Michigan Tour of the UP-day four

Monday 9/9-64 miles

Today was a short day to Tahquamenon Falls State Park 30 miles away.  The terrain is till flat with some rolling hills but not too bad at all.  It was also really rural with forest broken only once with a small town, Eckerman’s Corner.  I mention it because it had great coffee and homemade pies.   We soon discovered this was the norm for all the little towns and stores we stopped at.  Coffee and great homemade pie, what better reason to ride than that?  As we pulled out of the café we started down a huge hill.  Even with me braking when Susan screamed we hit 40 mph.  It had a long straight run out at the bottom and was a fun hill to ride down, but I wouldn’t want to bike up it.

We’ve rode into the park around 12:00, and after setting up we decided to ride to the shipwreck museum at Whitefish point.  There we saw the bell off of the famous shipwreck the Edmund Fitzgerald.  As we toured the museum we realized the Fitz was only one of hundreds of shipwrecks.  Lake Superior is littered with sunken ships, it’s just no one wrote a song about them.  As we headed back to camp it started to rain.  It was a light rain, but that leaking tent was starting to worry me.

After another great supper the rain picked up, and by 8:00 it was a downpour. This time there was thunder and lightning as well, and as I lay there with water dripping on my head I begin to feel some empathy for the old sheik we had water boarded at Gitmo.  Around midnight it stopped and just as I was finally drifting off to sleep Susan asked me why we didn’t bring our LL Bean tent.  Me, “It is heavy.” Susan, “But we don’t have to carry it.”  Me, “It takes longer to set up.”  Susan, “It’s dry.” I had no comeback for that and I lay awake for hours trying to come up with one as she snored away. 

The Shipwreck Museum at White Fish Point

 

 

 

Max & me with Edmund Fitzgerald's bell 

 

Michigan Tour of the UP-day three

Sunday 9/8-44 miles

We were eating breakfast by 7:00 and had everything at the truck by 8:00.  I forgot to mention that on this tour they carry everything but you and your bike so we headed out with just a pannier for our personal stuff.

The first leg was short, a couple miles.  We were going to cross the Mackinaw Bridge, but in a truck since you cannot ride a bike across the Big Mac.  By 10:00AM we were riding on the UP.  The ride to our next camping site was fairly flat but the ride was chilly, about 60.  A little over forty miles later we pulled into Trout Lake Campground and picked our site.

It was a great site.  Thick grass.  Trees giving us some protection from any wind or rain.  A picnic table right next to us.  Just one problem.  We did not realize the bathhouse was at the other end of the campground.  It was a ten minute hike to get there.  Checking bathhouse location first was added to my pre-tent setup list.  After biking to get a shower I was talking with some locals.  They set me straight on the UP.

First of all it is the Yoo-Pee.  Not “up”.  The people here refer to themselves as yoopers.  They are also considered the northern equivalence of the redneck, so I fit right in.  I found them to be really nice folks.  They are also a hardy bred that thought the 60d high was warm.  Of course their summer shirts were wool plaid.  It’s the only place I have ever seen someone wear shorts and a parka.  They say they shovel snow in the winter and swat mosquitoes in the summer.  In the spring and fall they rest up from shoveling and swatting.  We spent a lot of time swatting.

Bear Butt or Bear butf? and what the heck is it?

Taking a break along the way

Chimney Rock in the UP

Max ready to roll.

Lake Superior

Camp.  We are way at the end.

Michigan Tour of the UP day two

Saturday 9/7

We woke up to drizzle.  After a quick mop up of the tent floor we drove into town for breakfast and by the time we got back the sun was shining and last night was history.  We jumped on the bike and headed to town to explore.  By the time we got to camp, around 2:00, the rest of our group was arriving.   Set up right next to us was Max.

Max is 74.  He lives in Southern Michigan.  He is retired and bikes for enjoyment, as well as runs Iron Man triathlons for fun.  Yeah, he is not you’re regular 74 year old retiree.  He is also a great guy and we spent the rest of the tour riding together.  Although he could have dropped us at any time he rode at our pace and was great company. 

That evening we meet tour staff and the other 43 riders that made up this tour.  After a short orientation we ate supper, our first meal of the tour.  And what a meal!  The cook and helper toured with us in a big truck complete with an outdoor kitchen and the food was magnificent.  That night we had steak and salmon with all kinds of veggies. 

After talking and meeting we finally headed to our tent for night two.  It was a beautiful night and you could see the Milky Way in the darkest sky I have ever seen.  I actually saw it a couple of times as I had to make a few bathroom runs during the night.  Yeah, getting old is not for the weak or faint of heart.  

Thu tent

 Dining area for the group

 The kitchen.  Some great meals came out that camp kitchen!

 Susan enjoying a rare sunny day in camp

Max

 Tent city

Michigan Tour of the UP

Michigan Tour day one

We pulled out Thursday around 9:00 AM, 9/5 headed for Michigan.   We were headed for an “Adventure Cycling Tour”.  Around 9:30 PM we pulled into a Holiday Inn in Dundee, Michigan for the night.  We were still 300 miles from Mackinaw our final destination.   We were finding the great frozen North to be a long way from Travelers Rest, SC.

Friday 9/6

We got up around 7:00 and headed for breakfast.  We quickly noticed we were right next door to Cabela’s.   We could not leave without checking it out, and man is that place huge!  It also full of more stuffed animals than most zoos have alive.  The Cabela’s, Dick and Mary, must have come close to single handedly causing the extinction of half a dozen different species.  I couldn’t find a single animal they had not killed, multiple times!

We finally arrived at the Tee Pee campground around 3:00.  The weather has been beautiful but we can suck the joy right out of a pretty day when we setup a tent.  Today seems to be no exception.  The forecast is for rain tonight but for now the sun is shining and we head to town. 

Mackinaw City is a tourist town on the dividing line between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.  Neither of us has ever seen the Great Lakes and these were pretty cool.  We could not get over how clear the water was, even along the docks.  The town itself looked like many tourist town we had seen before but we enjoyed it anyway.  As usual Susan bought lots of stuff and I caught up on my reading.  Got to love those Kindles.

After eating supper downtown we headed back to camp in a light sprinkle.  Within the hour it was a down pour.  Now, we have three tents.  The one we bike camp with which is absolutely waterproof.  It is almost submersible, but it is small.  We didn’t take that one.  We have a big tent we truck camp with.  It is an LL Bean and it’s like having a roof over you, but it is heavy.  We didn’t take that one either.  We also have a 4 man dome tent we bought for sixty bucks brand new when we first started camping because it was cheap.  It is also now old.  We took that one.  Brand new it was barely moisture proof.  As we lay in the tent I soon discovered it had gotten worse.  Much worse.  Water seeped through the fly and ran down the underside of the fly until it dripped into the tent making small puddles around our queen size blowup mattress.   Fortunately we were high enough above the puddles to stay dry.  That was night one.

 One of the many dioramas in Cabela's!

 Mackinaw fudge, really good!

 Lake Huron

SC flag flying over the Lake Huron.  Notice seat covers for rain.

Day 4 -Florida 2013

We got up early and walked across the street to a Cracker Barrel.  It was freezing, and the wind was howling.  We both had on bike shorts and almost froze coming back to load up.  The wind was blowing out of the north west and we were headed south east.  That was the good news I kept telling Susan; because as we loaded the bike we were starting off straight into the wind.  And it was 38!!  We only went a block and turned and the wind was blocked by buildings along the road.  It was much more bearable.  As we rode by downed trees, power lines and damaged buildings we realized how bad the storm had been.  As we left town we made that next turn that gave us those 20 mph tailwinds.

We cruised along at 16-17 mph for the next hour or so.  The temps finally got in the 50s.  The 50s! This is Florida for goodness sakes.  It was suppose to be in the mid 70s.  Florida hates us because we use to live here and we left.  That is what I think.

At the elevated cruising speed we made great time.  It was a sunny day and the temps did finally make it into the high 60s.  It was a great riding day and we pulled into Gold Head Branch by early noon.  Since it was nice and we believed the temps were an anomaly we decide to camp one last night.  We had a nice air mattress and real pillows so we knew we would sleep good.  Plus we had no clue the temperature was suppose to get back down in the mid 30s.  Remember those summer sleeping bags?

We setup camp and I hooked up the pump to the mattress.  We had purchased two bundles of firewood so I laid a fire while the mattress filled up.  With it completely pumped up I made extra sure the valve was closed tight.  We ate supper, lit the fire,  had coffee, and decided to head to the tent about 9:30.  The mattress is soft.  What the heck!

I pumped it back up and this time I made super duper extra specially sure the valve was tight.  The valve was tight.  The mattress, it seems, had a hole in it.  By 12:30  I was touching the ground.  By 2:00 we were on the ground.  The very cold ground.  The rest of the night we cuddled up and shivered.  I finally gave up at first light and built a roaring fire and got coffee water going.  Susan took my sleeping bag and covered up with it and slept for another hour or so. 

As we ate breakfast with the sun climbing in the sky and the temperature rising I was reminded of an old saying.  I’m not sure where I first heard it, but I have often thought of it on some of our bike trips.  “The difference between an adventure and an ordeal is attitude.”

OK.  I have probably thought of that on a lot of our bike trips, maybe even most, but all said; we had fun.  The two long biking days were great and the rainy one was short.  How many 60 mile bike rides do you get with a tailwind?  I can barely think of sixty miles total of tailwinds out of all the miles we have ridden, and this trip we had three days of tailwinds!

Now to get through the freezing weather in St Simon.   And all I brought was shorts.  Attitude, attitude.

Check that tailwind,...and jacket, and long pants, and glove liners in my fingerless gloves

I don't think there has been a train over this in a while

The bike trail to Gold Head Branch SP

Home for the night

supper, pasta, chicken and bread

Day 3 -Florida 2013

The rain continued the rest of the day.  That night we woke to blowing rain against the windows and roaring wind.  Our bike was locked outside and I was worried what it was going through.  The next morning the rain was still coming down so hard we couldn’t leave the hotel.  We were told two tornadoes had touched down during the night.  The bike looked OK, and with 80% rain forecast for the day we were still stuck.  It was obvious that Florida hated us and we needed a new plan.

We decided then to rent a car.  We would load everything but the tandem.  Drive back to our truck.  Come back and get the bike.  Drop off car and head to St Simon.  It would only be about 120 miles round trip and it beat sitting in a hotel.  Plus we were tired of Florida.  Great plan; one problem.  It was Sunday.  In Lake City both car rentals were closed.  Hertz was closed.  Enterprise was closed.  Avis just didn’t try that hard because they did not even have a place in Lake City.  It looked like another rainy day in a hotel.  At least it was warm.

The sun came out around 3:00.  The wind was blowing but it felt great walking around in the warm sunshine.  Tomorrow we ride.  We decided to head for the truck and laid out a new route.  We were 60 miles from the campground and it was straight down hwy 100.  It was sunny and warm and tomorrow looked like a great day to ride.  It even looked as if we would have a tailwind.

storm damage

Day 2 -Florida 2013

After freezing a good part of the night I was ready to go.  By the time we packed, dealt with the truck parking and biked out of the park it was 10:00.  For the next 7 miles we rode on a bike trail to the town of Keystone Heights.  We ate at McD’s and got our last real time weather report.  It looked good for today, but things were looking bad the next two.  There was one bit of good news; a tailwind.  We so rarely have a tailwind it was heaven.  The wind was just 7-8 mph but still.

Our hope was to have a dry day, sleep with no rain and pack up dry.  A big hope, but we always go big.  The day was dry with just the lightest sprinkle as we pedaled  the 56 miles to O’Leno State Park, so we counted it dry.  It rained for the shortest period during the night, but the tent was dry when we got up.  Still good.  We cooked breakfast, packed.  Just as we started to pull out another camper came over to give us a weather update.   Tornado watch, 80% possibility of severe thunderstorms and possible hail.  Well,  that was scary.   We pulled out and the rain began as soon as we started to pedal.  It was light at first but soon became a rain.

We had already changed our plans for the night and we headed for a hotel in Lake City 22 miles away.  Again the winds were favorable and we made good time.  The rain even lightened up a bit and we were feeling we might make it without getting too wet.  We pulled under the portico and the bottom completely fell out.   As we holed up in our room we were just happy to be dry.

 waiting out the rain

Day 1-Florida 2013

We arrived at Gold Head Branch State Park around 3:00.  The plan is to spend the night, and load the bike and head out tomorrow.  We unpacked the truck and put up the tent.  After setting up camp we drove in to town for supper and came back and built a fire to knock off the chill.

The low was supposed to be in the forties tonight but warm-up the rest of the week.  We headed to the tent around 9:00 with a definite chill in the air.  We both have lightweight summer sleeping  bags and we are glad it is no colder.  It got colder. Susan in her down filled bag didn’t notice too much.  It is rated to 30.  Me, on the other hand in a flannel bag, rated to 70, maybe; froze.  The bright spot though, we brought our big queen size air-mattress for the first night.  It is way too big and heavy to haul with us and it would stay with the truck in long term parking.  But tonight it would be our last good bed.

 Now this air mattress is 10” of air cushioned bliss.  I really sleep good on this mattress, unless it leaks that blissful air.  I didn’t get the valve closed tight and by 5:00 my butt was flat on the cold ground.  I was glad to see the sun rise. 

 unloading the truck the first night

packing to start the adventure

 packed and loaded, the Beverly Hillbilly look

taking a break along the road