Sometime yesterday afternoon, our beloved mascot Leroy, as in bad, bad..., abandoned bike to swim with his own kind on the lakes of Michigan. Despite turning our room upside down, retracing a few miles, and baffling the hotel staff by asking if anyone had handed in a lost rubber duck, he could not be found. Leroy, you were a great duck to have around, when you were with us we always knew somebody was appreciating the rain! You were a conversation starter, a good luck charm and a reason to smile, you will be missed. This inauspicious start I thought did not bode well but overall 75% of today's ride was perfect! A sealed, well maintained bicycle trail, the Pere Marquette rail trail, led us all the way from Clare to Midland, the sun shone enough to make the cold bearable, and the trees protected us from the worst of the headwind.
Despite it's size, and predilection for one way roads, we negotiated our way through Midland, via the supermarket (the sheer volume of food we need to fuel this trip is a bit scary), with plenty of good directions from the friendly locals. With my feeling of goodwill towards Michigan growing, we found ourselves 20 kilometres from Bay City State Park, rumoured to have excellent camping, facing a stiff headwind, no shoulder and impatient home from work traffic. By swapping the leading position we pushed hard into that bloodly wind, the roaring sound of it pushing back made it impossible to hear anything else. Pulling into the park was met with whoops of celebration, and the rumours were true. The best state park so far, great facilities, genuinely HOT showers, lovely staff who even sourced some firewood for us, what more could a girl ask for??? So with our "TV" glowing and belching out heat, I can write this blog in comfort as another chilly autumn night falls. Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Wow! I'm really surprised to hear that autumn is hitting you guys already. We'll see if you get an "Indian summer" - probably not a very PC term, and I'm not even sure how that came about. Indian summer being when you get summer weather in what is meant to be autumn. Wonder if that happens anywhere east of the midwest? Is Michigan considered to be the midwest???
ReplyDeleteFall is in full swing here in the way far north. It is as fast to start as the leaves are to show themselves in the spring....Over night. We will have lost most all our leaves in a week or two, and expect to have snow on the ground anytime from now until next March. Ahhh the seasons!
ReplyDelete