Day 17: Shipshewana, IN to Galesburg, MI

July 2, 2012

(By Jeff)

It was a typical not-too-early motel day start, further slowed by a trip to the continental breakfast at the hotel. The Farmstead Inn was nice enough, although a bit pricey. It apparently caters to an older crowd who travel to Shipshewana to visit the “world famous” fleamarket and to observe the large Amish population doing their thing.

We retraced a few miles to get back on our route, and pretty soon were in Michigan. The only indications we'd left Indiana were a subtle change in the quality of the pavement, and a metal pole which presumably had once held a “Welcome to Michigan” sign, before its theft by teenage hoodlums.

This was the day we started seeing more lakes, and fewer soybeans and cornfields, thus making the name of this journal more accurate (finally). Unfortunately, we also started seeing more traffic. Traffic-wise, the day before yesterday had been our first bad day of the trip. Yesterday's ride was very nice and quiet, so we had hopes that the route we were following (Adventure Cycling's North Lakes Route) would turn out OK. Sadly, today those hopes wold be dashed.

Centreville was our first Michigan town, and it was situated on a busy state highway, which, even though we were only briefly crossing, immediately set my teeth on edge. (Why is someone who is so bothered by traffic noise also interested in bike touring? Good question.)

We went into a gas station/Subway to replenish our snack supply, where I took a picture of Joy clowning around with a life-size cutout of Olympic speed skater Apollo Ono, who is apparently Subway's latest celebrity spokesperson. (Despite her fierce denials, it is obvious that Joy has a crush on Ono. I gave her a copy of his autobiography a few years ago as a “gag” gift, and I think it's one of her favorites of the gifts I've given her.) Sadly, Joy was not happy with the picture, and has forbidden me from including it in this journal.

Later we crossed the Langley Bridge, which an historical marker informed us was the longest covered bridge in Michigan. I've read lots of historical markers on these bike tours. Lots.

Noteworthy this morning was the presence of many, many hand-lettered signs advertising the availability of eggs in the area - “ Farm Fresh Eggs”, “Brown Eggs”, “Country Eggs”, “Eggs & More”, and the terse “Eggs”. What's that all about?

The country roads we'd been on all morning had actually been pretty busy, and we could never figure out where all of the people were driving to (as I write this, I have a hypothesis: They were shopping for farm fresh brown country eggs.) But things got much worse when our route had us turning onto a busier road for several miles. By the time we got to tiny Scotts (no population listed on our maps), I was frazzled. We went into a cool, old-timey restaurant/ice cream place called Scooters, where we were the only customers, and had a leisurely lunch.

The rest of the day had us on the same annoyingly busy “country” roads until we reached the intersection with “MN Avenue”, where we had planned to leave the route for a few miles to reach a campground. As cars and trucks whizzed by, I decided that I wouldn't /couldn't do it. We were only a few downhill miles from the small town of Galesburg, on a quieter road. Galesburg had no motels or campgrounds, so I cajoled Joy into making a few calls to see if we could camp at a church. She reached a local man, Richard Switzer, who graciously agreed (before he met us) to let us camp on some riverfront property he owned in town.

It was an easy, mostly coasting, ride into Galesburg, where we met Richard at the Methodist church, and then walked our bikes to his nearby fenced-in property right on the Kalamazoo River. After he showed us around, we cleaned up using jugs of water (there was no running water on the property), then walked to a local cafe for dinner. We set up our tent on the little pavilion, which was wired for electricity and contained a ceiling fan, directly under which we placed our tent.

Tomorrow would be our longest day yet, so we set our alarms for 5:30 and went to bed fairly early.

Oh, something else happened today: IT CONTINUED TO BE VERY, VERY, VERY HOT.