Quiet little drinking village with a fishing problem

If you are from South Africa, think Fish Hoek or Simon’s Town, North America, Corpus Christi or Sarasota. St Ignace, Michigan was a nice surprise. Loads of hotels and motels right on the beach, place to walk next to the water, parks, marina, harbor, some really nice restaurants and pubs. This would be a great alternative summer beach break much closer to home than the ocean.

Once I’d settled in the room at the Village Inn, and showered away the grime of the day I decided to take a short ride through the town, naked, in a manner of speaking. Well my head was naked and it was the least amount of clothing I have ever worn to ride my bike, short trousers, short sleeve shirt, and running shoes. My usual attire is jeans (I don’t wear chaps, but I’ll talk about that on another post), boots, mesh biking jacket, leather gauntlets and a modular full face helmet. It was late afternoon and still pretty hot and humid, helmets are not required in Michigan and I’d seen plenty of other bikers wearing less, particularly the women, spaghetti straps, miniskirts and sandals were not uncommon. At first I feel very vulnerable and nothing sounds quite right, does changing gears really sound that loud? With the wind in my bald patch, I start to relax and feel a bit Dennis Hopper, bad ass and free, but although it was fun, I was relieved to park the bike without having fallen off. Tempting fate is not recommend and coming off at any speed without proper gear can only be a lot more painful than necessary. As an aside, I have heard that the states that allow biking without helmets do so because it is considered cheaper and better for society to have a biker, post-accident, to be known as an organ donor rather than disabled. Cynical… perhaps.

 Yours truly , feeling Dennis Hopper, looking more Jack Nicholson 

Dinner is on a patio overlooking the lake – spicy blackened lake whitefish, a wonderful salad and potato wedges, washed down with a couple of pints of Blue Moon wheat beer. The Star Line ferry boats shooting plumes of water make quite a sight. I noticed that the flag is flying half-mast and enquire at the Star Line Ferry ticket office, “Lieutenant Governor passed.” Man these Yankees are proper!  

Not my picture, I couldn't seem to get the plume in the picture 

 I spend a comfortable night at the Village Inn, the room is bright, fresh and newly renovated and leave in the morning after breakfasting on fresh warm muffins and coffee. The coffee could have been stronger, but here in North America the folks seem to be happy with monkey’s piss rather than coffee, I deal with it.

No arguments from me, especially the chewing (chewing comes with spitting!)

First stop is gas. I suppose that I am a little paranoid, but I don’t like to go far when the fuel indicator shows two bars (full equals 5 bars empty is 0 bars) and now it displayed only one bar. It’s not a terribly accurate fuel gauge, but it is a whole lot better than nothing. Helena’s Harley Davidson has no fuel gauge at all, now that would engage my paranoia big time and I would become, with gas stations, as my dickey prostate has made me with public washrooms, never pass one un-visited. Tank full, five bars showing and I hit the road, Lake Huron on my left as it has been since Owen Sound. Over the Mackinac Bridge, just awesome… I mentioned I like bridges, especially suspension bridges, this one is a duzie.  

Also not my picture - great bridge though

Through Mackinaw City (City? Really...more like teeny village), pick up Highway 23 and follow the lakeshore going east. It’s a great ride, pavement in excellent condition, paved shoulders and not too much traffic. I’ve worked out a reasonable system for translating KPH to MPH that does not involve too much mental arithmetic - the advent of calculators just as I was becoming an accountant put an abrupt end to the development of that particular skill. The system works like this, 50 MPH is equal to 80 KPH, so 55 MPH is about 90, 60 is 100, 70 is therefore 115. On the slower scale if 50 MPH is 80 KPH, then 25 MPH must be 40 KPH, 30 is about 50 and 35 is about 60. That pretty much covers the range, except of course that nobody gives a rat’s ass for the limits, and traffic speed is generally at least 20 KPH over the limit, except inside the towns. I travel through lots of forest on my right, but there seems to be a good deal of housing between the road the lake, holiday cottages, mile after, mile after, mile of them.

This leads me to a short Chautauqua – the cottage discussion. When I was growing up we had a saying, “do not cut a stick for your own ass.” (It worked better in Afrikaans, “Moenie ‘n riet vir jou eie gat pluck nie.”) I suspect that buying a cottage is a terribly romantic idea, but is ultimately the equivalent of cutting the proverbial stick for your own ass. Some Torontonians take this concept to heart… throughout the summer every Friday evenings they sit in traffic jams for hours crawling their way to the cottage, where they spend half the weekend fixing shit and mowing, then another traffic jam all the way home on Sunday. Now these particular cottages, next to Lake Huron, are wedged between the lake (wonderful) and highway 23 where trucks, cars and assholes on noisy bikes are zooming past at 110 KMH. Anyway, I think cottages are for people that can’t ride motorcycles.

Lunch at Rogers City, a little early, but the muffins don’t last as well as I had hoped.  Hamburger at the Harbor Café – kiosk really, Rogers City does not make that much of the waterfront, but the food is okay and I don’t stop for long. Main thing is to be able to see the lake when I eat… growing really fond of this piece of water.    

Water lilies in the marina. 

After lunch the day starts to drag a bit, day three and I am feeling tired, a little lonely and damn, my ass hurts, saddle sore is not just for cowboys. It’s not just my ass, my right hand on the throttle gets so numb I completely lose any feel…not good. Endless green and the road is way too straight, I start to   lose concentration, you may think that it’s not possible to fall asleep riding a bike, believe me, it is entirely possible. I stop and drink both cans of Red Bull that have been in my saddle bags from the very beginning, essential supplies on any long ride.

I’d sort of planned to stop for the night at Bay City, it seems a nice small city, bit like Newmarket where I live, lovely old city centre, but with garish periphery of strip malls with the template shops you find in every town in North America, Walmart, McDonalds, Home Depot, Crysler/Ford/GM, etc. etc. – there really is ‘nothing new under the sun’. (Ecclesiastes 1:4-11). I decide not to stop and push on, now on highway 25, looking for another St. Ignace.

The road leaves the lake shore and I pass through farmlands, pretty much the same sort of landscape I ride through on my Saturday and Sunday rides. Jedi like, I feel the presence of the lake a few miles away to my left, but for many miles I don’t even get a glimpse of it. It’s getting late and I’m getting tired, but I don’t see anywhere to spend the night. Finally I reach Caseville and the Rainbow Motel. Another great find.