My M 119 curse

[the Ferret]

In 2010 on one of our Men's Fall Trips, my son Brian, his father-in-law Jimmy and I decided to tour the U.P. of Michigan. Jimmy and I were riding ST 1300's and my son Brian a Yamaha FZ-1. Across the Mackinac Bridge, St Ignace, Whitefish Point Lighthouse (where the Edmund Fitzgerald went down), and lower Tahquamenon Falls, up to Copper Harbor all on Lake Superior, and come back along Lake Michigan on Rt 2. Also, on the way home, we decided to ride the famous M119 Tunnel of Trees, a famous 20-mile tree lined road in lower Michigan from Cross Village down to Harbor Springs. One of the "must ride" roads on almost every "you've got to ride these roads" motorcycle list. Unfortunately that day we rode it, it was pouring down rain and not very pleasant.

Well, last week my wife and I decided to repeat that tour only in the car, and adding in visiting Mackinac Island, the Soo Locks at Sault Ste Marie, hit both the upper and lower Tahquamenon falls, visit the Seney Wildlife Preserve, Drive H58 Pictured Rocks Scenic Highway (great motorcycle road btw), take the Pictured Rocks Boat tour out of Munising, visit Presque Isle Park in Marquette, then visit Copper Harbor (the last 15 miles or of 41 also another great MC road), come back along 26 to Eagle River (a fabulous motorcycle road), before dropping back down 41 to 2 and cross the top of Lake Michigan.

AND since I had ridden M119 in the rain on my last trip up here 16 years ago, decided to drive it again on the way home. The day was beautiful, sunny bright and warm. Should be perfect, although the leaves in lower Michigan have not turned as well as they have in the U.P. We get to Cross Harbor and **** the Tunnel of Trees is closed for road repair! Theres a detour ..maybe it's short. We took the detour and finally got on Tunnel of Trees a few miles down the road, drove maybe 5 miles and **** another detour for road repair. Dang nab it. Longer detour this time and by the time we got back on most of the "tunnel" was over.

Lots of anticipation to driving this road in nice weather aborted by road repair. I did get a few pics.

Below is what it was "supposed" to look like lol

https://www.michigan.org/article/road-trip/stops-scenic-road-trip-along-m-119-and-tunnel-trees

At 76 I doubt I'll get up that way again. Too bad. Tried M119 Tunnel of Trees twice and neither time did it end up like the pictures you see in the adverts. Apparently, I'm cursed for M119.

Still for anyone interested in a cool place to ride a motorcycle, the U.P. of Michigan fills that bill quite nicely! GO!

 

[Cormanus]

Tunnels of trees are spectacular. Thanks Ferret.

 

[Gone in 60]

That is a very pretty area. Mrs. G and I drove it in 2023 after I finished up a race near Grand Rapids. She flew in as I was packing up after the race and we drove up over the lake and hit just about every cool spot there was before flying home from Chicago.

And yeah, it was raining when we drove M119. But wow, that's beautiful country, and we'd love to get back there soon.

My curse is the 405 north of Van Nuys. Last Friday after my drop-off, the boss called a company meeting. I stopped at a Starbucks to join in on my phone. Afterwards I could have gotten back on the 405 at my normal ramp by taking a few miles on surface streets, or on a closer ramp north of where I normally get on, in the area where something weird always seems to happen. Last time, I got trapped when they shut the freeway down right in front of me for an hour to clear a bad wreck. I thought "It's just a few miles, what could go wrong?"

I got on the freeway and as I was speeding up and merging to the car pool lane, a truck in front of me spit out a loose "botts dot" from under its tire. It shot back and smacked the fairing of my BMW. Startled me a bit, but luckily the big scratch is on a part that will eventually be covered by a decal, and being an old cop bike, it's just one more scratch.