Wanderung 4

Toyota Tundra Tows Trailer!

Or: Following Fall Foliage with Family Flophouse Firmly Affixed!

September - October 2003

October 16 - Drive to Traverse City, Michigan

Fleeing Forecasts of Frequent Flurries in the Frozen North, we drove South to Traverse City along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Our drive across the Mackinac Bridge was expensive ($5) and slow—due to gusty winds all RVs and trucks had to limit their speeds to 20 mph. As we drove south we seemed to drive back thru the peak zone of fall colors—a few miles below Mackinac all the trees still had leaves of all the different vibrant fall hues, which was very pretty. By the time we reached Traverse City about 100 miles to the south many of the trees still had green leaves and had not really started to turn yet. Following the fall colors is a little like a game of hide-and-seek because the local micro-climates and weather during the past year combine to influence the onset and duration of the fall colors in each area—but it’s a fun game if you like the gorgeous fall colors.

Despite the wonderful fall colors, driving the trailer was still stressful for me because it required a very different style of driving. First, it was slow—I had to drive the speed limit or 5 mph under it rather than blasting along 5-10 mph over the limit as was my usual wont. Second, having a tin blimp hanging on behind me gave the combined truck-trailer combination quite odd handling characteristics in gusty crosswinds and similar situations. The truck was torqued by the forces acting on the big surface area of the trailer and it didn’t always veer in the same direction it would have usually done in a crosswind. Finally, the trailer was wider than the truck and tracked to the inside of turns, so I had to be very careful of my placement in the lane, particular on older streets with narrow lanes. All in all, this was a new and different set of driving skills that required constant attention and was mentally tiring.

I had gusty crosswinds all the way down to Traverse City (the sign at the city boundary says “City of Traverse City”, which reminded me of the allegorical “Department of Redundancy Department”). After setting the trailer up I just collapsed for a bit whilst Monika worked on the computer. Late in the afternoon we drove over to the Holiday Inn for the information and directions for the Traverse City Volksmarch, then paused at the local library to check our email—it turned out to be a beautiful, new airy building with larg windows. Next door to the library we were surprised to see a rainbow-colored train next to an old train station. It turned out that this train ran out from town for tours of the fall colors, which did sound like fun. After all this work we rewarded ourselves with a sundae at the local Culver’s, and, last but not least, stopped off at a Credit Union ATM for some much-needed cash (no fee, hurray!).

Copyright 2004 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Prolog Map Epilog

September 2003
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October 2003
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