Great Lakes Lighthouse Tour

[RandyShields]

As many of you may know, I have been on a year-long quest to chase lighthouses as part of the IBA Lighthouse Challenge.  The journey began last August with 10 lighthouses on the coasts of Oregon and Washington.  I captured a few more on the ride to Cedar Key, FL in January.  But the big push came recently when I visited over 50 lighthouses in 12 states as part of a Great Lakes lighthouse tour. 

 

This trip started with a visit to family in Northeast Ohio.  Riding through the rolling hills and farmland of Ohio was a bit of a homecoming, and I planned to include the notable Ohio triple nickel (Ohio 555) on my return trip.  The ride north featured lots of corn, wheat, soy beans and, on the roads, an amazing level of roadkill – seemingly every few miles. 

 

Next up was a ride around the south shore of Lake Erie to visit lighthouses from the quaint lake town of Vermilion, west to Marblehead, home to the oldest lighthouse on the Great Lakes, built in 1821.  This ride was during the heart of the smoke drifting south from the Canadian wildfires.  I could literally smell the smoke, and some of the photos look like it is foggy outside, like in the photo of the Marblehead lighthouse.

 

One discovery was riding along the Lake Erie Circle Tour.  It seems that all the lakes have designated, scenic routes around each body of water.  As I would learn throughout the trip, I had the good fortune of riding sections of these routes around Lake Michigan and Lake Superior as well.  Some were even separately marked scenic drives.  Nice.

 

One of the other sights that I haven’t seen much of since being out of the snow belt for 40 years were the rusted cars and trucks from the heavy use of salt up north.  Sad, but a reality of that part of the country.

 

This part of the trip wrapped up with a long ride (still in smoke) to Milwaukee.  Having now ridden several times through Chicago traffic, I can easily say I HATE Chicago traffic. While I have visited Milwaukee on business in the past, I hadn’t enjoyed the very lovely coastline along Lake Michigan. I had a chance to visit the War Memorial, see the large houses along the north side of the lakeshore, and getting to the Bavarian-themed Wauwatosa nearby to enjoy some of the brats and beer that the area is known for.  As a friend of mine from that part of the country mentioned before my trip – they look for any excuse when the weather turns nice for a festival.  They will celebrate almost anything, and always with brats, cheese curds and beer!  

 

 

Next up, the Harley Davidson museum, Lambeau Field in Green Bay, and the ride north.

 

[RandyShields]

One of the main reasons I wanted to visit Milwaukee on this trip was to have the opportunity to tour the Harley Davidson museum, which I’d heard so many great things about.  I arrived a little before they opened and got a prime parking spot out front.  I am sure they weren’t thrilled to see a BMW there alone much of the morning. 

 

 

I was really looking forward to the guided tour I had pre-paid for.  The only problem – when they opened the doors I was advised that the guided tour was for another day, and they had no tours the day I attended.  Good job Randy.  At least they were kind enough to refund that fee.  The museum did not disappoint.  There were wonderful displays on many design changes over the years, including the engine display which was very cool.  I knew they had experimented with boxers, but didn’t know that went all the way back to the 1920’s.  One especially noteworthy display was a mock-up of their 4- and 6- cylinder touring design.  Looks kind of like a Gold Wing; it was never put into production.  What might have been.

 

 

I was very impressed with the displays on early racing and the effort HD put into developing and promoting its dealer network.  One display was on the women of HD over the years, and it included that iconic photo of Shawn's Aunt Dot Robinson pushing her sidecar rig through the mud in one of those races.

 

Continuing the museum theme was the ride to Oshkosh and tour of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) museum near Lake Winnebago.  (I always thought this glacier-created lake was Lake Fond du Lac).  This is the home of the famed Oshkosh Fly-in and grew out of the home-built flyers, many of whom were engineers or who had flown in WWII.  I was very impressed with their collection of WWII planes, but even more so by the larger displays of home-built aircraft and features on many of the notable builders and flyers of the past 75 years, like the Rutan brothers, who designed and built the Voyager, the first plane to fly around the world without refueling or stopping in 1986.  You can’t come away from visiting this museum thinking that you haven’t accomplished much in life after seeing what these folks have envisioned and created.  Incredibly inspiring.  I would love to return for the Fly-in to see some of these aircraft in action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[taylor1]

Very cool Randy ! A good friend of mine owns 2 of Dick Rutan's designed home built planes. The Very Easy, and the Long Easy. Both pusher planes. Also a blast to fly in !

[RandyShields]

Next, it was on to Green Bay, with a tour of Lambeau Field and the Packers HOF museum.  I was blown away with what this tiniest of NFL markets has achieved after being advised years ago that they would be broke in 3 years if they tried to rely solely on football revenues.  The stadium addition is impressive, and the breadth of their business ventures truly astounding.  I don’t think much of aluminum bleacher seats throughout much of the stadium, but I have a newfound respect for how they have overcome financial adversity.  The best part of the tour was a short history lesson on how Vince Lombardi turned things around when he arrived.  With the stadium expansion, landholdings, and partnership deals for increased revenue, the franchise has  become one of the NFL’s biggest success stories.  It is Titletown for a reason: 13 championships.  This was probably the highlight of my ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spent the entire next day touring Door County – the spit of land that juts out into Lake Michigan to form Green Bay.  In visiting 10 lighthouses this day, I got to see some lovely and quaint marina towns with many inns, restaurants and galleries.  At Al Johnson’s Swedish restaurant in Sister Bay, they even had goats grazing on grass on the roof!  I went to the Death’s Door Maritime museum on the tip of the thumb and got a history lesson on the door – the passageway between the mainland and the island, with treacherous currents for early sailing vessels.

 

 

 

[RandyShields]

Thus far the weather had been great – 60 in the mornings and 70s to low 80s in the afternoons, with no rain. And finally, the smoke was clearing out.  It was nice to see things clearly again.  On this part of the trip I got to the northern-most point of the ride – Duluth, MN and a day trip part way up the north shore of Lake Superior to Grand Marais.  The route to Duluth went through several Indian reservations, complete with casinos that looked fairly busy.  There must have been some kind of event over the weekend further north, because I passed several hundred southbound RVs and pickups pulling trailers in the afternoon. 

 

Duluth was a highly recommended stop from Ed (RTinNC) and others to see the cool Aerial Lift bridge that rises over 130 feet to let the huge lake freighters and cruise ships pass in and out of the harbor.  They weren’t wrong – it was a pretty dramatic sight, and I got to see it in action several times, as my hotel was a short walk away.  I was surprised to learn that it was built and has been in operation since 1905.  The entire canal area is a tourist mecca, with many restaurants and hotels.  And, of course, no trip to Duluth would be complete without a visit to Aerostich, where I got a free t-shirt for stopping by during their 40^th year celebration.

 

 

In this photo, you can see the front of the freighter a long way from the lift bridge, but the stern is not yet through it.

 

 

 

Outside of Duluth, for the ride to Grand Marais and the next day to Marquette, MI, things get pretty remote pretty fast.  Grand Marais is a charming town with a lovely coastline and marina.  Rob (Scout 6) recommended a fantastic lunch spot right on the water – the Angry Trout, where I worked hard on a bowl of crawfish so I didn’t get too full for my ride back to Duluth.  I had two revelations on this part of the trip: one, it was my first time seeing Lake Superior; and two, Marquette is the home to Northern Michigan University, not Marquette.  After some research, I learned that Marquette University is based in Milwaukee.  Oh well, at least I got a photo of Father Marquette. 

 

 

I did pass on a lunch special at a place along the ride to Marquette.  You’ll see why in the photo.

 

 

 

[RandyShields]

My ride next took be to Sault St. Marie to see ships passing through the locks.  Again, technology that has been around for quite a while.  I was lucky enough to see a large laker passing through the locks. The visitor center has some nice displays on the entire footprint of the operation, and how gravity is used to move the ships through the locks.  From there, I headed south over the 5-mile long Mackinac Bridge.  There was no wind and several lanes were under construction to keep the speed low so, other than the metal grates that want to take your tires where they take them, it was a non-event.   Down the east shore of Lake Michigan took me to the last of my lighthouses.  I also discovered the most charming of all the lake towns I visited: Petoskey and Charlevoix.  It was clear that they were in much better economic shape than many of the other lake towns, perhaps because of the ski revenues (Boyne is close by), and the many multi-million dollar vacation homes in each.  I spent a lovely evening with Rob and Susan (Scout 6 and Scout 7) in Lowell, just east of Grand Rapids.  And I got to meet their friendly pups: Jake and Ellwood.  I am sure that Rob and Susan wouldn’t mind me saying that those are two spoiled and happy dogs! One final Michigan observation.  I was surprised to see lake blue state trooper cruisers with a red bubble gum light on top.  An article I read said they didn’t do that just to be retro and unique, but mainly because it presented less drag on the car when accelerating.  Right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RandyShields]

I finally paid the price for the great weather; on the second to last day of the trip, I had to drive into and through an all-day rainout.  Luckily, the RT is very stable in bad weather, but the visibility from the truck spray much of the day was a challenge.  I did stop by Bowling Green State University during the downpour.  I had not been back since I graduated.  There were many new buildings and updates, but there were also some standby’s that were still around, like Howards Club H, the local downtown bar that is still checking student IDs and occasionally getting into trouble.  Getting any pictures in the rainstorm was a problem.  On the last day, I finally got to ride down Ohio 555.  As advertised, it is very windy and has a lot of roller coaster hills along with 15 and 20 mph turns.  I was out at 7 am, so luckily didn’t have to deal with traffic, but the pace was a lot slower than I anticipated.  I would definitely recommend it for anyone traveling through Southern Ohio. 

 

Like the prior lighthouse segment rides, this was certainly a memorable trip.  Overall, from the start of the lighthouse tour last August, I captured 76 lighthouses for my challenge.  It was a great excuse to get out and ride some parts of the country that I had never been to before. I would highly recommend it for anyone who hasn’t done these roads before

[wbw6cos]

Nice report Randy.   Dot Robinson of Motor Of Motor Maids rode up until the age of 85, and had to stop due to knee issues.   She died the following year.  (yeah, I had to look it up.)   I remember that name and recall her accomplishments that I heard about many, many years ago.   Kudos for your trip.  I enjoyed it.

[MachineJoe]

Randy  ...... Nice write up and thanks for sharing. If you remember, I have my shop a mile south of you brothers office in Green, OH.  

Next time you're in town give me a shout.

[RandyShields]

2 hours ago, MachineJoe said:

Randy  ...... Nice write up and thanks for sharing. If you remember, I have my shop a mile south of you brothers office in Green, OH.  

Next time you're in town give me a shout.

Will do!

[TEWKS]

Great story Randy! Thanks! 

[RandyShields]

18 hours ago, taylor1 said:

A good friend of mine owns 2 of Dick Rutan's designed home built planes. The Very Easy, and the Long Easy. Both pusher planes. Also a blast to fly in !

I checked those out online.  Those both look very fun to fly.

[greiffster]

Nice work. Nicol and I did the Superior Circle in '19 with another couple.  What a great ride in June.  She got 19 lighthouses in 7 days.  

 

We really liked Duluth.

[Lowndes]

Randy - did you get to go thru the Split Rock Lighthouse between Two Harbors and Beaver Bay on 61 (Voyageur Hwy)??

 

[RandyShields]

I didn't want to spend the time to take the separate shuttle from the state park to get to the lighthouse, so I didn't go through it.  That was my day ride to Grand Marais; so I got a photo of it with my IBA flag from MN 61.  But it looks like an impressive lighthouse from the closer vantage point.

 

j

[Hosstage]

Split Rock Lighthouse is pretty neat, the little 20 minute film presentation they have on site is quite interesting, especially the part explaining how they had to turn the light by hand while keeping proper cadence and time for one whole night due to a malfunction with the rotating mechanism.

Every now and then they fire it up for special occasions.

[RTinNC]

Nice report Randy, I’m glad Duluth did not disappoint. It’s probably my favorite town to visit and like you we always stay within walking distance of the lift bridge so that when there’s a ship coming through, I can walk down and watch it. Did you get to grandmas For a burger and onion rings at the canal? 
 

and if I understand correctly, you did not go around the top of Lake superior, correct? I had thought you were going to circumnavigate superior, but it doesn’t sound like that was the case.

 

Your Mackinac bridge experience was much better than mine with 40 mile an hour winds blowing across. I’m hoping to do the lighthouse tour, probably starting in the fall and add it to my national park tour which I completed.

[Chris K]

Looks like you had a great ride Randy!

[RTinNC]

2 hours ago, Chris K said:

Looks like you had a great ride Randy!

Looks like he had a “ball” 

 

[MikeB60]

Great ride report sounds like a fun ride.

[RandyShields]

13 hours ago, RTinNC said:

you did not go around the top of Lake superior, correct?

I spent a day riding the north shore of Lake Superior up to Grand Marais and back to Duluth.

[Redman]

So how many Great Lake Lighthouses did you see?

or where you mostly getting IBA miles?

 

Hey, you meet Rob & Susan. About the first BMW people I meet (meet them at GRand rapids dealer).

 

I see this lighthouse frequently.(Grand Haven)

[BamaJohn]

I was on a 3 week trip in July and missed this posting until just now, and wanted to comment that I love Randy's trip narratives with the word-crafting and history of places visited.  Good Job, Randy!

See ya soon at Sparta.....

[RandyShields]

On 8/31/2023 at 4:45 AM, BamaJohn said:

I was on a 3 week trip in July and missed this posting until just now, and wanted to comment that I love Randy's trip narratives with the word-crafting and history of places visited.  Good Job, Randy!

Thanks very much John.  With an English composition background, my teachers would be very upset if they thought I was just throwing it out there and not trying to write well.  I appreciate the observation.

 

[RandyShields]

On 8/30/2023 at 10:49 PM, Redman said:

So how many Great Lake Lighthouses did you see?

Thanks for the input Redman.  I visited 76 lighthouses to achieve the Insanity Bronze IBA award (60 required in 12 months).  Just got the certificate today (they missed one that I included, but not a big deal).

 

The Grand Haven lighthouse you included looks very nice.  Excellent photo.  I had a 330-mile day before visiting Rob and Susan, so, broke off the Lake Michigan coast ride a bit north of there, or I would have ended up at over 400 miles, and I wanted dinner and a beer, so didn't go that far south.  

 

I met Rob initially on a Torrey ride several years ago, and Susan soon afterwards.  They were wonderful, gracious hosts, and I really enjoyed my evening with them.

 

[Lone_RT_rider]

On 7/19/2023 at 4:59 PM, wbw6cos said:

Nice report Randy.   Dot Robinson of Motor Of Motor Maids rode up until the age of 85, and had to stop due to knee issues.   She died the following year.  (yeah, I had to look it up.)   I remember that name and recall her accomplishments that I heard about many, many years ago.   Kudos for your trip.  I enjoyed it.

 

Great report Randy!  It's been a long time since I've been up in that area around Duluth and the UP, but it made me feel like I was there.  Door County is a Wisconsin Gem in and of itself.  I've spent time there too in 2018. 

 

William, even when she had knee problems she still used to take out the sidecar rig she carted her husband Earl around in just before he passed.  I had the privilege of helping to spread both of their ashes (separate occurrences)  on the trails of the Legendary Jack Pine run near West Branch, MI.  I miss them both.  That generation was very special in our family, and to me. 

[lawnchairboy]

wonderful.  thanks for the pics