Do I want to a bike on a freeway?

Who's that crazy lady in the pink shorts? Well that would be me twenty years ago on our third Michigander. Josh, 12, wearing red in the foreground. Near him is his best buddy who I took on every ride except the first and his mom, who did this only once and vowed never to do it again.

Detroit area traffic has been snarled all summer because they closed down a major freeway. This has increased traffic on the remaining freeways making an unpleasant commute, particularly for Julie. They are reopening the freeway next week but before they do, the public is welcome to run or bike on the 7 mile stretch sharing it with 'driverless' cars.Hmm..I rather not have driveless cars with me.

I am mulling this over.

Have I biked on a freeway before? They shut down Lakeshore Drive in Chicago for a triathlon I was in. That was fun though technically it is not an interstate. They let us bike across the Mackinac Bridge as part of the Dalmac (400 miles, 4 days) This would be I-75 but we had to share it with on coming traffic. We rode 2 abreast. You chose to ride either next to traffic or next to the edge on a day full of crosswinds (from the West!!!). As it wasn't long after a Yugo was pushed over  edge by winds, I prefered to take my chances with the traffic. It would have been easy to ride in a straightline but we had to cross the many expansion joints by hitting them at right angles. My partner was a young dude who managed to hop his bike over the joints. Not part of my skill set.

And those boys one year on the Michigander. They were tired of the sandy trails and decided to take the freeway bright and early to the next stop. The boy pictured above was one of them.

It is very pretty out. For the past 3 nights, I have watched The Roosevelts on PBS, which I find fascinating. Crabby Steve refuses to look at it. He is busily finding new houses but I said I don't want to deal with this until AFTER we come back from Italy. There is what he thinks is the perfect house, cheaper than Moose and Squirrel (but farther away from everyone!!!)that will go fast if we don't make an offer on it.

Let it go!

 I've been studying train schedules. It seems I will have to go through Austria to get from Venice to  Ljubljana. Might be fun.