Day 051 - St. Johns to Alma - Two Far 2023 - Oranges to Apples

June 5, 2023

Day 051 - St. Johns to Alma

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Today's ride was another great one. It was fairly short and flat, the weather was perfect, and I encountered little traffic until near the end.

A combine junkyard near out motel. This was the back lot Worthington Ag Parts, which advertise as being the largest salvage yard in the Midwest. I can believe it, because this photo only captured a small part of the junked equipment they had.

Because I had a short day, I hung around in the room until almost 10AM. I was on US-127 which was a moderately busy 4-lane divided highway for less than a mile before I turned off onto a county road. At first, I thought it was going to be a long ride because of the condition of the road - there were cracks and tar strips everywhere. I was just about to stop and take a photo of the road when, at mile 3, I made another turn and hit the asphalt lottery jackpot.

Jackpot! Most of the day was spent on roads like this.

Shortly after I hit the smooth pavement, I came across the bike and barn shown below. There also was a sign for D&K Bike service. I walked up to the barn but, unfortunately, the shop appeared closed.

I'll never know if the barn was full of bikes or not.

After just a short distance on the road today, I began to wonder if the county had an ordinance saying that all barns had to be red. While there were exceptions, the vast majority of barns and sheds were some shade or red.

I did see one oddity today however - a bright blue barn. I tried to get a photo, but it didn't turn out. As this barn was in a sea of red barns, it would be interesting to know if the barn was a political statement or what. :-)

I was almost past this barn before I noticed a contented Elsie.

Directly across from Elsie was this barn. It had unusually nice landscaping.

Near Maple Rapids, I saw several orchards, but could not identify the trees. They didn't look like apple or peach trees, and as this is Michigan, I wondered if they were cherry trees, but I could find no one to ask.

Biggest elevator operation I've seen so far.

I believe this is a sugar beet, but I'm not positive. I did not see the Daddy-Longlegs until I was editing the photo.

This wind turbine was by itself. I did not see any others in the area, but I had passed a sign a short way back about a wind farm.

I took this photo because the barns were painted white - definitely in the minority today.

Just after lunch with Jeanna and just a couple of miles from the end of the ride, a van passed me and then pulled off and stopped. The driver got out and waved me down. It turns out that Rick is an avid cyclist and wanted to compliment me on my taillights. He said he could see the from a mile off and wanted to know the brand. We ended up talking about cycling for so long that after he left, I called Jeanna to make sure she wasn't worried at why I was so late. (It was a real let-down when she said she hadn't noticed!)

We're at another old-style motel tonight, but it's much nicer than last night's. Best of all, the owner has a 2-year-old Saint Berdoodle (a cross between a Saint Bernard and a Standard Poodle) named Murphy. Murphy weighted less than 3 lbs. when he was 8 weeks old and now he's a 96 lb. bundle of energy. We had a lot of fun playing together!

Life can be so good!

Today's ride: 41 miles (66 km)
Total: 2,438 miles (3,924 km)

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