Western UP Feb 4-8

[lofsfire]

Well had the chance to go to the Western UP and stay at The Bluff (www.thebluff.biz) in Rockland. And Matt and Kandice gave us a great place to stay! I would defiantly recommend staying with them!

Before the trip I posted a question on where to ride etc. And I said that My wife, one of my friends and His dad would be coming on this trip and thought we would be able to ride about 80 to 100 miles a day. By the time you stop and take pictures and all that. Boy was I WRONG!

The first day we put on over 180 mi. Road from Rockland to Ontonagon to Lake of the Clouds down to Burgland and back to Rockland.








Day two of riding We headed to Copper Harbor and tried to make a full loop around the Keweenaw Peninsula. 231 mi later we were back in Rockland.


All trails were great in the area, but the Rockland/ Mass City Groomers did the Best Job! I do not think I hit one bump in that area the whole week no mater the time of day!

Copper Harbor Over look



Day three of riding we head south to Bruce Crossing then to Sidnaw to Rousseau and back to make another 180 plus mi day.


One of the many nice bridges on the trail!

So when we arrived in Sidnaw my wife was not please with the only restaurant in town. I don't know why either, but she insisted we go somewhere else. So about and hour later we came to a sign the said Chuck Wagon Hot Food 1 Mile and 20 miles to food the other way. My wife said she was starving and she want to go to "Chuck's Wagon Restaurant" I did not argue just asked if she was sure she could not wait. She said NO! Well At the corner of South Laird and South Laird Roads we found "Chuck's Wagon Restaurant" Not quite a Restaurant but I wish I had a picture of my wife when we made the turn and saw this

I knew exactly "type" of "Restaurant" we were going to and so did the other guys. I think it took us a good 20 min to stop laughing. My wife was not amused.



The trip Started out rough last Friday I found a broke rear spring on my sled. Luckily I had my OEM spring that I took off years ago. Then on the drive up my truck radiator sprung a leak. (Very small just enough to be a pain.) Then we tried to ride once we got in to town the first night and had to make some adjustments to my carbs. Had to loosen the air mixture screw 1/8 of a turn. And it ran great the whole time. Had a relay on my friends 04 SXViper freeze over night spent and hour trying to find it. (Oh by the way, when we were unpacking the truck the night before my friend was giving me a hard time for bring to many tools. And the one he gave me the hardest time over was my heat gun. He was sure glad I had it the next morning!)

Then after getting In all the great riding we did we head home. And about 20 mi. south of Eagle River, Wi I picked up a nail in my trailer tire. Changed that and of course I had not check the air in the spare in quite some time but I did have a Portable Kobalt Air tool kit. Only problem is it does not use a compressor. And the air in the canister equalized before the tire was filled. Stopped at the next gas station and tried to but air in the tire. First I checked the air hose and it put out air, but not enough pressure end up letting out 10psi. Because there compressor was froze. Finally got to a gas station the had a working air hose and was on my way home.

Back in Chicago
All in all it was a Great trip Can't wait to do it again!

Also I have to thank www.lakeeffectsupply.com for have my new glove waiting for me at Chances Hardware.

[sabercat]

Great pictures/story!

Isn't it amazing?..."Down South" 100-150 miles is a big day(And Rough),in the UP its before lunch!

We also stayed at The Bluff in Rockland, and couldn't find a bump in the trail!

After a trip like that you won't want to unload your sleds anywhere else!

[yamahachick]

Awesome pics, sounds like y'all had a great time!

[ridesafe]

Great pics! Glad everyone had a good time

[samc]

Looks like a great time.

[favoritos]

The UP is awesome.

I'm surprised that you didn't have any pics from the Copper area. The overlook above town is one of my favorite views up there.

[lofsfire]

sabercat ~ It is amazing about the milage!

favoritos ~ I have a few that look down on Copper Harbor and one at the very top. That one is a panoramic, that on my computer I can spin around in a 360d circle as if you are standing where I took the picture. It will allow me to export it in to a HTML file that use Adaboe Flash, but when I try to load it, it will not work correctly. Yes, I have all the driver and add on. It's a program that came with my camera called ArcSoft Panorama Maker 3. If anyone know more about it I would love to up load it to share.

Thanks to everyone else above, we really did have a good time.

[lofsfire]

So I played with the program a little more and kinda got it to work.

You will need to download this plug-in:http://cic.nist.gov/vrml/cosmo/CosmoPlayer.zip

Here is the page and instructions it came from:
http://cic.nist.gov/vrml/cosmoplayer.html#AUTOMATIC

Here is the picture flat

and here is the picture for the 360d pan

Once you have the file open in a web browser it will look like this

don't use the other buttons they will just mess up the view.
Hope this will load correctly.

There where two other choices on file I could have exported too, but this is the only one I could try to upload here.

[lofsfire]

Well as you can see I could not load the file you need to see it in the 360d view. I know others have upload other types of files here How do it do that. The file I'm trying to load is a .htm

[dognvenus]

Jason...great pics and glad to hear you and Christy had a great ride. Will you ever go back?
Should have done it sooner, is what your saying...I'm sure. Talk to you soon

[lofsfire]

http://www.mediatube4.com/full/249e9...89c260573c4b95

Ok, I think I have something everyone can view easily!

dognvenus ~ we will definitional be going back! Did you get all of the pictures from South Bend

[dognvenus]

Jason, no didn't get any... we are in the middle Montana nowhere right now. I'll send you all the ones we have also when we get in a better area.
I'm sending you an email so be sure to check when you gt a chance. DnV

[lofsfire]

I did forget to say once the picture comes up click and hold the left button and move your mouse in the direction you want to go.

[jdskidoo]

Nice pics...going to the UP In a couple weeks cant wait!!

[dognvenus]

Jason, We'r headed for Chicago yard now to drop then head home to load up and go north. Hope things get better before we get there. Trail reports didn't look to good but keeping our finger crossed. Do a snow dance for us...LOL
DnV

[favoritos]

Nice job on the 360d view. Feels almost like being there.

[sledjunkie25]

The ol' Gay Bar! I like the shirts they sell there. "I gotta footlong at The Gay Bar!" LOL

[revhead2]

That is a awesome 360d view. I was up there on Brockway about a week ago and enjoyed it.

[lofsfire]

I'm glad everyone liked the pictures. I thought the 360d was cool and turned out well. I'm glad I found a way to post it on the here.

As far as The Gay Bar with all the talk about it on here, I had to stop a see it for myself. By the way with the service thread that was on here about 3 weeks ago about it, I had that in the back of my mined. And I have to say we had to wait 20 min for our drinks. But I my case it was NO ONES FAULT. their credit card machine jammed up with paper one person ahead of me and the bartender apologized 3 time to me. The real down side for me was she apologized and ran off so fast I could not tell her I had cash. after the third time she finally noticed the cash in my had and said "Oh, I guess I could take care of you since you have cash." She was busy and was nice about it so no real complaints we were not in a hurry. Just thought it was funny!