Ray and I left about 8:45 this morning on the first leg of our trip. It was a pretty chilly start to the day, but the weather warmed up nicely and it turned into a pretty day for about 2/3 rds of the ride. We booked west on I-80 for about 75 miles even though I hate riding on the interstates. (Interstates are for cars and trucks. Motorcycles are for the two lane roads.) But we have ridden all the nice scenery between home and Starved Rock many times, so we needed to make some time to get on our way south along the Illinois River. Just west of LaSalle, we headed south toward Peoria riding highways that parallel the Illinois River. Illinois is not known for spectacular natural scenery, but the further south you go ... read more

(I've been too busy or (truthfully) lazy to get this blog entry done, so it's long after the trip was over. I decided to finish it for Jan, Dan and Marilyn) Our last full day in Paradise we rented a boat and captain for 4 hours. Our captain was Too Tall Derrick, a real nice guy. He took us on a tour of Paradise Island and a couple of the other islands. Once again, it was a perfect day, sunny and 81 degrees. After seeing the two islands where they filmed the classic TV series "Gilligan's Island," Too Tall asked if we wanted to do a little fishing. After about 10 minutes, Dan and I passed the poles to the wives and that's when fish were caught. Marilyn pulled in a fish every couple minutes. They ... read more

Modern air travel is miraclulous and miserable. If you're old enough to remember when all airplanes had propellers, which I am, it's amazing to consider that you can leave 30 degrees and snow and be in 83 degrees in sun in a matter of a couple hours if...everything goes well. That's where the miserable part can come in. It seems from our experience that it's damn near a 50-50 proposition for everything to go as scheduled, especially when you can't get direct flights. Changing planes just about guarantees one of them will be late for some reason. Yesterday it was the flight from Charlotte to Nassau. Thunderstorms in Charlotte delayed our departure for 2 hours. Then when we finally got to Atlantis, they had no record of our reservation booked through booking.com. Two more hours later, ... read more

After 11 years and 188,000 miles, good old Buck, my 2002 Suburban is gone, totalled. I named the Burban after Buck, the half German Shepherd half St. Bernard sled dog that is the hero of Jack London's "Call of the Wild," because of Buck's large size, loyalty and dependability. I know that men often refer to their vehicles as "she", and I do too. But when we made the Alaska trip together and I listened to many audio books, I got to calling her Buck. I bought her brand new in October of 2002. Most men have a dream car they would love to have, like Corvettes or Mustangs, but my dream car was always a Suburban. We had many, many adventures together. The 10,000 mile trip to Alaska and back being the biggest and most ... read more

Contributing Photographer: Michael Weinstein The next morning we got an early start and left Big Bay on Trail 14. The plan was to ride the 40 miles down Trail 5 toward Michigamme and then ride west on Trail 8 to Kenton. At least the WAS the plan. The guide (me) thought he knew the trails without checking the current trail map and didn't know that they changed where the intersection of Trail 14 and 5 was. Sooo, he went past it. He didn't realize it until we were a good 10 miles past it, so we rode Trail 14 back toward L'Anse. A lot of the woods in the Hurons were coated with frost from the previous day's mist and it looked like a winter wonderland, but it was overcast the day before so we couldn't ... read more