Day 12 - Munising MI to Newberry MI

Today’s Miles: 60

Total: 585

Again, kind of a non-reportable day.  We were on highway 28 for the entire day.  In fact, there was a 25 mile stretch that was completely flat and completely straight.  It was crazy.  You could look down the road as far as you could see and the road just disappeared in the distance.  Traffic was pretty heavy but we still had a pretty decent shoulder.

I think the traffic is so heavy because of the Labor Day weekend.  In fact the campground we are staying at had no spaces left, so we are just out on this grassy hill.  For us it really doesn’t matter because we don’t need electricity except to charge stuff back up.

We are in Newberry back to camping.  I’ll go through the routine when we camp.  We get here and many times we stop and get a drink of something.  For me it is usually chocolate milk.  We many times get chips and salsa to take the edge off as well.  We will set up the tent and then get the cloths out that you are going to wear and head to the showers.  We have been lucky this trip to have some great showers. After the showers, we will make ourselves some dinner.  We have to stop in a town before we get here and buy the stuff we are going to cook and replenish the supplies for breakfast (oatmeal and bananas) and Lunch (PB&J).  After dinner we cleanup and do dishes and the day is about shot.  This crazy journal takes up too much time as well.

There are a ton of people camping here tonight. There are many that have just come to this field as well.  I’m sure that is all they have.

Stopped for a 2nd breakfast.

This is that straight road.

Day 11 - Marquette MI to Munising MI

Today’s Miles: 46

Total: 525

One thing we have noticed is that we have been inside a hotel cabin or something for the last six nights.  I guess enjoy because tomorrow we are back to camping.  A great ride today.  The temperature was rather cool.  It was a hard day to stay comfortable.  When you would climb a hill it was too warm to have the jacket on, but when you would head down it was too cold.  It was about 65 degrees all day and the wind was blowing pretty hard at our back.  It helped a lot with the riding we had to do.  You literally could feel it helping push you up the hills.  It was probably blowing at 15 miles an hour all day.

We rode pretty much the whole day on the shores of Lake Superior. Just a few facts about the Lake.  It is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area and the third largest by volume. All the great lakes together hold 21% of the worlds fresh water. Looking across them is like standing on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.  You just can’t see anything on the other side.

Lake Superior and the white caps in the background

We met up with Bonnie who is serving as a camp host at the Pictured Rocks Campground.  Bonnie rode 8 years ago with Tim, Nancy and myself as we rode down the East Coast.  It was good to see her and catch up on what she has been doing.

Bonnie who we met up with.

We stopped at this street art place a long the way.

Lighthouse at Munising.

Part of the Pictured Rocks National Park. It sure was prettier than this picture appears.

Passed Christmas, Michigan on the way here.

Day 10 - Marquette MI

Today’s Miles: 12

Total: 479

Had our fist day off today and I think we all needed it.  We slept in a bit and had a lazy morning. Just ate, went to a regional museum and took a 12 mile ride out to look at a light house and the iron plant and loading dock. Oh, and worked on the bike to hopefully have my bike computer work a little better.  Pretty lazy, but we will back at it tomorrow.

It rained a bit today.  Hopefully things straighten up tomorrow, I think they are supposed to.

Courtroom of Marquette County.  Used in the film "Anatomy of a Murder"

Working ship ore loading dock.

Views of Lake Superior and the area.

Day 9 - Three Lakes MI to Marquette MI

Today’s Miles: 45

Total: 467

We woke too a drizzling rain this morning.  It was 48 degrees and not very inviting to ride.  We hung around the motel for things to improve as long as we dared and then put on the rain gear and got going.  Once out on the road and pedaling, it wasn’t raining anymore and the body warmed up and it felt good.  One good thing the storm brought with it was a 12 mile an hour westerly wind that just pushed us along all day.  It really did make the 45 miles quite an easy day.

Us about to leave motel.

It was a mix of trails and busy roads today. The busy roads have had a nice shoulder, so they were not much of a worry.  The noise gets to you a bit.  There were many heavy trucks hailing logs and iron ore, I think.

We did stop and have a pasty for lunch.  They are these pastry type things that have hamburger and potatoes and veggies inside.  They really are quite tasty and the UP is known for them.

Pasty

We stopped by the US Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame.  It was ok, but not all that interesting.

This area of Michigan was known for the iron ore that was shipped through the Great Lakes from here.  Marquette was and still is to a certain extent a shipping port for the stuff. There have been many ships that have gone down in the Lakes that were loaded with the ore over the years.  Remember Gordon Lightfoot's song, "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"?

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee." The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy. With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty, that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed when the "Gales of November" came early…

An old Ore loading pier.

Great buildings here.

We rented an air BnB for a couple of nights.  We have a rest day tomorrow, so that we can take a day off the bikes, get some laundry done and do some things in Marquette.  Nancy and I went to the laundromat this afternoon and took care of that and we ended up having a nice dinner on the pier of whitefish from Lake Superior.

Day 8 - Paulding MI to Three Lakes MI

Today’s Miles: 56

Total: 422

Carey said it best.  She said, “You guys are getting soft”.  I guess that is the truth because we are back in a motel tonight.  The day was mostly great.  We had a nice quiet road to get things going.  For the first 15 miles we rode and I don’t think that two cars passed us by.  We rode by some falls that we wanted to see, but found that to see them, we would drop 150 feet and we would have had to climb back out of there.  Again, another example of getting soft.  We did not want to climb back out, so we passed them by.

Cool little post office that we had rest #1.

The rest of the day we rode entirely on one highway.  At times, it was a great road surface with a nice shoulder, but as the day wore on, the shoulder became this worn out surface and it was like riding on a gravel road or worse.  We stopped a couple times for snacks and after the second stop, we knew that a storm was coming but looking at the radar, we thought we had plenty of time in getting to the hotel.  The sky started getting dark and sooner than we expected it started to rain.  Not only did it rain, but the wind became real strong.  In fact, we were stopped for a minute and you could see the wind and rain coming up the road.  When it hit where we were, there was a tree off to the side of the road that cracked and came falling to the ground.  It was crazy.  We took off and luckily the wind was at out back, but it began raining pretty hard.  We rode a few miles down the road and saw a sign for a roadside rest area and I just prayed that it would have some sort of shelter and sure enough it did.  We stood under this small shelter with a couple of motorcycle riders and waited out the storm, which took probably about an hour. I did get wet and was quite chilled and had to dig out some dry tuff to get warm again.

See the little pin in the middle of the storm. That's us waiting out the storm.

Us waiting out the storm with the motorcycle riders.

Looks fun, right??

After the storm we only had 7 miles to our motel.  We laid everything out to dry and are now in pretty good shape.  This motel is one of those old motels that you see in the movies along some rural highway.  Hoping no Bates Motel type action. 😊Actually, it has been remodeled and is pretty nice.  It is $89 for the room and the three of us just share a room.

Our motel.

There is this real small restaurant close by and I ordered Cudighi.  It is freshly ground pork like a hamburger with marinara, onions, peppers and mozzarella with fries.  It was quite delicious. Hoping for better weather tomorrow, but still a 60% chance of rain.

Day 7 - Manitowish Waters WI to Paulding MI

Today’s Miles: 60

Total: 366

A beautiful day of riding today.  Actually, we wondered whether we would see some rain.  There were storms all around us, but we were to stay just in the middle of it all.  The only moisture we did see was as we were riding to end the day; there was a mist that we were riding in.  It just got you a little wet and messed up the glasses, but that was better than being soaked.

We had some nice trail riding today.  There was a trail out of Manitowish Waters that went for 13 miles or so and I think it was one of the most beautiful and best maintained trails I have ever ridden on.  I’m sure it was quite new, but it was nice.

 The trail we rode.

We then returned to the road and had a new road surface for another 15 miles.  That was nice as well.  The road was busy with asphalt trucks, but as soon as we passed the asphalt plant, it was quite nice.  We rode through Land O’ Lakes, WI and had lunch at a nice little café and then turned north.  After turning North, we had a great tail wind.  I mean we were moving along at 15 MPH, which felt great.  We ended the day having a 12 mph average speed. 

The "Dairy-Maid" for lunch.

We entered Michigan today.  We are in the upper peninsula (UP), if you are familiar with Michigan.  I really don’t know how to explain it, so just Google it.  We will go across the UP and at Sault St. Marie, we will enter into Canada.  So far I am loving Michigan roads.  They have a great shoulder on the road we were riding today.

It was cloudy here for most of the day.  I am sure part of the storms all around.  The high today was 68 and I think it is getting down in the upper 40’s at night.

We are staying this evening in a lodge in Paulding, MI.  It is kind of rustic, but nice.  Cooking dinner right now.  Before we left, my sweetie Carey, wrote us all these recipes that would work in making dinners and be easy to prepare, buy and carry.  We are cooking her corn chowder dinner tonight.  Thanks Carey Ann.  Those recipes are really helping us out.

Our lodge for the night!!

Each day we have to stop at a grocery store close to our stop and buy the groceries for that night and breakfast and lunch the next day. That way we only carry the food a short distance.  The tricky part is when a stop has no place to buy food close and we have to carry all the stuff further. It all takes quite a bit of planning every day.

Day 6 - Glidden WI to Manitowish Waters WI

Today’s Miles: 56

Total: 306

The place we stayed at last night was infested with mosquitos.  We got up this morning and even though it was quite cool, they were hungry after us.  I had to stay in my long cloths until right before getting on the bike.

I looked to see if there might have been a church close by but no luck.  The closest one was 40 miles away back in Hayward, so I listened to “Lower Lights” all day long.  I hope that counts. 😊

We kind of wimped out today.  We were supposed to ride 13 miles further than we do, but we were tired and also wanted a hotel to stay in.  So, we are in Minitowish Waters.  It has been nice to be in doors and have a nice shower and bath.  I just spent the afternoon catching up with the family, etc.

We are in the Pea Patch Motel tonight.

This is what it looked like all day.

Again, some fall colors coming out.

This is where we are tonight.

Day 5 - Hayward WI to Glidden WI

Today’s Miles: 65

Total: 251

I’m going to continue on yesterday’s post. Both Ethyl and Monte have done many marathons and cross  country ski events in their life.  In fact Ethyl has run the Boston Marathon and done the Birkebiener 32 times. I guess it is a pretty well known cross country ski event.  I had never heard of it, but Tim and Nancy say everyone in Seattle area know what it is. She just kept saying that she wished she could try the type of touring that we are doing, but realized she is probably too old now.  Monte is 78 and I’m not sure Ethyl age, but she and he are quite the couple.  Also, on the making syrup from the Maple trees.  When they boil that syrup down, it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.  Now I understand why the real stuff is so expensive.

A picture of Ethyl and Monte at the Birkebiener.

Them today.

They served us wild rice infused waffles and had their maple syrup that they made.  It was delicious. They were the kindness people.  We mentioned that we would probably ride into Hayward because we needed more bagels and Ethyl goes and pulls a bag of bagels out of the refrigerator and gives them to us.  There are many wonderful people in this world.

Again, not too much to mention about the ride today.  It seemed there were a lot fewer hills, but we did have many to climb. We had a lot of miles to cover.  Stopped for lunch at this little quant café and had a pesto and tomato sandwich and wild rice soup.  I have to say that Ethyl’s soup was better.  Also, the pesto sandwich probably isn’t what I normally would get, but it hit the spot and gave me the fuel I needed for the afternoon.

I actually thought how crazy it is that I was in this place in the world at this spot.

We actually averaged about 11 miles an hour today, so that is our new high.  I mentioned this once before, but you can’t believe the number of lakes in this State.  They are everywhere.  Ethyl mentioned that people from Minneapolis come in here and buy up much of the property around the lakes.  We did meet a group of them that were on a bike ride and we were taking a rest by the side of the road and they stopped by to see what we were doing.  They were very nice and in fact, invited us to spend the night in their vacation homes.  It would have been fun to do so, but we had many more miles to cover.

We are staying in Northern Lure Resort just outside of Glidden tonight.  It is on the shore Gordon Lake.  Another pretty view.  I did talk with a fisherman and he was a little disappointed in the fishing.  There are not that many people in the resort.  We had dinner in the lodge and I just couldn’t resist the double hamburger.  It really was delicious.  But maybe, it was the hunger that made it so great.

Beautiful Lakes.

Dinner tonight!!

Day 4 - Cumberland WI to Hayward WI

Today’s Miles: 60

Total: 186

Wonderful day of riding today.  There was really nothing that was note worthy.  Rode by many farms and dairies.  One thing that I noticed is that there are a lot of silos and dairy barns, but until the end of the day of riding, I didn’t see any that were still operating.  I imagine that the small dairies are disappearing here as well as home.  I haven’t seen any big dairies, however.

It was a day of riding the rolling hills.  I don’t have an altimeter on my bike anymore, so I can’t tell you how much we might have climbed, but the climbing up a hill at 5 miles an hour and coming down the hill at 20 miles an hour gets a little old.  10 minutes of climbing and 2 minutes of rest going down.  That is just the way it is around here.  I rode Iowa years ago and it is much the same. I guess I better not be complaining.  I’m the one that signed up for this, right?

We have been averaging about 10 miles per hour each day so far.  That doesn’t sound like much, does it?  When you think of riding 60 miles in the day and average speed of 10 mph, well, you can do the math.  That means 6 hours in the saddle.  We stop about every 10 miles or so for a little rest, so it is not uncommon for us to be finishing the day at 4 or 5 o’clock.

We are staying the night at a warmshowers host near Hayward WI.  It is the home of Ethyl and Monte. They are a wonderful couple.  They wanted to cook us dinner and they like to prepare food for their visitors that represent the area.  Ethyl made this soup that had wild rice in it from the shores of lakes in the area.  They go out and gather the rice plants and take it to a thresher to process the rice.  We had the soup, plus Wisconsin cheese curds and corn on the cob.  Very delicious. They took us out after dinner to show us the 80 acres of woods they own behind their house.  There are a bunch of maple trees back there and in March or so, they tap the maple trees and gather the sap and make maple syrup.  They have a place outside to boil the sap using wood as the fuel.  Monte says that he starts the fire first thing in the morning and has to boil a large pot full of sap all day to get the sap down into the form to make syrup.  They have about 100 trees on their land and Monte says they have to collect the sap twice a day. It has been fun to get to know them and see how the maple syrup thing works.

Well, talked to late in the night.

Wisconsin Dairy farm

Little town of Haugen were we stoped for a chocolate milk

Kind of hard to see, but a Mennonite buggy coming down the road.

Fall color coming on a select few trees.

Day 3 - O’Brian State Park MN to Cumberland WI

Today’s Miles: 60

Total: 126

Good night for the first night in the tent last night.  I have always contended that you have to be completely exhausted to be able to sleep camping.  It seemed that all of us were up quite early and had a nutritious breakfast of hot chocolate, coffee and oatmeal. And we were off.

We crossed the St. Croix River and were in Wisconsin.  There is a definite difference in the riding today as compared to yesterday.  The hills are here.  It isn’t anything to big, but just up and down. We also ended up riding about ten miles on another rail trail.  This one was not paved but crushed rock  It was called the Gandy Dancer Trail. Rail trails are great because to allow the train to operate, they need to keep the grade at about 2% up and down.  Great for the cyclist.

Ther Gandy Dancer trail

These two pictures are of my riding buddies.  Nancy & Tim from Tacoma, Washington .

Had lunch of PB&J in Balsam Lake and then just crossed over farm ground in Wisconsin.

Got the smell of pigs along the way, but didn’t see the farm.  Lots of corn and soy beans.

As we were riding, we noticed all these trees that were blown over and crews out working cleaning up the tree debris on the side of the road.  Come to find out, about a month ago they had 6 tornadoes come through Polk County Wisconsin.  We even saw an old barn that was blown down.  I wish I had a picture, but didn’t know what took place at that time.

I don't know if you can see the trees in the background.  It is a little far, but they have broken limbs and are down.

We are in Cumberland Wisconsin tonight.  It is the beginning of their Rutabaga festival here and the campgrounds are full.  The owners found us a spot out of the way of the other campers and it is an excellent spot.  We are away, no noise and right over the lake.  You will enjoy the pictures.

I’m not sure what goes on at the festival and things really don’t get going until this weekend, but it looks like the setup is very similar to Cassia County Fair.

Our camp tonight

Cooking Dinner

Beaver Dam Lake