Monday, August 5, 2013
Ride Day 132
After a good night staying with old family friends I hit the road early and went about 70 miles from Charlotte to Wixom. The roads were nice and quiet country roads to start but once I got on Grand River Road the traffic increased and the shoulders decreased or disappeared entirely. I did not enjoy the riding later in the day. I had planned on stopping at around 50 miles but I could not find any place to camp or any cheap hotels either so I just kept on riding. In the end it started to rain just as I was passing a rather expensive hotel and I just said screw it and checked in for the night. It included free dinner and breakfast so that makes the rate more reasonable since I eat so much food. I am not the one you want around at an all you can eat affair right now with the way I can pack food in and then be hungry again in a couple hours. I pigged out on the free dinner which was very tasty and after catching up on my internet I plan on going back down and eating again. Tomorrow I will go visit an old friend of my kids in Detroit. I am looking forward to that visit. I took almost no pics today but such is life...
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Ride Day 130 and 131
So I rode from Hersey to Merrill about 90 miles with a lot of it on bike baths that were nicely paved. The campground in Hersey the night before was a good time and I enjoyed my neighbors and the setting called Blodget Landing. There was a gurgling river making nice white noise to sleep to and no loud rutting neighbors or other loud party animals keeping me up all night. I got some good sleep which for me is rare. I also hung out at River Junction bar and restaurant which was a good time. I took a day off I was enjoying it so much. After my rest in Hersey, I jumped on the same bike path the next morning and rode it to the end near Clare Mi then followed various country roads all the way to Merrill about 90 miles total where I checked into a campground that was insane. It was a water park and was full of screaming kids and tight quarters for the campsites. There was very loud noise until about 1am so I did not get a good night of rest. Plus it cost $31 which was too much. I should have camped along the road somewhere. Lesson learned.
The ride from Merrill to Charlotte was very peaceful. In the first fifty miles I only saw 5 other vehicles on the roads. I never hit traffic until just before Lansing. A lot of the roads in Michigan are gravel and I had to ride on a lot of them. They aren't too bad to ride on except that you have to pay close attention to the road instead of being able to look around at the scenery. I spent a large share of today looking for monarch butterfly caterpillars but found none at all. they live on milkweed plants and there was a ton around but zippo for monarchs. When I was a kid there were millions of monarch butterflies around and every single milkweed plant had at least one caterpillar on it. In fact today I only saw 6 butterflies in total, five small white ones and on small yellow one. I rode past 90 miles of fields full of flowers and other perfect butterfly habitat but there were none around. Where have they all gone? I hear people talking about the disappearance of bees but nobody ever mentions butterflies being gone. Do people just not care? I am afraid that most insects are going to be in decline now with all the genetically modified plants and the spraying of pesticides everywhere. Butterflies are not pests they are innocent victims here for the most part. Enough ranting for now. I ended up spending the night with old family friends from Janesville and I enjoyed the stay. In the morning I head to Detroit but am thinking of making it two 50 mile rides instead of one 100 mile ride. I will decide at around 49 miles tomorrow... pics later when I have better wifi
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Ride Day 129
This morning I went for a 17 mile ride to the Big Sable Lighthouse in Ludington State Park. It had rained all night long and my tent was too wet to pack so I spread it out in the sun to dry while I went for a ride with no bags. It is sure a lot easier to ride without the bags on the bike. I zipped along avoiding the puddles from the rain and made it to the lighthouse just after sunrise. After a few pics I rode back and packed up my now dry tent and just headed east not knowing where I was going and not caring where I ended up. The day ended up being 87 miles with a couple thousand feet of climbing with me in a campground in Hersey MI. I had a good tailwind near the end of my day and was tempted to keep going but it would have been stupid with my sore swollen knee to overdo the mileage. I did not intent to even do as much mileage as I did but I was just going easy and the miles piled up before I knew it. There were not many pic ops after the lighthouse so I did not take many. My breakfast stop was fun. It was at a cafe out in the country and it was all locals and we chatted endlessly like we were old friends or something. I enjoyed that. At the campground there were two friendly girls right next to me and then about a half dozen local guys that rented a campsite for the summer so they had a place to hang out camped right next to the girls. The river gurgled and burged in the background and made nice white noise to sleep to. I had a few beers at the local bar/restaurant and enjoyed the company before heading off to watch the stars from my tent which I left the fly off of since no rain was in the forecast. I did see the space station fly over a couple of times and lots of other satellites also. more later
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