boats go up, boats go down
the startling discovery made by our driver during a discussion of lake ice, terrain, and locks...

day 1 of the international ice race vacation begins with a 7:45am depature for meeting point A, only a couple miles north on US-23 of my home.

so we proceed to get on US-23 south.

it's okay. it's early. no one has had coffee yet. we'll only be a little late. 45 minutes later (and only a couple more wrong turns) we arrive at Rob's house where the packing of the bikes begins.

this is the story of 5 bikes, two guys, two girls, one vw jetta and what happens when people stop being friendly, and start being real. if i had a nickel for every person who craned their necks in shock and horror as they passed us on the highway... appearantly the sight of 5 bikes fand our people (in a euro-import car, no less) traveling during the winter is not common here in the midwest.

drive drive drive drive drive drive.

our lunchtime stop was @ G's pizza somewhere near gaylord, mi. home of the "ninja turtle pizza pie." happy as a 12yr old once again. good pizza too.

okay, you know what? the drive up actually wasn't that great. insert a pre-mackinac bridge discussion about car being blown off and how saftey dictates that you roll down your window for easier car escape (due to pressure inside the car vs outside, etc etc...).

cut to the line for the ferry over to drummond island (site of the ice race).

while waiting for the ferry, serveral of us got out of the car and walked around to stretch our legs. making our way up to the front of the line, we passed many large trailers housing snowmobiles and other such equipment. appearantly there was a big snowmobile race on drummond island (along with out piddly little ice bike race).

enter 12 yr old travis (last name: unkown). travis is a 3 time champion sled racer. he's got his own racing team/company. he let us inside his trailer and showed us some crazy lookin sleds. some of them, appearantly, can do 130+mph. he was crazy serious about it all, and as we were leaving he busted out 3 CAT (as in Caterpillar) racing hats, signed them, and handed them to us. (the hats have someone else's name embroidered on them, but we all know they're really from travis).

.wow.

get on the ferry, drive around the island, find rented cabin. crash after spending way too much time in cars.

yeah, not very interesting, but that really is what day one was like. stayed tuned for day two, race day