home: https://starling.us/royal_star
by Ĝan Ŭesli Starling
copyright 2013
Five years and some months previously I'd met the most marvelous woman. As many couples so often have done, we met over a song. Our song, however was All That She Wanted by Bitches on Acid. Not so many, I don't think, have done that. What makes it even more unique was the club in which we heard it, The Blue Tattoo. That club doesn't actually exist. It never did. At least not anywhere in the real world. Rather it was a virtual space (sadly gone now) in an on-line, 3D, social environment called Second Life. So, although we did meet, it was then as avatars only, our real-life selves separated by almost 3,000 miles. By that and also a national border. I had logged on from Kalamazoo, Michigan in the USA...she from Kelowna, British Columbia in Canada. A more purely chance meeting than this I cannot imagine. But how very wonderful!
Almost from that moment we found each other's company most delightful, even though to an extent, it was largely make believe. That is to say, while as avatars we might go venturing off to Mars or go dancing in a club that didn't exist all the while keeping company creatures of fiction, myth and cartoon...even so we got to know one another quite well. Chatting by way of private text or 2-way voice link, we were always purely ourselves despite any fictional surroundings. We told one another our whole life stories. These ran amazingly parallel so that we shared similar outlooks and values.
We'd talked, in an off-hand way, about meeting face-to-face at some point. After some very few weeks, Karin herself set the calendar for that. In an email under the subject line Throwing caution to the wind... she informed of having bought a round-trip flight to Toronto for the weekend of 2008-09-26. Hardly believing such wonderful fortune, I booked the hotel and when the time came drove seven hours by car to get there one day in advance. In person we found one another to be exactly as represented on-line. Many further cross-border visits followed after, these to one another's homes. Five years later to the day, we got married. This motorcycle adventure, 1003.4 miles in all, was our honeymoon.
Observations of a New Bride ← Read Karin's own write-up here!
Taken on a Cannon L-20 camera, mostly by Karin. Actually she took many more, but many of those are very nearly duplicated by 3D ones which I also took on my brand new Fuji RealPix W3 stereo camera.
A very short, 2D overview of the latter part of our trip. The weather was absolutely perfect for the whole of it, not that we weren't prepared for the worst. But happily, the rain suits and Gerbing heated vests and gloves served only to prevent us from buying too many souvenirs by taking up space in the saddle bags.
Late September is an excellent time to visit Mackinac Island. There were no crowds, partly because of it also being a weekday. Plenty more 3D pictures of that interesting place you'll find among the 3D photos to follow. We also crossed the bridge over to St. Ignace, were we had the local specialty for our excellent dinner and witnessed a most glorious sunset.
Legs Inn was our only time-specific, agenda. Booked months in advance, it's a very, very fine Polish Restaurant with absolutely most unique architecture and also a lovely garden. I'd been there once eleven years previously and still remembered it well. The occasion for that previous time was an earlier bike trip during which I spied the schooner Manitou and stopped to take a picture. An odd coincidence about that previous ride, is that Karin, during a previous visit we drove up to Traverse City and took sail upon the Manitou wholly at Karin's own suggestion not until after which did I recognize the vessel. And also during that previous trip did I cross over into Canada and travel along its southern border to within just 100 miles of where she then lived. Staying at Legs Inn on this trip however, was booked for three days. They were hardly enough. A most lovely place. We'll surely go back for many another site besides Mackinac Island merit day trips from that convenient and pleasant locale.
For the second stage of our journey, we threaded back through the Tunnel of Trees, which is found at the very northern end of highway M-119. And this time we did it in daylight instead of pitch blackness. After lunch in Petoskey we next headed east to Tawas Bay where Karin took a photo of me taking 3D photos of cormorants out on the bay.
Finally do head home, again in very excellent weather. We stop briefly at Houghton Lake before going home to Port Sheldon by way of Muskegon and Grand Haven. Two days later we made a day trip by car down to Saugatuck and thence back home by way of Knouw Park where the weather finally remembered that this was September.
These were captured using my latest toy, a Fuji RealPix W3 stereo camera. There do exist 3D monitors, the newest of which have lenticular lens arrays so that you don't even need glasses. The camera itself has one of those. But they aren't common, yet. So I wrote my own program to split the *.mpo
files into cross-view pairs as *.jpeg
. That program I share on-line here: Split MPO
The thumbnails are only 2D. Click on them and what first you'll get is a larger 2D (cropped from the left lens view). Should you wish a 3D view then click once more, this time on that second image. What you'll get then is 3D, stereo pair image to get the 3D effect of which you'll have to cross your eyes slightly.
This being a honeymoon adventure, two pics from just after the wedding I cannot resist but to include. But we did not set out on the bike until two whole days after then. We set up along US-31 which runs parallel to but inland of the shore of Lake Michigan. We stopped for lunch in Manistee, a place we'd been to once before but only in car.
We take our lunch there, afterwards strolling along their riverside boardwalk. We follow US-31 all the way to Traverse City, afterwards switching to the even more scenic M-22. At one point we crest a height along the bluffs and instantly come into view of the big lake. Named Inspiration Point, it fully merits the distinction. So of course we had to stop.
M-22 is very pretty, both directly along and also inland of the lake shore. We pass through Charlevoix and Petoskey with the sun edging ever toward the horizon. It is sinking below just as we switch to M-119, which is a bit of a shame. Thus one important part of the ride I don't have any pics of at all, it being too dark. That part would be the very last leg, M-119, the Tunnel of Trees, which as the sign warns at either end is 20 miles of narrow winding road. It being near the end of September, by the time we got that far north, I ended up having to thread my way in near total darkness.
A small squadron of seven or eight much younger riders on crotch rocket bikes were doubtless disappointed to have to queue up behind us as I wallowed my nearly 800-lbs RSTD through the pitch darkness around hairpin turns sometimes as slow as just 25 mph. Had the leader not followed so close I'd have been glad to seek a driveway or some other wide spot and let them by. But he insisted on tailing so close as to keep me always in the glare of his headlight (perhaps in hopes of inspiring that I go faster) but this only made it the harder to see for the glare's reflection in my two rear view mirrors. Plus there was the very occasional oncoming car whose own headlights further reduced my night vision. Thus, perforce, I went slower yet, doubtless to their even further dissatisfaction. Alas and alack.
Exiting the tunnel of trees we came upon our destination, Legs Inn at Cross Village. As I put down my own kickstand, the crotch-rocket squadron was lining up along the road just out font. Karin and I got off and checked in first to our cabin, then came on back and got dinner. A very fine dinner it was. We took it in the area just out back. A waiter kindly took our picture. Next day we got up and took a bit of a short cut back toward Harbor Springs and then Petoskey. Along the way we stumbled upon a spectacular view of the big lake. I stopped to grab a snapshot of this while my bride remained on the bike.
After 20 miles of narrow winding road we came out of the trees into Harbor Springs. Most of the town seemed to all still be in church. It being early on a Sunday few establishments were yet open. Being hungry, though, we did find this one place, Mustang Wendy's which specialized in something like a Tex-Mex breakfast. Across from there was the sadly closed building still advertising Michigan's oldest family run restaurant but evidently not so any longer. From there we headed back along M-119 south to Petoskey. The first thing we encountered there was a magnificent view of Traverse Bay showing itself in very good humor. We stopped at a nice little park before heading into town proper.
Entering into downtown Petoskey I cruise the streets all up and down before parking the bike. Then we did the tourist thing and visited a number of shops. And being us, of course we did not pass by any bookshops. Outside the store where for a momentous I purchased a heart-shaped Petoskey stone, my bride posed herself upon a bench beside one of the many odd little art...things. One of the stores had a very Celtic theme complete with a gigantic wolfhound, fortunately very friendly.
We walked on down and through a pedestrian tunnel under US-31 coming out upon a lovely park projecting right out into Little Traverse Bay. The clock tower stuck the hour while we were there. The pier had a sculpture whose depth afforded a very striking 3D photo. Afterward we returned to our cabin, exploring what nature might be hidden out behind it. Plain on the outside the cabin is much nicer within. Behind it you can see clear to the lake
Some oddly picturesque detritus was scattered about in the yard. The large, colorfully rusted, overturned bucket with trunnion mounts I have to presume came from out of some local mine. Somehow it looked to belong there, almost as deliberate art. And maybe it was. Returning by day back to Legs Inn we enjoyed yet another uniquely memorable dinner. Under some steps there would appear from time to time a stray kitten that had only just recently taken up residence. Quite shy it was. A waitress informed that she intended to try and adopt it. Later during another meal we learned from staff that she had done so. This night while we ate, the sun set softly into the lake.
Our meal complete, we took some more time to examine the very eccentric Legs Inn furnishings. The whole place had been built by hand entirely from local materials. Likewise the many decorations. All in all it lends a distinctive atmosphere like no place else that I can think of. We enjoyed it all immensely.
From our Cabin No. 1 behind and down the hill from Legs Inn we made day trips. Not to be ignored, of course, was Mackinac Island. We took a late morning ferry. It being a Monday in September there was no crowd. And once again the weather was perfect.
Having had only such light breakfast as coffee for me, tea and toast for my Karin, we were hungry enough for lunch. We set to that almost immediately upon arrival. Our waitress, coincidentally, was named Karen (but spelled with an 'e'...like for my first wife). And the restaurant itself? None other than Millie, which is the name of my ex-mother-in-law. Karin my bride, noticed the first. I kept silent about the other. Just the first and second of four amusing coincidences during this journey.
Properly fed, we next partook of the requisite Mackinac Island carriage ride. The tour guides serve also as carriage divers, this being the only mass transport available. They manage to keep up an entertaining banter even while having to negotiate a horse team and carriage amongst many obstacles (tourists both afoot and on bicycle). A tour of the island puts you first in a medium 2-horse rig, latter (once they have you trapped) to a 37-passenger, 3-horse model. Both guides gave voice to many amusing anecdotes but the first brought to our Karin's and my attention a small item of compelling coincidence.
At right among the pictures above, you see the tour guide who drove the first carriage we rode in, taking seats right up front. That one had a two-horse team, one of which, as our guide told us was a last-minute replacement. And this makes for an interesting anecdote which I'll recount to you shortly. After touring the town in this first carriage, we were required to switch to much larger conveyance managed by another driver working a three-horse team. These changeovers occur at the horsey equivalent of a bus station outside of town. There do they have you to wait in the hopes of your parting with some funds in exchange for high-priced t-shirts, hats and other souvenirs mostly made in China. Those were all nice enough but I had already obtained far more authentic, a truly genuine article as a memento of the island.
I had only just moments before begged my fully authentic memento from off the driver of our first carriage. He'd been waiving it around as part of a story he was telling at the beginning of our first ride. It was a shoe thrown by a certain Belgian drought horse by the name of Kevin. Horses work best in teams where they know one another. And Kevin was one of the pair normally assigned to our first carriage.But Kevin, for lack of his shoe, had to be replaced this day. Thus did Kevin absent himself from pulling for us while on our honeymoon. And why is that funny? Because it's a pun. How so a pun? Well, I'll tell you. Kevin is also the name of my new bride's former husband.
Go ahead, groan. I get that a lot. We both got a kick out of it, but only figuratively. So did Kevin the ex when my bride related it to him not long after. She says it made him to laugh out loud, which is good because we all get along fine. But what has that do do with how I'm pictured carefully holding my left hand out and away from my new bride? That too, is funny. Any antique, for its authenticity, must be attributed with something called provenance. My memento also had that. The driver offered the shoe to me together with its proof of authenticity. This was ground into its bottom side (and presumably all over). The driver had simply picked up from off the street where Kevin the drought horse had thrown it. From a Mackinac Island street. Think about that just for a moment...
What to do? It's said that to polish the patina from off a darkly corroded Ming dynasty bronze will abate its provenance and thereby sorely diminish its value. But after careful debate I've decided to give Kevin's shoe a thorough scrubbing before I hang it upon the wall. That task still awaits. Know, however, that I did scrub my hand (actually both of them) the first chance which offered. Karin obtained double bags from the gift shop at Fort Mackinac to carry the horseshoe inside of thereafter. Only then did we find a place to have ice cream.
It being an historic fort there are, of course, many cannons. Being a guy, I quite like them. In junior high machine and wood shops I once even made a working model cannon. My son (from a first marriage) has that article now. Like my working model, so too, do some of these. A period dressed officer with his subordinant charged and fired one for us tourists. I say charged rather than loaded for the reason that somehow they misread the directions, putting in too little powder and completely forgetting the ball. It gave a fairly loud report but offered no serious recoil and I quite missed seeing a splash out in the lake. It was after this that we sauntered to the fort's southern verge where we sat down to enjoy the wonderful view and partake of ice cream.
Our ice cream finished, we sauntered around some more, taking pictures of my lovely bride next to cannons. Having seen all, at last we descend a long flight of steps to make our way back into town. The streets were largely empty of tourists and all the shops were cutting prices by a huge margin. Karin bought me a souvenir Mackinac Island, light jacket for not-too-cold weather that closes up nicely around the neck. Having seen all we re-boarded the ferry.
Cramming our souvenirs into the RSTD's saddlebags, we decided to cross the bridge over to Michigan's UP. After the customary cruise up and down the whole length of St. Ignace to see all it afforded by way of evening repasts, Karin selected the Mackinac Grill. Once inside we wisely heeded the knowing waitress's recommendation something called planked whitefish. This is whitefish baked upon a maple wood plank together with vegetables and potatoes. Very yummy. We finished in time to enjoy a truly spectacular sunset.
Returning back south across the great bridge we made out way back to Legs Inn where Karin suggested we might enjoy to relax over a nice glass of wine. A long day it had been but tired as I was the opportunity of taking more 3D pictures of that unique establishment's amazing interior was not to be passed. At the Legs Inn there is no smallest corner without some item to attract the curious.
I'd only booked our Legs Inn cabin for just three days. So next morning it was time to head out. But not without yet one last look round, this time with the morning sun shining down out of the East. The big lake shows a very deep blue of mornings. Petoskey too, merited another walk through and so we headed once more through the Tunnel of Trees and took our lunch at a coffee house there.
When came the final night scheduled for our honeymoon, my bride declared herself not yet ready for it to end. Nor yet was I. So in bidding adieu to Petoskey we did not head south but threaded our way back north once again, this time along US-31 to Levering Road then hanging a right and heading East toward Cheboygan. With no particular goal in mind we made our way thence southeast on US-23 following the general contour of Lake Huron. Very few good views of the lake did that highway afford us. A few, but not many. Still it was a nice bit of winding highway with almost no traffic and a very different scenery than on our side of the state. Nearing a place called Presque Isle signs began to mention a lighthouse. Spontaneity demanded that we must stop and see it.
I'll take a couple paragraphs here to explain that my brand new wife Karin has been very bravely enduring a condition known as Meniere's disease. Outwardly invisible but nevertheless debilitating, this severely affects her inner ear, constantly upsetting her balance and providing the noisome distraction of loud tinnitus which is further exacerbated by unpleasant feelings of pressure. Happy though, for all our long trip, these effects kept to a rather low threshold. A fear of mine had been that the noise, wind buffeting and shifting balance (worse for the pillion rider) might trigger a bout of the baddies. Where that to occur it would have proved needful for her to sequester herself in a motel, scarfing down anti-nausea drugs while I went back for the car. It was partly for fear of this that we dared not venture too very far nor to be gone very long. Were a baddie to hit, then for my Karin, just to sit perfectly still in a comfy chair would be its own kind of torture. And a motorcycle ride? Out of the question. Imagine it rather like this. You feel as if inside a spinning top made of clear glass which itself teeters along the inside of a rolling sewer pipe also of glass. And if this were not enough, the wind is also rushing loudly just outside only one ear that constantly feels on the verge of going pop as if it alone were taking off from the mountains in a jet plane. Oh, and one more thing. You can't keep any food down. Just like that...for days on end.
That is what the bad ones are like. The rest of the time? Divide those same effects by a factor of maybe twenty. What, exactly causes Meniere's no doctor can yet explain. Nor is any research hospital spending much time or effort to find out. Not enough people suffer from it to dangle the lure of big profits. Equally puzzling is what, exactly, triggers a severe episode. Theories about that abound but none prove consistent patient to patient. But 3D movies she can't bear to watch. Nor, I am certain, will she click beyond the first expanded views in this thumbnail gallery page. Even just looking into the display on the back of my 3D camera makes her head spin all the more. But still she elected to brave a multi-day bike ride and withal still enjoyed it ever so much.
What makes the fact particularly of interest here is that we see Karin braving her way up a steep spiral staircase and even venturing out upon the lighthouse's very catwalk! She tightly gripped both rail and chain, to be sure, but then I too did that. A rather small lighthouse it was, but even so it bothered me too, looking out from that catwalk. This despite my being a long-time ham radio operator (callsign KY8D) who had once used to make it an almost regular habit to be climbing radio towers (once to level of 185 feet).
The very last objects of interest along US-23 that day were several groupings of curiously very large statues. I somewhat regret not having made a U-turn, parked the bike and seen more of them up close. Slightly disturbing was one of Jeshua (Jesus in Latin) standing nearly as tall as the trees and holding the whole world in one hand. There were others which (for my attending to the road before us) only Karin got clear sight of. They were distributed some miles apart from one another. One standing pair seized upon a dim memory from childhood. Long and long ago I had seen this pair before (and quite probably also the others). My recollection from that time is very dim, there is no quite forgetting to be a child standing at the feet of a giant blue ox. Somehow I'd long been of the impression that these were somewhere out West. Can't say why I thought that, though, since I have no other memories of our having gone out west. Anyway, here they are. A mystery is solved.
Further south along US-23 we came to Tawas City. After cruising its length, Karin indicated the Tawas Bay Beach Resort as her lodging of choice from among all those we'd passed. Doubling back, I made our way there. It being September we easily booked a 2nd floor room facing the bay. Then we went down to sample the excellent fare advertised for their in-resort dining. Patrons being few this time of year, the large dining room had closed after a certain hour but dinner could still be had at a table in the bar.
A trivia game was by then already in progress before we arrived, a couple of questions having been already resolved. Karin selected a wine from their list for us each to enjoy a glass while we waited for the meal that we had ordered. The topic was movies. For the game's 3rd or 4th question, it was asked which was Steve McQueen's very first movie. Nobody knew. The MC then hinted that the genre had been science fiction. That clued me in, The Blob having been among the favorites of my early youth. When no one else spoke, I chimed in with the answer, whereupon Karin and I were then counted among the teams playing that night. The topics ranged such that sports questions were few, those on music and the movies rather more frequent. Karin is a whiz on movies, music too. So even after having entered the contest late, we two still won. The $20 prize paid half the cost of our meal.
The next morning we cut back toward the West on M-55, dissecting the mitten along its middle back verging on the southern shore of Houghton Lake. Further on, at Lake City we stopped for ice cream. At Marion we stopped for gas and Karin expressed interest in a mill pond which we'd just passed. The tank refilled, I doubled back and we had a look around. The old mill was gone but the pond and the falls were pretty enough. Further yet along M-20 somehow I missed a sign where new and old M-20 split so that we ended up on the old, original route. That one was lonely but very pretty. I like those kind of roads best. So does Karin.
We picked up US-31 just north of Muskegon where I tried to thread my way to pretty back road I once had stumbled across. That took us passed the USS Silversides museum and a slow ride along the lake shore in Muskegon State Park. But I failed to locate the pretty back road leading through Norton Shores and, giving up, got back on US-31 and stayed on it as far as Grand Haven. We took our dinner at a restaurant which we knew, dawdling over the meal in the near empty establishment. Avoiding the highway I followed Lakeshore Dive south to Butternut in the dark and so we arrived home.
The next day was still nice, but the weatherman promised rain. So we took the Nissan Versa instead of the Royal Star south to Saugatuck and browsed the shops there. One of them, the Santa Fe Trading Company, keeps two in-store cats: Yoyo and Mr. Butler. Yoyo enjoyed being photographed while Mr. Butler merely endured it. On the way back we stopped at Knouw Park on the lake shore just two miles from our house in Port Sheldon. To mark the end of our honeymoon, the weather in commiseration then turned cloudy and finally rained.