Road trip, 1979

Last week, I posted about Big Sable Point Lighthouse in Ludington, Michigan. Ludington is a small town on Lake Michigan. If you've ever heard of it, which you probably haven't, you likely think of it as a place for boating, swimming, hiking, you know, a nice, relaxing summer vacation spot.

For me, I remember it as the place my brother and I stopped off at a flea bag motel during a road trip. We were young, maybe 15 and 13, I don't think I was old enough to drive, but I could be mistaken. 

Every year my parents would take me and my two brothers to Crystal Lake in Frankfort, Michigan. We'd drive from our house in Birmingham and, later, after we moved, from our house in Barrington, Illinois. It was about a six hour drive, but as we boys got older, it became a brutal ride. We'd constantly bicker about who got the dreaded middle seat, about who was touching, kicking, punching, breathing on, or looking at, whom.

That's when I got the brilliant idea of riding my bike to Frankfort. Now, even though it was the 70's, there was no way my parents were going to let me bike 350 miles from Barrington, through Chicago, Gary, Ind. and up the coast of Lake Michigan by myself. But, I persisted and a compromise was reached. We'd bring the bikes with us and my parents would drop off me and my brother (my youngest brother was excluded, he was only 10) and we would ride up Highway 31 and meet the family a couple of days later.

When I think back on it now, it seems insane that my parents allowed us to ride 150 miles on a state highway unsupervised. We had no helmets, and even though the highway was far less busy than it is today, I remember cars screaming by us at 80 mph as we rode on the far side of the right lane (there was no shoulder most of the way). Not to mention that we stayed overnight in some sketchy motel and met lots of shady characters, some of whom offered, unsolicited, to buy us liquor.

Somehow, we made it to Frankfort in two days. I don't remember my parents being relieved, but I'm sure they were. What I do remember is that I had my bike for our whole vacation. I rode it everywhere, to the dunes on Lake Michigan, to get ice cream, and to play tennis. 

One day, I was coming back from playing tennis. For some reason, I refused to give my little brother a ride but agreed to take all our rackets back to the cottage. Along the way, trying to balance the handlebars and the wooden rackets, I lost control of the bike, went off the road and smashed into a tree. The bike had only minor damage, a flat tire, but I had hit the tree face first at full speed. I'd biked 150 miles along a dangerous highway, navigating speeding cars and unsavory locals along the way, but I couldn't negotiate the 0.8 miles of blacktop from a tennis court to a beachside cottage. 
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