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
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Monday, July 29, 2013
Ride Day 127
After a hard weekend of fishing up around the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior with my brothers and friends I returned to riding today with my swollen sore knee. I still made it 90 miles and climbed 2400' with all the rolling hills through dairy farms, corn, soybeans and nature preserves in perfect bike riding weather. I left the Sunset Motel in Portage early and rode a fairly busy highway 33 to Waupun then took a bike trail called Wild Goose to Fond du lac. Once I left the bike trail I used my Garmin to direct me to Manitowoc. I rode about five miles following its directions and all of a sudden I saw the same intersection that I started using the GPS at. I was a bit pissed off about that Garmin fart. I turned it off and used my paper map to get through Fond du lac. I looked for a hotel or campground but everything was full due to the big air show this week. I was disappointed but rode on in the direction of Manitowoc. When I saw Fox Lake I thought there might be a campground but no so I stopped and asked a young lady with a bunch of kids if there was a campground around. She was doing daycare and the kids liked talking to me so we ended up taking pics of the kids and me on my bike. I enjoyed the kids. I rode on and when I arrived at Saint Anna I spied a bar/grill called Scrubs and I was hungry. They had tacos as the daily special so I pigged out while chatting it up with the locals. The tacos were huge but I polished off three of them anyway. The bar owner, Chad, helped me look for a campground then offered to let me camp in the bar's backyard. Bingo I always say yes to approved free camping. I also had fun with the night bartender, Annette. So until dark I will hang out around the bar eating and drinking water not beer or other booze because it dehydrates me too much the next day when I am riding. Two girls softball teams are due any minute so I need to get this done... 
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Ride Day 125
Today was a return to Madison from Janesville day. It was the same old 50 mile ride but I took a different route and saw some mini horses this time. They were fun to watch for a bit. One was very pregnant and looked like she would drop her foal any second. This route had more hills but no big deal. When I arrived in Madison my brother Bill told me he wanted to ride with me tomorrow. I was happy to say sure come along. He came and picked me up in his truck and we ate some lunch then moved his daughter out of her old apartment. Tonight we are going to biker's night at a local bar. That is as in Motorcycles not bicycles. It should be fun and brother Tim is coming along also. We won't be out late because Bill is riding with me and then he needs to work so it will be a light weight night of drinking. More later...
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