Here's the plan:

We're doing eight days of riding and almost 500 miles, according to our calculations. That is an average of a manageable 62-63 miles a day. We're going to drive ourselves and the bikes to Manitowoc, Wi and take the ferry across Lake Michigan to Ludington, Michigan where we will start the tour. We'll finish in Ludington as well, and return on the ferry to Wisconsin.

As mentioned, we're using the ACA maps to route ourselves. Five years ago I rode part of this route when I left Stoughton, looped over the top of Lake Michigan and headed south through Michigan to the car ferry. The "old" ACA route from the Straits of Mackinac took you more inland instead of following the shoreline, but they have revised their route since and now it follows the Lake Michigan shoreline as much as possible. Fortunately I saved the "old" maps and have the non-lakeshore routes so we can do most of this ride without having to repeat many roads at all. We're saving the shore roads for the last four days of the trip.

We're psyched, to say the least.