sandwich on the menu, so who cares what’s on the TV?

I’ve arrived at Sterling State Park and my tent is gone. I know I had it at lunch, so it must have either fallen off or been taken off at one of the various places I stopped for a while and left the bike out of my sight. For the tent to just slide off (bungeed/tied down) is pretty damn unlikely. but I never left it alone for very long either. Who knows.

At this point I just don’t know what to do. There just isn’t enough daylight left to get home from here. I guess I find a motel here and ride home tomorrow.

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