Biking coast to coast

Lake Huron glimmered silver in the early morning sun

My new friend. Mackinaw Bridge is in the background but can't be seen with this camera

I posted this by mistake the other day. My watch uses GPS to keep track of where I go. I actually went further as the watch was off for a while. Starting in Cheybogan, we went up the coast (called the Sunrise coast to try to attract visitors...most people head for the West coast)to Mackinaw City. There under the bridge, you could have one foot in Lake Huron and one in Lake Michigan which Naomi and I did years ago. Then a long boring slog through gravel through very sparsely populated areas. We did stop at Pellston for lunch, usually the coldest reported spot in the lower peninsula. Finally we were on a paved path once the path turns west. Unfortunately we turned into massive headwinds. We were back into the heavy tourist district surrounding Petoskey. Slow as the wind made me, I was still going faster than the cars in the massive tourist jam beside me on the road. Then we had to turn north off the shoreline path up a 2 mile steep hill to the school. I would go up a few blocks until I was exhausted, turn on to the flat west streets to recover, tackle a few more blocks, on and on so I didn't walk. It was the only time I had the bike in the lower chain ring all week unlike last year which was every few miles.

I started very early the next morning to ride along the water to Charlevoix and back before Naomi met me

a nice paved path which going out, I had to myself 

art bike in Charlevoix

Had to wait 10 minutes for the drawbridge so rich people could go from Round Lake to Lake Michigan

in their yachts

Rest stop on Round Lake. These were actually stocked quite nicely with fruit, vegetables, peanut butter jelly sandwiches. cookies, candy, water, gatoraid. Usually they have a variety of Kind bars which I have trouble resisting but this year, just chocolate covered banana ones. Saved them for Naomi

train depot. Most of our trails were abandoned railroad lines

turquoise waters of Little Traverse Bay

In the past, we would have to take down and then put up our tents in a new location every day but they got the bright idea of staying in one place for 2 nights. When I got to our camp site Tuesday, my first job was to find my tent and luggage that had been carried on one of two trucks. I was hot and tired and pawed for a long time in one luggage pile with no luck. Backtracked to the school to see if someone knew where my truck's luggage would be. No signs, which would have been useful. Finally someone pointed on top of yet another hill. Way up there were my bags. My new friend, who rode on roads with a road bike, was there before me and helped me with the tent set up, tricky in high winds.The rain fly kept lofting, I thought it would carry the two of us away. Had to stake much more carefully. One advantage of being in the middle of no where is that there is no competing light sources so the sky was just covered with stars when I would get up at night. To find my tent, I bought a cheap solar light to place on the side of the tent as a beacon after crawling into someone else's tent last year as they all look the same.

This school had very bad food which was good in a way.. Wasn't tempted to eat much less overeat. As we were so far from town (yes we had bikes but going up that hill isn't fun and it was dangerous going down), we were shuttled by bus into town. Off to a brewery where I tried a variety of exotic and tasty beers..apricot? rhubarb?  The night before, I still had my car so I drove my old friend from last year and my new friend down for some chocolate cherry stout and their usual blood orange honey ale. Fun at night as lots of the riders end up at the bar and I made friends.

I got up extra early to ride to Charlevoix to be finished with the 44 miles before Naomi came. I made it with 5 minutes to spare (She was early)