The Curse

Short travel days are cursed. This one, anyway.

We had a whopping 80 miles to travel today, from the middle of nowhere to just south of the Mackinac Bridge. We were so looking forward to taking our time, enjoying the drive and arriving at our destination by noon.

We can dream, can't we?

To arrive by noon we needed to leave between 10 and 11 this morning. And, we were ready to do that, basically. But, we had to dump. And, we forgot. Today is Sunday.

Sunday morning at a dump station at a campground with no hookups is some kind of parade. We've watched them plenty of times, and been a float in a parade a time or two. But, like I said, we forgot. So, when we were ready to go this morning we didn't go far. We got in line.

We met some nice people while in line to dump. A lovely family of four has about two weeks left of their year on the road. So, they saved exploring the Upper Peninsula of their home state for last. What an adventure for their two school-age children! They heard our story and were admittedly jealous of our fulltime lifestyle. We just can't imagine being two weeks away from having to go back to life in a sticks and bricks...and work.

With our waste tanks emptied we finally hit the road. But, we didn't go far. Just a few miles down the road our tow setup gave us a warning. Something was up. We pulled over and sussed it out. The left light on the back of the Jeep wasn't cooperating. We struggled with this, that and the other thing in the humidity. Finally, we had contact. We think we might have a pigtail that's about to bite the dust, but who knows. All we know is it was quiet the rest of the trip. Thank God!

As we brushed the northern coast of Lake Michigan the winds were whipping. Anytime you see high surf on a lake, that's windy! Paul did a great job of keeping the moose on the straight and narrow, but it was basically a white knuckle day.

We looked forward to our exit to the Mackinac Bridge, which turned out to be a parking lot. With flashbacks to many a Sunday night return to the Bay Area, we steadied ourselved to deal with the stop and go. (It's been awhile!) With just a couple of cars between us and the toll gate, a passenger in the lane to our left got Paul's attention.

"Sir, your compartment door is open," the helpful passenger warned.

"Thank you" was his reply. "Shit!" was mine.

One of the 20 or so things we had checked out in Forest City was the fit to our bay doors. Supposedly they checked them all out. Interestingly enough, this one, which has never given us a bit of trouble, has been a bit of a pain since we left Forest City. Once we passed through the toll gate, we pulled over and I beat the damn door into submission.

With our doors secure, for the time being, we made our way across the windy span. We took our spot in the truck lane and Paul braced the moose against the steady crosswind. As we passed the mammoth uprights, they blocked the wind momentarily and nearly sent us into the side. We took maybe three or four collective breaths during that wild four-mile ride.

Minutes later, we were safely parked and setup in our tidy pull-thru at the Mackinaw City KOA. We'd only been on the road a couple of hours, but it felt like several days. Between waiting in line, messing with our tow setup and bay doors and fighting fierce winds, we were pretty much toast. Paul pulled the bikes off the back and we rode into town.

That little ride turned out to be the best part of this "short" travel day.