In an impromptu (and desperately needed) move, I point the Nightowl west to gather photos to use as backdrops for a model railroad I plan to build.

The Basic Trip Plan

It has been way too long since my last serious ride.

I haven’t taken a Bike out for more than an extended weekend since 2023, when I rode the Nightowl down to Texas for the NMRA National Convention and came home from Texas via Arizona (made sense to me at the time).

Since then, we’ve been preoccupied with moving to a new home in 2024. In 2025, I was working a new job with no real paid vacation time, so all we did was ride out east to the MAMMARY run. My 2026 riding season has literally been a bunch of day rides, mostly running errands and taking a longer route home.

Since I started a new job in 2026, with a much better paid-time-off policy, I was finally able to set aside some time to spend a week on a bike. Having said that, other obligations have dictated that I finally get around to this at the end of the summer season. Still, better then skipping it for another year.

My premise for the trip is this: I’m planning a model railroad (a very geeky hobby to balance out the bad-assed biker hobby) that is based in western Montana. Now that technology allows for large photographic backdrops that you can place behind your model railroad, I need to go photograph the scenery around the towns I’m modeling to add some prototypical flair to the layout. All I have to do is get my ass out to Montana and ride around for a few days taking photos of the pertinent regions about every quarter- to half-mile down the track right-of-way (or some convenient place nearby).

This, and inviting myself over to my friend Chuck’s new house, which I haven’t seen yet, is all the excuse I need to point a bike west for 10 days.

Tearing Yourself Away Can Be Hard

I found it difficult to square away my work obligations, home obligations, landscaping obligations, appointment obligations, NMRA obligations, etc. in time to actually take this trip.

My normal modus operandi (operating mode) is to have everything ready to go and on the bike Thursday night, ride the bike to work on Friday, and leave on the trip directly from work. Now that I work from home, the same logic applies, there’s just a bigger opportunity to get out of town early.

Unless, of course, you have too much to do.

I didn’t square away my work obligations until 6pm. Then I started on the bike work:

• The Nightowl wasn’t due for an oil change for another ~2,800 miles (~4,500 km), but I would be going farther than that on this trip. I’ve done oil changes on the road, but I’d rather do it at home this time.
• The Nightowl was also a bit overdue for a 12,000-mile service, which is a final drive lubrication change along with a few other checks.

Having done both of these services several times, I had them both done Friday night by 9pm. The tires will likely be due for a change by the time I get home, but those shoes should last this trip.

Back in the house to pack, I found myself taking longer than usual. I guess I’m just out of practice. I did remember to check the prevailing weather in several locations in the direction where I’m going so I can pack the requisite gear.

Speaking of gear…

First Trip with a Synthetic Suit

I’ve been wearing a leather motorcycle jacket, jeans, and a set of leather chaps since forever (1990s). After a friend helped me fall into an unbelievable deal on an excellent synthetic Klim jacket, I was obligated to try it out. Yes, it wasn’t in the color I would normally wear, but it was comfortable, very well vented, had pockets everywhere (inside and out), and meant that I didn’t have to pack a separate set of raingear. I liked the jacket enough that I eventually purchased a matching set of riding pants, complete with plenty of armor pads and even more pockets.

I’ve worn this gear almost exclusively for the day rides around home, but I’ve yet to wear it on a serious tour… until now.

For those of you who will miss my leather clad form, know that the boots and gloves are the same.

In any case, I had all the gear either on the bike or queued up for a morning departure… but not until 2am.

A Late Start

My name is Ghost, and I didn’t set an alarm.

By the time I woke up, it was 10am, and I was still sleepy. While it was tempting to stay in bed, get additional sleep, and avoid wearing myself down early in a long journey, I just couldn’t let another day fritter away when I should already be a state or two west by now.

I did a final pack of the Nightowl, and noticed just how dirty it was.

My name is Ghost, and I’m vain enough that I like to be seen on a (sort-of) clean bike.

It took me about 20 minutes with shop rags and a can of Spray Polish to get the Nightowl looking presentable. The most important detail was chiseling off the bug guts on the windshield and headlight.

Note: Spray Polish works great on windshields, but you need to let it sit for a good 5-10 minutes before you start wiping.

The Ride

I finally left at 11:45am.

There’s no way I’m doing a six- or seven-hundred mile day with this late a start. What’s worse, most of the day would be on two-lane roads in the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan, where it can be a challenge to maintain a good pace.

My long hiatus from serious motorcycle touring revealed itself immediately: I forgot to start two of my GPS tracking apps:

• Scenic, which I use to log a track of where I ride on a given day. Today’s ride will show that it started from Gaylord, Michigan. It should show a start from Cedar, Michigan.
• FollowMee, which serves a map of my last 10 hours of movement so my family and followers (who have the password) can keep track of my location.

The good news is that it was a fine day for a ride. It was a little cool for August (low 70ºs F, which is low 20ºs C), and mostly cloudy, but with plenty of patches of blue sky and direct sunlight. Yes, a handful of those clouds were spitting a drop or two of rain, but it was rare.

I turned north on I75 at Gaylord and blasted up the Slab to the Mackinac Bridge, where I rode mostly on the dreaded grating in the left lane because everybody else was on the concrete in the right lane and going slower. There was only a five-minute wait to get through a tollbooth, not too bad, and I pulled aside for a moment to dig $4 cash out of my wallet (no, they don’t support transponders like EzPass, which is a bummer).

Heading west on US2 the pace was unexpectedly good. I imagine it had something to do with the additional passing zones, many more than I remember from my last ride on this route. The other change is that most of the two-lane highways in the UP now max out at 65mph (105 kph) instead of the traditional 55mph (88 kph).

I turned north on M117 and crossed to the northern side of the UP, which came with a several degree dip in the temperatures.

I was down to less than 20 miles (32 km) in the gas tank when I stopped for fuel in Seney, Michigan. This fuel stop would have been unremarkable if not for the interesting graffiti in the unisex restroom at the gas station. All were messages, not artwork, and all were written with the same hand. You can sample them for yourself below.

West of Seney is a 27 mile (43 km) piece of road that is civil-engineered Valium. The Seney Stretch is famous (infamous?) for being straight, level, and through the same lowland (not quite wetland) scenery. There are no turns, no hills, no nothing.

Eventually, the Seney Stretch reaches Shingleton, and shortly after there’s a long downhill ride to Munising and the shore of Lake Superior. There was a fairly stiff breeze coming out of the north and across the lake, which meant the air was brisk and the water choppy.

I was able to make good time through the chain of towns that are Marquette, Negaunee, and Ishpeming. I noticed that several of the stop lights had been replaced by roundabouts; nice.

The stretch of M28 west of the M28/US41 split has always been a good news/bad news proposition. The good was that it was a lonely region with little traffic and rolling forest. The bad news was that the road was horrible. Today I discovered that most of this stretch has been repaved, so it is now a genuinely nice stretch to ride on.

Across the UP in general, I noticed that several of the small Ma & Pa businesses, mostly diners, restaurants, and strip motels, are now out of business with long-neglected For Sale signs in front of them. Did the Covid epidemic put them under, or is the tourist trade in the UP just plain changing away from these smaller establishments.

By the time I reached Ironwood, at the far west edge of the UP, the Nightowl needed gas again. I used this stop to gas up the Nightowl, reserve a room in Duluth, Minnesota, and wipe the bugs off my no-longer-pristine windshield.

Now it became a race against the setting sun. These northern states turn into Wild Kingdom after dark, and I wanted to finish this ride before I had to slow down to avoid critters crossing the highway.

In spite of the sun being low in front of me, I wasn’t wearing my sunglasses. I lost them earlier this summer and reverted to an older pair that had my prescription from about a decade ago. I’m better off wearing my normal non-tinted glasses and lowering the tinted visor on my helmet (Shoei Neotec II).

When I reached Superior, Wisconsin, just across the harbor from Duluth, Minnesota, it was will into the twilight hour. The sun was below the horizon, leaving a sky that ranged from pinkish-purple in the west to deep blue in the east. I passed the old Burlington Northern coal docks in this light. They’re still massive, but abandoned, looking a bit otherworldly in the dying daylight.

As the last of the twilight was fading, I crossed the harbor bridge to Duluth and reached my motel (Super 8), a few miles later.

The counter clerk suggested that I walk across the parking lot to the Perkins for dinner. Instead, I rode my bike five minutes north to the OMC Smokehouse, where I ate one evening on a trip home from a Snarl Par-Tay. As anticipated, I was able to obtain yummy comfort food (pulled pork with four sauces, bacon potato salad, and macaroni & cheese,) a nice rendition of an Old Fashioned, and a Bourbon Crème Brûlée (with a healthy piece of peppered bacon; wait, a healthy piece off bacon, is that possible?) for dessert. I ended up closing the place, exiting right at 10pm.

From there, it’s another five-minute ride back to the motel to write up this report.

The Map

Here’s the map for today with an elevation overlay. Remember that I started the map late (Gaylord instead of Cedar).

Tomorrow

Simple: get as far west as possible.