Scooting Across The Mackinac Bridge!

Mackinac Bridge, a.k.a. "Mighty Mac"

Image taken from 50statesproject.wikispaces.com.

I'd only gone a few miles from The Gables in Cheboygan, Michigan when I looked down at my dash and noticed that my trunk light was on, meaning my trunk was open. This was a pretty big bummer, because I was pretty overheated having already spent half an hour at a Shell station, getting the tire pressure corrected and managing a problem with the helmet camera, and now I would have to unwire the camera and take off my pack and get all disconnected from the monitor just to close the trunk. Regardless, I had to pull over; but when I did -- the trunk would not close. Now, this trunk has always been temperamental and has required a good slam to get it to shut properly, but this time the latch just wouldn’t engage.

I once again called the Vespa dealer in Grand Rapids, looking for a dealer close to me, but this time they told me what I had expected to hear a couple days earlier when I was in Gaylord, Michigan: “There isn’t one in over 100 miles. You could go to Detroit.” Well, Detroit was not on my way to Sault Ste. Marie, so I sent up a tweet asking if anyone could point me toward someone who might be able to fix it between here and there.

In the meantime I talked to Michael, my husband, who chastised me for not taking the duct tape. I explained that the roll had been too big, but it gave me the idea that I might be able to get a piece of duct tape between where I was and the bridge (The Mackinac Bridge). I was having visions of the wind tossing my critical possessions into the lake as I scooted across.

Before too long I came to a small town, Indian River, where I stopped in an oil change place. Again I had to go through all the gyrations of getting unhitched from the helmet cam, and just as I finished I looked up to see a rather tall smiling man looking down and me. “I have to ask, why do you have a camera on your helmet?” he said. I answered, “Well, I’m delighted you did ask, because then I can tell you that I’m riding 3,400 miles on this scooter to raise awareness about Hidden Disabilities." I pause for the puzzled look on his face, then explain, “This could be any disability that you can’t tell by looking at a person, such as a person who's deaf, or autistic, or has MS.” He whipped out his wallet and said,”Let me give you five dollars.” I was taken aback! People have donated on the website but no one had ever just opened their wallet in front of me and handed me cash. “My name is Ara, and who are you Sir?” “I’m, Pat, Pat Allor.” He must have detected my surprise, because he said, “You are trying to raise money aren’t you?” “Well, yes... usually it's through the website... but this is great, THANK YOU!" I then explained that I was there hoping to find some duct tape. “Now what would you need a piece of duct tape for on a rig like that?”

I explained about the problem with the trunk so he took me inside to get some duct tape, but it turns out he didn’t work there, he was just stopping in there on his lunch break. He took a look at my broken latch and figured he might be able to fix it at his shop which was just down the road a couple miles. I figured I had nothing to lose so I headed over to Tri Rivers Collision and Pat and his colleague, Dave Cooksey, took it apart and messed with it until they got it working again. They aren’t quite sure why it stopped working and they don’t think their fix is permanent, but it is working for now. Pat helped me get all suited up again, as well as tightening the strap on my helmet, and I was off.

Now here is when things started getting weird. The nav had me traveling south, but I knew the bridge was north of me. I have the settings to take all back roads, so I thought it was possible I needed to go south for a bit to meet up with some other road that would take me north, but it was carrying on for just way too long. I stopped a couple different times and expanded the map and it was in fact taking me up to Sault Ste. Marie, so I tried to chill and just go with it, but again, I was heading farther and farther south and it was getting later and later in the day.

Finally, I was getting too exhausted to carry on much more, and if I had to I was just going to get on the real highway and get going north. So, I called my buddy Jim Picard and asked if he could figure out why the nav was taking me the way it was. It didn’t make any sense to him, and the bridge was now about fifty miles behind me. I asked him to give me an address at the base of the bridge and I would put that in the nav and start over. This managed to get me heading north and moving toward the bridge.

Mackinac Bridge, a.k.a. "The Big Mac"
Image taken from prklevans.wordpress.

Once the bridge was in sight, or the tips of the top of it, I pulled over and turned the camera on because I didn’t know what the traffic would be like once I got closer. Now for months everyone I asked told me no matter what I do, don’t drive on the grates on the bridge and I would be just fine. Well I ended up at a peculiar on-ramp, and I couldn’t figure out if it actually went onto the bridge or not, so I just jump on it and suddenly I'M ON THE BRIDGE!!!!

Mackinac Bridge (pronounced "MACK-in-aw")
Image taken from yoopersteez.com.

There I was, it was actually happening. I didn’t see the grate that everyone was talking about so I was kind of puzzled, but being on the bridge was glorious and beautiful and fun. I was rolling along in the left lane enjoying the view when suddenly just ahead, about forty feet in front of me, was the grating I'd been hearing so much about, and to the right -- was a truck going about 15 miles an hour. Fifteen miles an hour, especially in the wind, is not a good speed for me, so I had to pass him -- but I had never passed anyone before and I had to pass him before the grate, aaeeeiieieieieieie!!! I just made it.

So, I’m cruisin' along the beautiful bridge and it is like I am flying over this huge expanse of water. It was exhilerating. "Absolutely brilliant!" as Ewan and Charlie would say (Long Way Round). I screamed and hollered with delight the whole way over and then.... there was construction and they funneled me over to the grates!!!!!!

I shouted, “I’m glad I didn’t know in advance this was gonna happen to me. I’m just gonna have to pray that my Piaggio MP3 is gonna keep me safe.” It did in fact pull and lurch one way and then the other with no predictability, but I relaxed into it and I was okay. I just treated it like I treat the rough winds. I think I rode the grates for about a mile or so and then I was back on the pavement for another mile and then it was over.

Once on the other side, I attempted to put the final destination back in the nav but it gave me the same confusing error it had given me that morning, saying the route was too long to calculate. Well it turns out there are two Days Inns, both in Sault Ste. Marie, one in Michigan and one in CANADA! So the nav had been trying to take me on some crazy roundabout route to Canada earlier in the day - ack! Well... I won’t fall for that one again.

Cheboygan, Synchronicity & Smooth Sailing

Sick Scooter.

Day Four: Fixing up my Scooter (and my Body) in Cheboygan, MI.

The weather report said heavy thunderstorms in the afternoon en route to Cheboygan, so I set about getting up bright and early to avoid testing out my new rain gear just yet. I had already put in a call to my bodyworker back home to see if she could help me find a Deep Tissue Massage Therapist in Cheboygan, because I was hurting pretty bad in quite a few places and I was worried that if I got chilled in the rain, I would definitely be out of commission for a couple of days.

I fell back asleep after my 5:00am wake-up call, but started hustling around 7:35 when I woke again. I was loaded up and on the bike by 9:00 which, although later than I intended, was my earliest to date. I was punching in the address to The Gables Bed & Breakfast in Cheboygan into the nav, the last step in my departure procedure checklist, when the nav powered down. This was weird. I tried to restart it -- no luck. I tried to turn the bike on -- no luck. I couldn’t even get the key out. It was making a funny high-pitched noise. I wondered if I did something to trigger the anti-theft device on the bike.

I called the Vespa dealer “back home” in Grand Rapids (where I bought the bike) and Dan, the mechanic who got my scoot all suited up for this ride, attempted to talk me through getting the key out. I was able to do so, in fact the ignition was stuck between the on and off positions and wouldn’t move. He said he had never heard of this before. He said he figured something was wrong with the ignition, that maybe some of the tumblers had jiggled loose.

My mind was racing. There are a tiny handful of Vespa dealers in Michigan and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to take my Piaggio to a non-Vespa shop for an ignition problem. I asked Dan, “If you were in my shoes which would you do — have it towed 300 miles to a Vespa dealer or take it to a local shop and see what they could do with the ignition?” I was imaging having to get towed to Detroit and wondering how I would ever make up the miles to get back on schedule. He said, “I would wiggle that thing around for a long time.” But it was like Excaliber in the stone. It wasn’t going anywhere.

I asked if he could look up where the closest Vespa dealer was to Gaylord, MI. Now here is the first miracle in the story — get this, the nearest Vespa dealer was in GAYLORD, MI!! NO LIE!!!

Thanks to Chris Maxsom from Total Powersports (Gaylord, MI) for

fixing me up and getting me on the road in record time.

I called and talked to Jeanne at Total Powersports. I was afraid that, given they didn’t know me, they might not be able to squeak me into their schedule -- but she said no problem and that they were rolling out the red carpet. She sent Chris Maxson, their sales manager out to get me. He was there within ten minutes. Once at the shop, Mike Peppler got me set up and Chris Smith started right to work on my scoot, while Mike took my information.

In about fifteen minutes Chris, the tech, came out with the word. Turns out the Piaggio has two off key positions (I forgot to ask why), and if you take the key out while in the “half-off” position, rather than the “full-off” position, the engine is actually still on. So my engine had been on all night which had killed the battery. He gave me a power jump and told me not to stop the engine until I got to Cheboygan, and then use my charger through the night (which was set-up for me before I started this trip by Scott Sternaman: Shoreline Smart Homes).

They then told me they were going to put me on their website and see if they could get their people to follow the project! AND, they didn’t charge me a penny for all their trouble! A big huge heartfelt thanks to Total Powersports, Gaylord, MI!

I took off for Cheboygan without further incident or rain. When I arrived I set about trying to find a body worker. Now given that I don’t have an abdominal muscular structure, the rest of my body takes on an extra load and, given the additional burden of riding the scooter — well, under normal circumstances I need to have body work to undo all the damage I do just trying to live. With the added strain, I was in a world of hurt and needed someone with some medical knowledge and skilled enough to be able to navigate the terrain of my unusual body. When I left, I knew I would need to find people along the way to unkink what I’m doing as I ride the scooter. I’m particularly feeling the additional stress between my shoulders, my lower back, my wrists and my ankles.

The Gables Bed & Breakfast (Cheboygan, MI).

Image taken from thegablesbnb.com

When I got into town, the B&B was not yet open so I sauntered over to Alice’s Restaurant for a snack. I asked my server if she knew of any massage therapists and she mentioned several places, but I figured the one who works with a chiropractor would be the most likely to have the skills to manage my broken body. Dr. Dom’s office gave me her number — Shellie Charboneau.

Now here are the next couple of crazy and fortuitous parts of the story: first, she is usually completely booked on Monday, but for some reason she was open today and was just getting ready to go over to her mom’s for lunch, so she was available. Not only that, but her place was literally next door to my B&B, so I could walk over while my bike was charging (at the realtor’s office -- thank you Jessie and Chuck Knopp). But wait, that’s not all — she races motocross! Now, for those of you not familiar with the term, that means she races a motorcycle. In fact she competed last weekend at Onaway Motor Speedway in the 30+ Class (with all the boys) and took first place!

Shellie Charboneau, Massage Therapist and Motocross Racer,

fixed my overworked body, pained from riding.

Well, Shellie knew exactly what my body needed. She uncompressed my neck from wearing a helmet, pulled apart my shoulder-blades from holding my arms up for all those miles, took the stress away from my lower back and reassembled my wrists and ankles that were hurting so badly (I couldn’t even hang my left wrist limply over the handlebar without it hurting, much less use it to break.) Now I am all fixed up. I’m not feeling pain at all, anywhere.

Inside the Gables B&B.

I’m still amazed at how fortuitous the whole day was; that I would manage to breakdown in one of the few towns in the entire state of Michigan that has a Vespa dealership, that the only referral I would get for a body worker in Cheboygan would be located right next door to where I was staying, and that she would be a biker chick - what a day! If this is any indication of how the rest of this tour is gonna go, then I am smooth sailing!