September 6, 2012
Apples, Deer, and Turkeys in West Michigan: Ravenna to Belding
Made it to Belding, MI today and a wild camp on state land along side a rural highway. Mossies drove me into the tent to type this. This spot is flat and clear with a grass carpet. Has a smartly placed post for standing our bikes against. Made just for us.
Leo the postman from across the road wandered over to check us out. Leo has done some light loaded touring,with his wife acting as sag. He talked a bit about his ride on the Natchez Trace, and pointed out where a paved trail-to-be will cross the road near hear.
Spoon noted the heavy traffic and narrow shoulder early on the ride today and suggested we abandon Oren's route in favor of some rural roads. Was not hard to do, so we continually sought out those through out the day, while roughly paralleling the original routing. That's how we ended up in Belding instead of the state recreation area Oren set as the target. No problem. BTW, Michigan is NOT flat. Couple of short 6 percenters.
I had a brain storm and called Oren to see if he would edit the daily journal updates. He would. This will save some time for us in libraries, as I'll post a rough draft with the pictures. Spoon will email his stuff from his smart phone. Oren will clean it all up and update the time stamp.
Dinner was on Harpo tonight. Seasoned rice with chicken, diced tomatoes and bean dip.
Daily angst: Spoon's pinky toe was bothering him. I lost my cp at a Subway shop. Missed it before we left. A quick search. No cp. Had Spoon dial it. I followed the faint ring tone to the garbage can where I'd thrown it with the table trash. What a dumbass!
Spoon here:
Both of us slept well in the village of Ravenna and we got off to a nice start around 8:20, Now ya gotta love Harpo. it is almost fascinating at times. He likes to hurry to get started in the morning, but piddles and piddles at every chance he gets. But that's his way, so I accept that, but wow, he lays out lots of miles to cover but seems to defeat himself by losing things, misplacing stuff on his bike and being generally disorganzed. His motto is "what, me worry!.
Today has been georgeous and we both have enjoyed it. Not thru riding yet, but we've seen some neat stuff. This morning we passed lots of apple trees in harvest mode. A pair of pickers (not the tv kind) were at the end of the row by the road and I entreated them ( thru hand signals - no English) to throw me one. They complied with a hail of granny smith apples! Some when I wasn't looking. Harpo was ahead slightly and didn't see this so he begged an apple at the nearby fruit stand.
Don't know where we will end up tonight; it is now about 2 ocklock and we have only 30 miles ridden. He's in the hi fi room at this library trying to upload to this journal from his laptop; somehow his email has let him down. ??? I am to send some email pictures to Oren for him so that Oren can post them to this journal. Smoke signal communications maybe? :-) So lets hope that the pictures get here sooner or later.
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Quiz: What is a mossy? What did the pickers throw at Spoon? What did I lose at the Sub shop?
Today's ride: 53 miles (85 km)
Total: 78 miles (126 km)
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