Week 9 Highlight & Overview

Highlights: For so long it has been ride or die. We pass through a lot of cute little towns but we don’t want to look at the shops because we can’t carry more, and we can’t buy food in every town or we’d go broke. So we rarely stop unless they have a nice park for a rest break. Well, we became tourists real quick. 

Mackinac Island is very commercial, but we loved the energy. We rode the 8.2 mile perimeter trail, stopping to look at the arch and other sites. Just cruising easy with the 100s of other tourists. We toured Fort Mackinac and tasted samples at several fudge shops (the smallest size for sale is a pound, and that would make us sick).

In Mackinaw City we stayed 2 days, walking around town and sitting on beach chairs on a sandy beach on Lake Huron.

Lots of bike trails this week, some packed gravel, but mostly paved. The trees along the trails are just amazing. There are so many beautiful lakes and rivers.  We really have enjoyed Michigan. 

Yesterday we rode a few miles from DH Day campground to Sleeping Bear Dunes. There is a 1.5 mile hike through the dunes to Lake Michigan. We hiked up hills in the sand and at the .8 mile marker there was a great view of the lake. This was also the point where there was a steep downhill and climb up the other side. So we sat, enjoyed the view, had a snack and talked ourselves out of going all the way to the beach (we had a great night sitting on the beach the night before). 

We went back down and rode 20 miles to the Platte river where we stopped at Riverside Canoes. We rented a tandem kayak and floated down the Platte River, through Loon Lake, and back on the river to lake Michigan. The river was 2-3 feet deep and had a slow current. There were many people on the water, so we didn’t really kayak, we drifted with the current. We put our hands and feet in the water and it felt wonderful. A nice break from the bike. We got a ride back up to our bikes, and then rode to the nearby campground. 

Besides being tourists, we consider this day as being our own triathlon!

No arguments this week (we bicker, but…). The only issue is that we are both hard of hearing, and we misunderstand words all the time. This week's phrase is “will you crunch my granola”. Neither of us can remember what was actually said.

Route overview: Sunday we rode US 2 to St. Ignace. Monday we took the ferry to Mackinac Island and then to Mackinaw City. Rest day on Tuesday. Wednesday took the Mackinaw-Petowsky trail to Petowsky, then went south east on Mi 31 (little to no shoulder and some traffic) to Boyne City. We rode through East Jordan and Ellsworth to US 31 (great shoulder), then the TART trail to Traverse City. We connected with the Leelanau trail up to Sutton’s Bay, then Mi 241 to the Manitou and Sleeping Bear heritage trails, then side roads to US 22 where we stopped at the Platte River Campground.