– back home now

– took the turnpike from Pittsburgh all the way to Philly.

– 300 miles and $30

– fortunately we followed a car through easy-pass and avoided the toll.

Here’s a quick recap of the trip:
– 15 days, 3000 miles
– swam in all 5 Great Lakes
– took 3 ferrys
– spent about $1200
– cycles ran great. No break downs
– no rain
– no tickets
– no crashes
– paid for camping twice
– no motels
– only paid for tolls that didn’t have easy-pass
– on the road we got flashed by: 0 girls, 1 guy
– Lake Erie is the grossest and Lake Superior is the nicest
– ill say it again: people west of the east coast and super nice and friendly
– met 4 old dudes that used to have z1s
– did a hundo numerous times with gear all packed up.

– after leaving put in bay, we headed east towards Pittsburgh

– trip is basically over. Nothing to see in ohio because Ohio is one of the worst states

– an old good friend and roommate from college named Justin is from there

– over the past 9 years we lost touch a bit and I didn’t have his contact info anymore

– but I remembered where his parents lived

– we rode into the city and stopped at his parents to ask where Justin was living these days. Ironically Justin was there visiting his parents

– so we crashed with him for the night and caught up. Good times

So… Lake Erie is fucking gross.

Bacteria levels so high it’s unsafe for people to swim in it. Fuck it though… We swam anyway. So we officially swam in all 5 Great Lakes.

In Ohio we kept seeing signs for something called “put in bay”. I had no clue what it was.

After swimming in the gross lake, as I was drying off, I asked some old lady what put in bay was… She said it was the name of an island in the middle of Lake Erie and it was cool with lots of bars and young people and that you had to take a ferry and it was leaving in 10 mins…

So… On a impulse decision we hopped the ferry on the cycles and ended up on this island.

It was nuts.
Someone referred to it as “key west of the mid west”.

Basically it was dude bro central and everyone was looking to get drunk and get laid.

Lots of old guys who looked like they were looking to have affairs and stuff. Weird.

So we camped that night there.

– we checked out the Harley museum real quick. Ill have a full post about that later

– we left Milwaukee and took a ferry directly across Lake Michigan to the other side

– it was badass. Called the lake express. It was $150. Went 40mph and was a hovercraft

– we got off the ferry in Muskegon Michigan.

– met a nice girl on the ferry and she suggested going to see grand haven and grabbing burritos there. It was a cool little beach town

– then we headed east towards Detroit but didn’t make it that far and camped 30mins west of Ann Arbor in some shit little nothing town

– Wisconsin: where the men are men and the women are full of cheese

– generally this state blows

– then we got into Milwaukee and it was awesome

– one of our buddies we went to college with lives there so we stayed and caught up with him.

– we pretty much got drunk the minute we arrived. Was nice to see pretty girls again

– one of the bars we were at is called nomad world and they have a $1 per drink happy hour where everything is a dollar from 4pm to 420pm

– Ryan headed back to Chicago so it’s just me and Adam again

Yea we drank too much in Milwaukee trying to make the post from yesterday…

Milwaukee is wayyyy cooler than Green Bay. Green Bay can suck a dick.

So… We did stuff.

Hangover pending… we’ll update tomorrow.

So we met a 21yr old dude named Blake from this little town here called Christmas. Super nice dude.

He camped with us the other night. He’s a local here at pictured rocks.

He showed us some badass shit.

He said he used to swim distance competitively… And would swim from island to island here which is like 5 miles and can hold his breath for 3 mins.

He told us a story about him ice fishing and he fell through the ice and the current in Lake Superior was so strong he couldn’t pop out the hole he fell through… So he had to swim under the ice to the next hole he could find and popped out there and he thought he was gonna die. So f-ing nuts.

He showed us a spot called “paradise” which is rock jumping spots off of the shoreline. We probably swam 3/4 of a mile in Lake Superior. It was gnarly. The sandstone rips you apart like a electric sander if you hit it wrong. It caught me a couple times.

Also ate fresh blueberries.

Then he took us to one of his fishing holes and we fished for 3 hours.

I dunno about you… But I do not have patience for fishing. It was cool this one time as a novelty thing but overall… It’s not for me.

– we made our way to pictured rocks which is a national park which borders the south end of Lake Superior.

– crazy 300 ft tall cliffs that go down into the lake

– water is insane crystal clear

– hung out and took a mid day nap at a corner store

– got pasties for dinner

– a “pasty” is similar to a meat pot pie that is enclosed on all sides… It’s okay. It’s their big thing up here I guess

– we camped at some random spot on the lake. Met a dude named Blake who is a local and he’s showing us some rad shit tomorrow

– woke up on the beach and a maintenance guy called the cops on us but cops never came

– headed north back over the 5 mile mackinaw bridge towards pictured rocks national lakeshore in the upper peninsula of Michigan.

– mackinaw city is a horrible tourist trap. Never go there

– we were served lunch by a dead lady who charged us to plug our phones into the outlet to charge them. Lame

– lazy day of riding

– met a church pastor with a sweet 82 Goldwing

– we swam in Lake Superior. Cold as shit

– napped on beach

– we met some cool girls from Detroit. We camped with them

– got boozed up on the beach till 2am

‘Where the men are men and so are the women’. – guy at the lunch spot stop.

We tried to get up and out of Leno’s place before he got up and pulled another wild card on us. It was a 3 mile dirt road back to a real road.

We crossed the border and rode a boring straight highway to Mackinac. We ripped 3 wide on the highway doing a 100mph for miles without seeing other cars. Crossed over the 5 mike long bridge which is mainly metal grate… Sketchy feeling but pretty rad.

In Macinaw Ed asked a guy where all the babes in bikinis are and he laughed and told us that they’re all corn fed women here.

So we found a beach drank our whiskey and then setup camp and went swimming. We had a good laugh about the previous night and were happy to sleep easy tonight.

Things got real weird last night…

Real weird.

We met some random old dude named Leno on a harley at a strip club. He told us we could camp at his place… So we took him up on it. His place was on a bad ass lake.

He’s basically bi-polar.

We show up at his place and he was drunk and stoned.

Things started off fine. We were boozing by the fire.

Then he told us he’s not allowed in America anymore.

Then he was telling us about his previous motorcycles and got real mad when we started asking questions about his bikes.

Then it got extra weird.

He got mad at Adam and said “don’t fucking disrespect me” and basically got real mad at us and made it seem like he wanted to fight us. He was ready to punch adam no lie… We did nothing to provoke him I swear.

Talk about awkward.

We talked him down and then instantly he seemed like it never happened and got happy and gitty again.

In the morning we peaced out.

We did other stuff earlier that day but its not worth over-explaining like:
– fixing Ryan’s bike
– eating ice cream by lake
– worst strip club ever
– McDonald’s dinner

We woke up at 5:45am on the Georgian Bay to rain and heavy wind. Ed’s rain fly ripped in the wind so he wasn’t a happy camper. We were up early to catch the ferry to Manatouin island which we just made.

It pretty much rained off and on the entire day so we didn’t make it far. We found a little bar and hungout so Ed could sew and glue his tent back together.

Decided to find camp spot and wait out the rain. I once heard that a graveyard is always an easy renegade spot because nobody hangs out in a graveyard at night. Well that was wrong cause we watched a dude dig a grave by hand in the rain until dark. That was creepy. That prompted us to take a hike into the woods were we finished a fifth of whiskey and checked these rad water rapids.

Shitty weather but turned out to be a fun day.

Damn, this day was awesome.

– we swam in this place called the grotto in Bruce national park. (Lake Huron) It had carribean looking water and cliffs. Tons of people

– we cliff jumped for a while. It was pretty epic

– our cycles are running solid which is nice

– we got fish and chips from a place called “the fish and chips place” and it wasn’t that great and their tarter sauce was a rip top thing of Kraft tarter. Lame

– food in Canada blows

– we met some cool girls from Toronto. They filled us in on a couple things.

– we camped at a spot called mermaid lake and watched a meteor shower. The camp spot was amazing but we got drenched last night in rain

– after leaving buffalo, we crossed into Canada and swam in lake Ontario. It was insane cold

– our buddy Ryan from Chicago is joining us on half of our trip. We met him up in Canada

– 3 of us made our way up in to the Bruce peninsula. It’s surprisingly awesome up here

– last night we camped at lion head point

Shit. Off to a rocky start.

– we left sat instead of fri

– night before leaving I dropped a bolt into my engine while double checking valves. It fell down the center cavity into the crankcase. By a miracle of god I fished it out somehow…

– morning we left Adams bike pissed out a quart of oil all over his rear tire on the highway. His starter freeze plug popped out. (Above pic)

– we are staying with Adams sister in buffalo ny right now

– we did 450 miles to get to buffalo. Not fun. Trying to keep it around 200 per day

– we ate buffalo wings. Not bad

– I was out till 5am last night

Trip Goals:

– Swim in all 5 great lakes

– Don’t pay any tolls. Blow through them all following cars through easy pass

– Take a ferry across as many Great Lakes as possible

– Get flashed while riding

– Do 100mph with the bikes all packed up

– Only piss outside

Let us know if you know of anything cool along the way to check out. Anything from good spots to eat, camp, swim, bars, strip clubs… etc

Our bikes… 1976 CB550 and 1974 Z1