Traveling by bike has always been one of my real passions. Bikes are fun and useful around town, club rides are ok once in a while, but actually selecting a destination and making an overnight of the ride is real adventure. Some friends are getting together for an annual camp out to enjoy a weekend of eating, drinking and tubing on the Rifle River in northeastern Michigan. It gives me a good excuse for a week long trip. The ride from Kalamazoo to the "the thumb"is boring (looking at a map of Michigan, it looks like a mitten with a thumb created by Saginaw Bay. Saginaw is not known for much else, except that Paul Simon mentioned it in a song and Madonna was spawned somewhere nearby). Between my home and the campground is miles and miles of corn, it can't even be romanticized in a Woody Allen movie as "miles of wheat," it's just flat farmland filled this year with dried out, nearly dead corn. So, I'm not going there.
I decided to drive to Traverse City this morning, leave my car in the long term parking area of the airport, and start from there. It will be two days across the state, spend Friday night and Saturday with my friends and Sunday I will start a ride around the "mitten" touching base in Mackinaw and going back down the western coast to spend a night in Traverse before driving home a week or so from now.
This will be a nice trip. I'm taking a new fly rod to test the streams and ponds along the way, and get a little "me time" into the schedule. This is what most cyclists and aspiring tourists never seem to see. Most think of "touring" as a grand adventure, a hurculean commitment requiring them to abandon their jobs and homes and wander across the earth in search of some existential otherness in their personality. The internet is full of loonies doing it. I don't know what they are thinking, but a week or so is no less adventurous, and it's always comforting to know that your own bed is waiting at the end.
I'll be posting a little along the way, but keeping a detailed log and will have a longer account of the trip when I return.
sounds like a great ride! I did the Gaylord to Mac City ride last summer with my two daughters (11 and 14). We parked our car in Gaylord (Alpine Lodge- thanks) and spent a night in Topinabee, then up to Mac City for 2 nights. Then returned. 5 days total. It was their first tour, and they LOVED it. They pushed for another this summer, so Sunday we're heading to Brainerd, MN to ride the Paul Bunyan Trail north to Walker, MN. This time, my son (18) and wife! will be joining the fun. 2 newbies should add to the experience quite a bit. As the biggest bike geek in the family, I'm so happy that everyone is getting involved. Anyway, enjoy the scenery, serenity, miles and meetings. You and we are in for some great experiences for sure. Best to you!
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