On a wing, a prayer and a new tire

I have had many people ask me if, on my big trip, I've had any close calls with other vehicles. Until today the answer had always been no.

I started late today, finished early, so in some ways it wasn't a very good day. The fact that I am once again, sitting with the I-Pad, typing with my typing finger means that, in other ways, it was a very, very good day.

The reason for the late start was that I finally wore down my front tire to the point that I did not want to ride further without having it replaced. The H-D dealer did not open until 10, so I slept in, ate a complete breakfast, watched the news reports coming out of Minnesota and Dallas (how very sad), then packed up my gear. I thanked Judy at the front desk of the Bay City Fairfield Inn one more time for moving a bench and insisting that I park under the front canopy because the weather was not supposed to be very good overnight (if Judy ever wants to change occupations she has a future as a weather expert). I then rode only a few blocks to one of the few Harley dealers this far north in Michigan, Great Lakes Harley, and talked to Pat, the service manager. I told him I had 2 questions:

Do you have a new tire that will fit the front end of a 2012 Harley Fat Boy (that's the model of my bike, I wasn't trying to insult the young man)?

Can you mount it quickly and get me back on the road?

Yes and yes were his greatly appreciated responses.

By the way, while there I did confirm that Bay City is the home town of both the Bay City Rollers (which I have just debunked on Wikipedia, the Bay City Rollers were from Scotland and got their name by throwing a dart at a map of the U.S., narrowly missing Intercourse, Pennsylvania), and Madonna (confirmed, she got the idea for her iconic costume from two grain silos outside of town).

In almost exactly one hour I was on the road again, heading north on U.S. 13.

Somewhere around Standish, Michigan it happened. By the way, don't you hate it when people answer a question with a question? What do you mean, what do I mean? I kept asking people directions, "where's Standish?" and they'd ask "Myles?". Of course miles, why would I want the answer in kilometers?

The road coming into town was two lanes in each direction with a center turn lane. There was a pick-up truck going the speed limit in the right hand lane and I was going about the same speed in the left hand lane, hanging back a little bit so I wasn't in his blind spot. Apparently the pick-up decided to turn into a parking lot on the right and turned his turn signal on. I say "apparently" because I did not see it but I can think of no other reason that a car would pull out in front of him, intending to turn into the turn lane, going in the opposite direction of what we were headed. I was suddenly passing the pick-up as he decelerated and was very surprised when the front fender of a dull red '80s Dodge or Chrysler product emerged from in front of the pick-up and moved into my lane. I was going about 45 mph (the speed limit) and had very little time to react. I grabbed a full hand of front brake, stood on the rear brake and down-shifted, all while instinctively veering left into the turn lane. The normal driver of an auto, when pulling into traffic, would have turned his attention to the on-coming traffic from his right to be sure the turn lane was vacant and available for them to pull into it. 

Luckily, the driver of this car (I did not see if they were male or female) did not do this or they never would have seen me as I crashed into the drivers door with a half ton of force moving in excess of 30 miles per hour upon impact. My soon-to-be-lifeless body would have either gone through the window or flown over the top of the car, or both.

Also luckily for me, the driver saw me and did a non-intuitive move. While braking hard they turned the wheel to the left, causing the car to slide into a position straddling the lane divider line (but still mostly in my lane), facing on-coming traffic. This allowed me just enough room to miss their car, then straighten up and get back into my lane, continuing on my way as I looked for a restroom to clean myself up.

Around 1 p.m. I was coming into Oscoda, Mi, when I saw a large group of motorcycles gathered in the parking lot of a park on the right (maybe 50 - 100 bikes!). A little further into town I saw a digital reader board that said "Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans". I don't know if the two were connected or not. I stopped to eat at a local eatery, The Brick Oven, and when I came out, rode back to the highway to continue north. As I pulled up to the intersection to turn left a policeman stepped out into traffic and halted cars in both direction while a long, long line of cycles, many carrying American and/or POW/MIA flags, rolled through the intersection and around the left turn, directly in front of me. It was pretty cool. I never thought to take a picture though.

As I continued north on highway 23, the sky grew quite dark. There was a small patch of blue to the left, not sky blue but almost turquoise like a lake, and from it were dark clouds extending in rays with a whisp of gray down the center of each ray. It looked as if someone painted a darkly colored Maple Leaf in the sky. That part was pretty neat, but the lightning all across the sky ahead of me was not very inviting. I stopped at a gas station in Somewhere, Mi (about 12 miles south of Alpena) to put my rain suit on and talked to a nice couple from Columbus, Oh. about my trip. Just as we were finishing our talk it began to sprinkle. By the time I walked from the street to the store, I was quite wet. Thinking it might blow over (bringing back memories of a fishing trip from my childhood,again) I took a break. 

It started to lighten up so I headed north. Instead of ceasing it was the calm before the storm. I rode 12 miles through rain, hail and puddles, then grabbed the first motel I could find. It was only about 3 p.m. but it looked like it would get much wetter before it got much drier. I had to bring Spuddy Buddy in and give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to keep him from drowning.

Once again, you can't tell from this how hard it was raining, but I stood in about 4" of water to take this

So I "called it", as Andy would say. This day was done and, although it looked briefly contrary, I'll live to ride another day.

taken at 5:30, I was afraid that would happen