Looking For The North Woods-Part 5

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Friday, July 06, 2007

We enjoyed the cool morning and didn’t get on our way until 11:00. It was a short drive to route 28 and then we headed east toward Ishpeming and Marquette. There were few places to eat along the way and those I spotted were many miles behind by the time they registered in my mind. I guess I wasn’t hungry. Nan Lou said she wasn’t hungry, and we motored on. After many miles we neared the outskirts of Ishpeming and Nan Lou admitted to being a little puckish, (Ham meant to say puckish----or perhaps not) maybe even downright starving, sometimes it is hard to tell. I had seen several Mickey signs and mentioned them only to receive an icy reply. After yesterday’s pasty, which tasted good but had less than desirous aftereffects, I wanted something familiar. The heck with local color. Finally we reached an area with several places and ended up at Mickey’s with a large group of men just having a noisy good time. We ate. A few miles later we passed even more places, one being a Red Lobster, but we had feasted on all American burgers and fries and couldn’t eat again.

There were spots of bumper- to- bumper traffic we were in, some of it because of road repairs, but I feared we were hitting a combination of Fourth of July celebrants and summer vacationers. Mighty depressing, eh what? As we traveled farther east the traffic eased a great deal and my spirits were boosted 85%. We had several nice glimpses of Lake Superior and the chance to stop and walk beaches. We didn’t do that because we thought the mighty sturgeon might leap out of the water and smack us a good one.

I recognized a state campground place, don’t know if it was a park or a recreation area, that we had stopped at two years ago in the fall and had a free night for some reason. I imagine in tourist time it wouldn’t be quite the same. I had seen a NFS site on the map near Christmas that I did not remember from previous trips. We were headed there hoping the summer crowds hadn’t beat us. We were lucky, there were at least three sites in the first loop and we took the one with shade and privacy. The other loop had a few more sites also. This place is called Bay Furnace and our cut-rate price is $7. It is another nice National Forest Service area. I guess its popularity is because of its nearness to the route 28, an Ojibwa casino, and the big water. We have been used to almost empty NFS campgrounds in more remote places. There is a commercial or local authority campground a mile or so closer to Munising and they looked packed, as in numbers and sardines. I guess if you want electricity that’s where you go. Since the temperature is now 68, we are as happy as clams.

I remembered a big bookstore in Munising and we went in search of it. It was gone but we did find a Dairy Queen and had sundaes. Then we cruised the town a little more and found a combo coffee shop and bookstore with wireless service. We had some coffee and wireless. It is a civilized place with bagels and cream cheese. And, even a bagel with smoked whitefish. I can hardly wait for breakfast; maybe we will get up at seven for a change. Ha ha.

The day was sunny with scattered clouds and the highest temperature I noticed was 82 degrees. It seemed to be down as far as 72 in some places near the lake; mostly it was around 78. How’s that for weather reporting?

There must be more to report about, but my mind is blank, maybe Nan Lou can fill in the gaps. hb

I will only add that Ham the Mighty Masseuse, gave me a long back rub which did his legs in. My lower back has been giving me fits, but now, I may be on my way to recovery. Anyway, it was very nice of him! nl


Saturday, July 07, 2007

By the time we were up everyone around us had packed up and left, and we were pretty early hitting the road to the bagel/book shop by 10 AM. I didn’t feel like the Bagel and smoked whitefish and just had one with cream cheese. Nan Lou had the same. Their coffee was pretty good and we each bought a book after eating. Then we stopped and looked in a gift shop that had a sale on moccasins, alas, nothing in our sizes that we liked.

I had planned to take route H58 a paved road for the first 10 miles and a gravel road for the next 20-30 miles right into Grand Marais. We had taken this road many times and it was always a pretty good gravel road. Today it was the pits; washboard to the max, the LER was going to shake apart, I turned around after a mile and we hit the pavement back to Melstrand and H15, another paved road going straight south to route 28, the northern most of the two main roads crossing the UP. I thought we might bypass a planned visit to Grand Marais but Nan Lou wanted to look for another heart stone on the rock strewn sandy beaches there. First we stopped at the old Sportsman’s bar and eatery that was open and in business for a change, and had a fair to middling lunch. It’s business was sprightly and it looked much the same as it has in the past many, many years ago.

From there we planned to take the gravel road along the coast of the big lake to a state forest campground about 10-12 miles east of town. Before leaving town I noticed the alternator wasn’t charging. We turned around and parked along the bay and I looked for a loose wire, or whatever. Not finding anything I figured getting out in the boonies with a dead battery was a bad thing and we headed for the Chrysler dealer in Newberry hoping he might be open this Saturday afternoon. Fat chance. There were two parts stores there, both closed, but a hardware store guy told me of a parts/repair place not too far away that was open for three hours on Sundays. Then another customer hearing of my troubles volunteered his help. He said he had the tools and computer gadgets to check everything out. We took him up on the offer and went the seven miles to his place where he and his wife raised Airedales. He dug out his $800 testing machine and, hooked it up and found nothing wrong. That was because the alternator had started charging back by the hardware store and was doing its job. There were a few codes that might have caused the “Check Engine” light to go on, but all seemed well with the charging system. I gave him $20 which seemed to please him for his 30-40 minutes time.

We didn’t make any more attacks on Grand Marais since it looked like someone was trying to keep us from peacefully reaching there and spending some happy time. First the bad road, then the bad LER, what would have come next? We should have said goodbye to Gitche Gummie back in Munising.

What to do? Head east toward civilization at St. Ignace looking for NFS campgrounds along the way. The first one defiantly eluded us, probably because we guessed wrong on its entrance road, but the second one called Foley Creek just north of the casino near St. Ignace popped into view easily. We thought it might be full, but there were many sites available out of its total of 54 sites. All in all we have been really lucky with NFS campgrounds on this trip. I guess we’ve been up here in the fall when they are all closed and we ended up in the casino parking lot.

After the alternator problem in Grand Marais and Newberry, it worked just like it should. We will cross our fingers for tomorrow and see what happens then. At least we are only 486 miles for home if we go directly, but we never go directly. hb


Sunday, July 08, 2007

So, here we are, sitting in the LER right in front of the service door of the Charlevoix Dodge dealer named Fox. Now, is that an omen? We’ve been here from around 2 PM and it is now 6 pm. We did take a small break for a Mickey gourmet dinner about two hours ago. Now, why are we here?

This morning the alternator zipped right up to 13.5 volts and was up to 14.1 by the time we reached Mackinaw City. We stopped there to look at salt lamps and when we started again the alternator wasn’t working. By the time we got to Charlevoix the voltage was down to 12.5 and there was no sign of a charge happening any time soon. I figured we would make it to WalMart in Traverse City and get a big battery charger to run off of the generator in an emergency, but we passed this Dodge dealer and took the prudent route directly to their parking lot as we declared the emergency upon our heads right now. At least we are first in line with the note and key in their night drop box. I’ve been told that they open at 7:30 AM and I plan to be ready by 7 AM.

Now for fast breaking news from the Upper Peninsula; there must have been the threat of a Lake Superior tidal wave from the amount of cars lined up at the bridge tollbooths. There were five lanes moving through and the lines were over a quarter mile long. Many cars and trucks pulling trailers and boats plus cars full of people, not just single drivers going to work. The traffic wasn’t quite as bad in a northerly direction. Mackinaw City was more crowded than I remember it in the summer; I’m glad we weren’t planning to stop and wander the shops; that will be a fall thing as it has been in the past couple of years. We took old 31 south and not the expressway hoping for an alternator miracle, fat chance. Traffic was bumper to bumper as far as one could see around Petoskey and almost as bad approaching Charlevoix. I imagine Traverse City will be as bad if we ever get there. Maybe we’ll like a winter around the 45th parallel. These crowds sure make the UP seem nice, and the people up there are friendly too. Down here they are just loud, especially in Charlevoix.

I messed around with wiring circuits trying to find the problem. I couldn’t, but at least I figured out what some wires were and how the back battery is connected to the front battery. And maybe even a shortcut to charging the front from the generator if it becomes a necessity.

The temperature was as high as 86 and now hovers around 84.5 in the shade where we are parked. Of course, if it gets too hot we can run the generator for a while.

Nan Lou has taken this all with a wee smile and has not gnashed her teeth once. I am thankful, I am thankful for a lot about Nan Lou. “I stink I’m in love,” as our little Taco bell dog used to say. hb

How could I gnash my teeth when you are going through so much. I love you too. nl

Monday, July 9, 2007

Oh My God, we were up and actually moving by 6:30, in the morning! After getting the LER in shape for strangers to work on I noticed signs of life in the service department of Fox Charlevoix, friendly Chrysler and GM dealer. I went out and did the necessary paperwork to get them started on the LER, which they did right away. Nan Lou and I waited in the freezing customer waiting cell for word about the LER. After a couple of hours word came through. “The alternator might be bad.” Ah yes, that’s why we were there in the first place, because the alternator was bad. They had to send it out
somewhere for a test just to confirm that it was bad. Word came soon, after lunch, that it was bad. Also word reached us that a new alternator could be delivered in two or three days. Jim, the service writer had loaned us his personal vehicle, a GM four wheel drive extended pickup truck for our lunch trip and I used it again to go to the Carquest parts store a few blocks away where I found the correct type and size alternator. After confirming that they would install this alternator from the dreaded Carquest parts supplier, I went and bought it for a measly $150, which was $230 less than the outlandishly outrageous price they had quoted for the alternator located in the next galaxy.

There was still the question of the voltage regulator in the computer control being damaged by the bad alternator or by the even worse aftermarket electrical isolator installed by LER in the last century. That question was soon answered when we were told that the alternator didn’t work. The technician doing the work checked everything related to the problem and decided the isolator installed by LER wasn’t wired to the alternator correctly, or at least the original alternator wiring had been altered by LER when they installed the isolator so that it could not work. Now then, since it has been working flawlessly since 1991, I would think that no matter how LER had wired it, it must have been a good thing. After much checking and temporary wires run hither and yon, the tech showed me that he could make it work with a McGuiver hook up using some of his electrical tools and supposedly wiring the alternator the correct Dodge way. Of course the isolator wasn’t wired in and the back battery wasn’t going to be charged when the engine was running, a minor difficulty, but a major pain in the ass. I suggested that he make a temporary hook up like the one he had done but using plain old wires and a household switch that I had in the back of the LER for emergencies. It seemed that the dealers’ parts supply did not stock any plain old on-off switches of any kind and it would take until tomorrow to get one from their local parts supplier. Of course all of this could be resolved by buying and installing a new or reconditioned computer for a price between $429 and $1138, depending on which one they could get quickly. Quickly was not today nor tomorrow. From their evident electrical expertise already demonstrated, I hated to spend the money for something that might or might not work, when installed sometime in the next couple of days. I would be happy with a little switch within easy reach of the driving position that would allow me, or Nan Lou, to act as the voltage regulator that is an integral part of the damnable computer device by monitoring the voltage as we drive along our merry way. We do not want to over charge the battery or anything else that would be adversely affected by too many nasty volts being forced into it.

The tech guy did the temporary wiring after normal closing time had passed and we were on our way. I think they would have done most anything to send us on our way at this point. Earlier I asked the service writer if he was going to “Treat Us Right” on the bill because we came in with a problem and we had to leave with other problems. He said he would and when we got the bill it was for $200 labor and $20 in miscellaneous
little parts like some wire and connectors. It would normally have been four hours at around $95 per hour, which is a lot like $380. I guess I couldn’t complain about that since they did install the new Carquest alternator and run a $75 diagnostic test on it.

We had another Mickey’s meal and stopped at the local airport about staying in their parking lot for a fee of $3. I messed with the wiring for the isolator going to the back battery trying to get it charged from the alternator at the same time as the front battery is charging. It seemed to work and we went to bed with hope in out hearts. hb


Tuesday, July 10, 2007

We were up and ready to go at 9 or 9:30 to take the old busted alternator to Carquest for the $56 core charge. On the short drive there that hope in our hearts from last night leaked out as the alternator quickly went up to a 17 volts charging rate. I fiddled with wires and things a little and decided to just get an old-fashioned bolt-on voltage regulator. They had one for $60 but it didn’t have any installation instructions and no one there knew any more about it than I did. Oh well, we will just have to be on our way hoping for the best. As we were leaving Charlevoix we passed Feathers Automotive, a place recommended by Carquest. I stopped in and told Mr. Feathers my story. He suggested to do the charging at idle speed and turn it off when we go down the road. That is pretty much what I had figured on doing; the only catch being the quick time it went from 14 volts up to 17 volts, sometimes it did it immediately. Being intrepid explorers we headed over toward I-75 for the most direct way home that I guessed was 500 miles away. Our starting voltage was around 13.3 and it dropped about one-tenth of a volt every 10 minutes.

As we went along Nan Lou read off the Sweet Cherries roadside signs and we stopped for $5 worth before reaching I-75. They were very good. That gave us a little bit of a chance to charge it up somewhat. I’m not sure of the mileage, but it might have been 50 miles and we stopped for gas, lunch, and a battery charger to run off of the LER’s generator in an emergency. It cost $40, this LER is going to break our bank. That gave us another chance for a bit more charge back up to 13.3 volts from the 11.9 it had dropped too. And, that was good until it started to rain felines and canines and got very dark; we had to use the wipers and lights sucking volts from our sad sack of a system. We did stop to shut the vent and did a bit more charging. Returning to the road, which had changed to an interstate look-a-like called US 127 hoping to reach Lansing and the next friendly WalMart. We did, with 12 volts on the meter, and I bought some sale shirts and we ate at the WalMart dirty Subway. Poor Nan Lou couldn’t find a thing and will have to remain threadbare for the remainder of the trip home.


Now we are parked at Wally’s with the generator running and charging at a 10 Amp rate. It has been going for about an hour and hasn’t shutdown or lessened the rate yet. I guess the battery might have been down more than it shows on the voltmeter because I think the readings after these short charges are because of what is called a “Surface Charge,” that is not a really long lasting charge for a battery. I might shut it down soon so we can run the AC for a while.

Seems like we have about 260 miles to go and there is a slim possibility we might do that tomorrow, we did about 240 miles today. hb


Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Ham’s slim possibility turned into reality, because we did make it home. Strangely enough, it seemed to be in record time too!

We did stop every one hundred miles or so to charge the battery; and, we kept our eyes on gauges the whole way. I was amazed that things went as smoothly as they did!

Our last stop was at a Cracker Barrel somewhere around Muncie. Then it was time to hit the rush hour traffic on the dreaded I 69 at Castleton. Even that went pretty well.

Being a lazy, put it off today if you can do it tomorrow-type, I suggested we just take computers in and then unload the van tomorrow. Ham wouldn’t hear of it. He wanted it done TODAY, in fact, NOW. So, he would hand things to me, and I would rush in and put things away. The hour was early so it really wasn’t too big a deal----really!

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but when that chore was finished, Ham put on his old clothes and put the van up on blocks and crawled under to start diagnosing the problem.
Talk about energy---or adrenaline---or brain glitches----or something unnamed and unknown. What would I do without him?

And then, Mr. Ambitious started in on the laundry.

It felt so good to shower and shampoo and crawl in bed between clean sheets.

Since I’m writing this on Thursday, July 12, 2007, I can tell you what you already suspected. Ham wanted the van cleared out because he wanted to start in on fixing the problem Now, RIGHT NOW.

Anyway, perhaps he can add the technical stuff; but, that’s all I have to say.

It was not one of our better trips. We have had much, much worse. There were no visits to the ER. No scary things happening health wise, just a lot of concern and stress about the darn vehicle not running right. Other than not being able to mosey home and wander beaches, and buy and eat smoked fish, things weren’t really too bad. I don’t know how Hammie can handle all the things he does, and keep calm, cool, and collected. He does it though! What a man! What a hero! nl Sure is getting deep around here. hb

Another view of Wednesday, July 11, 2007

I awoke about 8 AM and just happened to see that the back battery voltage had dropped to 9.5. What’s going on here? The generator ran last night for almost two hours, it hasn’t dropped that low on this trip at all, especially since we’ve been doing electric conservation with the bad alternator. I checked all I could check, the front battery was in good shape, so I hooked up the wire to feed the back battery from the sad sack charging system the LER had. All this fuss awakened Nan Lou and we were off looking for breakfast and an easy way out of town since Lansing didn’t have an interstate going onto town from the north and the ramp was closed back at the bypass. Navigator Nan nicely directed me as we weaved through the northern section of Lansing’s metropolitan area and at least two bypasses due to road closings, to the western bypass and then to I-69 going south toward Indy.

The slow going through northern Lansing took time, our enemy since we were losing six-tenths volt every ten minutes no matter how far we went. A 20 MPH average was sucky; a 60 MPH was one-third as sucky.

Finally we saw a Cracker Barrel, the first one in a long time, indicating a sign of civilization and we had lunch, or was it a late breakfast? This also was a chance to let the LER idle and charge the batteries for 35-40 minutes. I think we also had to stop before this one time for a little charge too.

With 260 miles to go, and a little luck, we went between 65 and 100 miles per charge stop without any problems and arrived home just in time for the dreaded late afternoon traffic jams in Castleton where I-69 meets I-465 and then ends at Binford Boulevard. For some reason, it wasn’t at all bad for those of us going to Binford and we whizzed right through. We’ve often seen traffic backed up at a snails pace for the merge of I-69 and I-465 as we scooted past on city streets.

Now the challenge of finding out exactly what is wrong with the poor old LER and setting the electrics back to the original changes LER made to the Dodge back in 1991 after the Michigan mechanics put it together their way. hb

The End

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Photos

Big Load??
Back in Indiana we wouldn't need such a big trailer to haul this fan. We could do it with a 1 ton pick-em-up truck.

Sand and water.
Lake Superior truly is that. Clear water, nice sand, not too many people, until we popped up.

Lake Superior beach.
Same lake, same sand, different direction.

Old pilings.
A Lake Superior bay at Munising, Michigan with a lot of old pilings. I think they would make a great foundation for a 12 story condo. Hey, they'd do that in Florida.

Main Street.
The main street in Munising with a great coffee cafe barely shown at the extreme left.

C and C
Coffee and Computer. What more could a weary traveler ask for? Fish and chips? Bed and breakfast? Wine, women, and song? Let me think about it.

The Sportsman
Returning to one of our favorite UP towns, Grand Marais, we found the Sportsman open. It seems to open and close either with the seasons and/or ownership change.

Moose
Along with the elusive North Woods and Mississippi headwaters, we searched in vain for Moose. This is the only one we found. I think he's been there for years.

Gateway to Down Under
The Mackinac Bridge connecting Michigan's U.P. to Down Under had many lanes of traffic lined up for at least a half mile. The toll collectors are very efficient and we made it over in a day.

Neat house.
Charlevoix has several unusual houses which I am told were built back in the fifties. I think they're cool.

Time marches slowly.
Charlevoix also has a dealer in Chrysler products like this Jeep. He didn't have parts for our van, but he did jury rig it for the trip home.

Do you know the song?
Back home again in Indiana, lets hear it for the pure Indiana sky, smooth roads, and light traffic. Light right now, right here anyway.

On a wing and a prayer.
Well, it would be if we were in a plane. I think I'll buy one and teach myself to fly it. Not a big jet, maybe a little old P-38.

Intrepid Travelers.
HamLou arrives home missing out on some Lake Michigan experience due to van problems. We'll head up there when it cools down a bit. It's nice in the fall.