We continued our journey east through Wisconsin through typical farmland scenery and nice roads with little traffic. Wi. farms are all very picturesque and immaculately kept. Even old farm machinery seems to be artfully placed. Days have continued really hot and humid so we try to get on the road by 6:30 or so. Neither of us (no, really, me either) wants to get up at five but it's really a great time to ride. Beside being cooler, there is more opportunity for seeing wildlife. As we are cruising past a wooded cornfield Kelly spots a "Very Large" black dog by the road ahead engaged in taking his morning 'movement'. As we get closer we see that it's actually a large black bear (answering that age old question...No, they do not shit in the woods). We get the pepper spray ready, just in case, but, of course he runs off as we come up to him...a nice treat. Near the end of the day we come to a section of road construction on our route. Since detours tend to be lengthy in these parts we decide to go for it. It ends up being about two miles of loose gravel which Kelly handles wonderfully with her loaded bike and trailer. I'm more impressed every day with how tough she's gotten and how she handles anything that comes along. We end up lounging by the pool in a very nice campground and being treated to an amazing rain and lightning storm from the safety of the camp game room.
Our last day into the ferry town of Manitowoc seems long due to increased hills and legs tired from six consecutive days riding. We finally get to town and treat ourselves to a well earned night in a motel and a night on the town with a good dinner and trip to a blues club. The ferry ride across Lk Michigan is a nice change from riding and we enjoy the four hour, 120 mile crossing. The lake feels like the ocean once away from shore and looks surprisingly clean. We've made an on-line reservation in a Ludington, Michigan motel and, as sometimes happens with the budget-concious traveler, the accomodations are somewhat less than five-star. The motel marquis boasts a "love tub" available but I tell Kelly I tried to get it but it is currently being disinfected. Ludington is a pretty small town, right on the lake, and we go downtown for a late dinner in another nice brew-pub...they sure do that well around these parts. After a short morning ride we spend the day sunning and swimming at a beautiful white-sand beach along the refreshing waters of Lake Michigan and spend the night in the state park campground.
As we begin our ride the next morning we immediately like the riding in Michigan. Our route takes us through nice hardwood forests, more open and sunny than the northwoods of Wi., and flat roads with little traffic that wind through recreational "lake communities" and little towns. We can't believe how far we've come and congratulate ourselves on how easy the ride has been. The day ends in a nice, mostly deserted, state campground and my last journal entry reads "This ride has almost been too easy. we've had nothing go wrong at all"...I should have known better.
It started about an hour after we went to sleep. Kelly woke me saying "There's something out there." We could here a kind of step-step-thump noise. Captain Ahab on a midnight stroll? We shine our lights out the tent flap to see five sets of glowing eyes at the edge of our camp. Being 'the Man' I'm elected to check it out and go out to find a raccoon family dragging my fully loaded food pannier into the woods. The big one leading the pack looks like a damn wolverine but gives up my pack without a struggle and they go off to torment some other camper. We bring the food pannier into the tent and spend the next sleepless hour or so listening to the neighboring camps chasing off the intruders and are just falling asleep when they come back to get chased off again. This time I pile all the packs on our trailer and turn on the strobe warning light to keep them away. At this point, I'm starting to feel a little queasy but don't think too much of it and try to settle down to finally get some sleep. The raccoons continue making their rounds of the campground and I'm still awake and feeling worse by the minute. A half hour later I'm in the grips of the worst nausea I've ever experienced and crawling out the tent door for a barf-fest like I've never experienced. With bodily fluids spouting from every available orifice, I'm purging everything I've ever eaten...there's that penny I swallowed when I was six. The rest of the night is spent laying curled up in the dirt outside the tent cycling through a sweat-freeze-hurl sequence, wishing for the raccoon-wolverine to come rip my throat out and put me out of my misery. Things have not improved by morning and there is little Kelly can do for me. I continue to lay there til late morning when it is starting to get really hot again. We can't bear the thought of a long, hot afternoon at this camp and Kelly finds some cabins we can stay in, but they are six miles away and I'm still feeling really weak (we figure the culprit was an undercooked bratwurst I cooked as a pre dinner snack). A couple of water bottles over my head revive me a little and we mount our bikes to wobble off to find our haven. After riding about three miles we check the map and find we are gong the wrong direction. We reverse our path and go for a while more only to come to a dead end...WRONG WAY AGAIN, Remember we've had no sleep or food. We reverse again and go back to our first intersection which, conveniently has no signposts. We've now gone six miles and are a mile from our last camp. We pull out the ipad, with the gps, and, even with a 'you are here' mark, in our addled state we don't know which way to go and it's VERY HOT! A passing motorist gets us pointed in the right direction and we finally reach our cabins after the longest ten miles I've ever ridden. The cabins are very 'rustic' but are a refuge from raccoons and sun and we're grateful to be there.
By morning I've recovered enough to hit the road again and we wobble off to our next adventure vowing never to offend the travel gods again. The next couple of days are spent cycling the pleasant roads of Michigan and we enjoy another 36 mile stretch of rail-trail riding, this time on the Pere Marquette trail system across central Mi. We decide to rest up for a day in a motel in Bay City, just south of Lake Huron and on the Saginaw River. It's a pretty town with a nice lakefront area and we can't tell if it's an up and coming place or town on the decline. Turns out to be the latter case...too bad. We're now waiting out some predicted, severe thunderstorms and will be heading out shortly. Hopefully, by the weekend we'll be crossing into Ontario, Canada
Until nextime...
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