July 26, 2023 to July 28, 2023
Day 40, 41, 42: Hecticness
Boulder Junction, Wisconsin to Manistique, Michigan
Endless cups of coffee, a warm and cozy lodge, reading, card playing, catching up on the world…this is what did not happen on Wednesday, but it crossed our minds. Wednesday was the day that brought in a band of thunder storms, and it was tempting to just stay at the Acorn Lodge in Boulder, but the fates would not have that; there were no rooms available for Wednesday night. So, off we ventured onto the wet pavement after the storms let up - it was late, 10:30 am. We really didn’t think about the 84 mile day we had ahead of us.
Wednesday turned out to be a butt-kicker day, but it was a beautiful ride: backroads all day long. We started out on what is called Rustic Roads; Wisconsin has miles of them. Here is a description:
“The Rustic Roads program was created over 40 years ago to provide hikers, bicyclists and motorists an opportunity to leisurely travel through the state's scenic countryside. Today, there are 124 designated Rustic Roads spanning 750 miles through 61 counties.” They have natural beauty, are lightly traveled and are not scheduled for any major improvements - we can attest to that; there were many potholes but still worth doing.
Besides the Rustic Roads, we had other enjoyable sections, but most of the sections had rolling gut-puncher hills all day long. It was tiring and hot with humidity; we have had a lot of that over the past week, but we are dealing with it fairly well. Anyway, we arrived around 7:30 pm in Chrystal Falls at Paint River Hills Campground. On a day like that, there is not a lot of dilly dallying - we keep moving unless we are eating or peeing.
On Thursday, we had another long scenic day; however, it started out being kind of hairy. We were on two-lane Highway 69 leaving Chrystal Falls, and the skies opened up, thunder rolled through, and lightening flashed; we were not expecting this storm, or at least we thought there was only a 15% chance. If there is a slight chance, it is going to rain. We got wet but made our way to a community center’s front porch for a bit. We couldn’t stay there all day, so once it let up and the thunder and lightening stopped, we headed out into the rain. Well, that was not the end of it; the skies opened again and we debated riding in it, but I was getting concerned about Highway 69’s lack of shoulder and cars flying by at 70 miles per hour, so serendipitously we found a place to shelter on private property. There just happened to be a wooden structure covering a giant log… We hung out there for a while until the storm let up, but we were wondering what the significance of the log was…and we later found out.
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It turned out to be a log that was in the front of some resort, and when the resort closed, the logged moved. We found this out when we stopped down the road to chat with a bike tourist, who happens to be sitting with us at camp at the moment; anyway, he was talking with a local, and the log happened to be in the front yard of her cousin’s house.
Yesterday, Thursday, turned out to be a long day as well, but we eventually arrived in Escanaba around 5:00 pm; we lost an hour due to a new time zone. The evening turned out fine; we stayed in a hotel because we thought there was severe weather coming in, but it turned out to be pretty benign. We can’t win…
We were on our way this morning, Friday, around 10:30 am, I know late, Mike was trying to get his hair cut; however, that did not work out. We finally had a less eventful day with fewer miles and views of Lake Michigan.
Our day ended with a swim in Lake Michigan - something I was really looking forward to. It looks like the ocean! There are small waves and sand dunes. Now we are sitting in a campground outside of Manistique heading for the island of Mackinaw which only allows pedestrians and cyclists. Supposedly, it has almost as many bikes as Copenhagen.
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Talk to you down the road tomorrow,
Team Bean
Stats
- Cribbage Game Wins: Mike 7, Dawn 6
- Tortillas Eaten: Mike 106, Dawn 42
- Jars of Peanut Butter: 4
- Flats: Dawn 2, Mike 1
- Bike Haters: 4 (We had our first one in Montana yesterday.) None in North Dakota that we know of.
- Bags of Salad Consumed: 16
- Dog Encounters: 2
- Beers, too many to count
- Bags of M&M’s: 5 of various sizes
- Fritos: 8 of various sizes
- Bear Encounters: 1
Today's ride: 210 miles (338 km)
Total: 2,774 miles (4,464 km)
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