Headwinds BAD, off route REALLY bad...

Jul 19 - Escanaba MI to Glidden Lake MI: 89.3 miles (72.0 miles + 19.3 mile detour)

Glidden lake on arrival 

​​My apologies to those who been hoping for updates, and would like to find out our current status. All is well and we are making good progress. Once we reached Michigan our days were filled with cycling and our evenings with socializing, not leaving a lot of time for blogging. Fighting with my iPhone takes me over an hour for each blog update. Basically, I need more sleep than blog updates have allowed.  I will be stopping in an upcoming city to acquire a fold up keyboard😜 in meantime I'm going to try and suck it up and get some updates out.

I'm just going to skip ahead a bit in time so that close followers have a sense of where we are and I'll catch up on earlier entries as we go.

I have been backdating blog posts so that they match the day of the actual segment. Today, I'm writing this out on the evening it actually happened. Right now, I'm sitting down on a comfortable log with my feet in the lake watching the sun set and being visited by a chipmunk and bullfrog who want to share the log with me.

So here we are, the last full day that we plan to be in Michigan. Michigan has been really incredible - for the beautiful places that we've visited and camped, and even more, for the many wonderful people who have befriended us along the way.

The plan today was to reach Glidden lake, 3 miles short of the town of Crystal Lake. This route takes us away from Lake Michigan; we are now leaving the Great Lakes behind us headed due west towards Wisconsin. This is 70plus miles, a pretty big day for us mileage-wise, but there aren't any official camping options in our desired 50-65 mile range.

Sometime in the night the wind picked up. I remember getting in my sleeping bag, which I had been laying on top of. Too hot to get in it when we went to bed.

Cycling in heat and wind yesterday took a lot out of us and we slept later than planned.

There was no doubt as we were packing that today was a blowy day. We're well away from the coast, in a relatively protected area, and I've still got to hold down the tent with one knee and the ground sheet with a foot to prevent them from blowing away.

Of course we also needed to chat with our friendly neighbors attending the RV Convention and return the box fan that had been loaned to us the night before (you will have to wait for that blog entry to hear that story).

Camping on the edge of the RV convention at site 68.5 (unofficial) 

So, we didn't get out of the escanaba upper peninsula state fair campgrounds until 10.45.    We didn't exactly have a great start for a big day.

And I should mention that our experience thus far is that the winds tend to pick up in the afternoon.

You have the setup now.

Once we escaped from Escanaba, we were on quiet roads until the only remaining option was Michigan highway 2. As highways go, this is not a bad road for cyclists. For most of it, there is a wide shoulder and a rumble strip between the main traffic lane and the shoulder. 

Escaoung escanaba

I'm doing mostly 12-14 mph battling a steady headwind, and as much as 18 pedaling hard on a good downhill.

Check out those bushes... That's an indication of our headwind today  

Route 2 sometimes did not have the best surface on the shoulder...  

My rhythm for a long battle on the bike ...  realize that I've regressed into rounded back and stiff arms... Bend arms, breathe into belly, spin. Standup pedal to that sign up there. Ease back into saddle. Power through a wind gust- no don't go into lower gear, keep same cadence, pull into it with arms and legs, get onto nose of saddle. Breathe. Stretch back. 

Somewhere here, I cross into central time zone finally. It's crazy that we've been cycling for a month and only now changed the clock. 

I am doing all this, blithely following the Michigan highway 2 signs. I was seeing signs to the towns that we were supposed to be going through, and here in Michigan, they mostly just have a sign with an arrow and no mileage marker, so I figured they were just around the corner. It wasn't until I got to a big town that was definitely not on my list that I started thinking "hey, I haven't really seen signs for the last couple towns on my turn-by-turn sheet... PLEASE don't let me have gone the wrong way." 

I pull onto the shoulder and break out my iPhone.  The towns that I should have been going through were all far north of me, on Michigan highway 69. Sure enough, my turn by turn directions definitely have a right turn at around mile 10. That's the only turn all day until we get to the turn into the campground, and I missed it 30+ miles ago. 

Ouch.

I ask google to give me a bike route that cuts up to a town on the right route and I'm off again. 

Suck it up, gotta get to camp.

When my google route leads me to a steep downhill gravel road with a dead end sign, I hesitate. Do I trust this bike friendly recommendation? Or should I use the car route. Google clearly shows a bike path intersecting the gravel road ahead. I opt to go for it.  

The "Grade Trail" is there, but the surface is baseball sized granite stones. I try it out anyways. Not good.

A "grade trail" ... Not so good... Maybe good with a nice layer of snow and XC skis

Back up the gravel road and on to another bike route option. All of them want to include this Grade Trail. But the shortest route seems to be cut through due north up to foster city, just get back on Michigan highway 2 until the right road, ignore alL instructions for the grade trail. Ok, put hone away again. It's save battery for when I really need it.

The diversion is a beautiful quiet road without the headwind, so I motor on that about 20 miles back to the right path, where I return to battling headwinds.

Foster city road ... Love this road surface, Quiet and not much headwind

At foster city, we've seen a lot of these tiny towns, some thriving, some like this with everything "closed" (permanently) / "for sale", some at a state in between  

Ahhhh yes, mi hwy 69

This is a hill on 69... And this really rough road surface really sucks. Sadly this was pretty much the surface for most of 69 once I joined it

Our westbound route means late afternoon and evening are into the sun. It's actually very pleasant but there's this sense of urgency as the sun gets lower on the horizon even though there's still plenty of daylight left. 

Reaching the last town (sagola) 10 miles before camp is a real relief. It's 5.40 pm central time. Here I can stop at the gas station store (the ONLY store) for dinner supplies and fuel. 

It's hard to hide that you're a bicyclist and traveling some distance when you're standing in cycling shorts and a helmet and gloves, and there's a loaded bike just outside the door, and I know that I look pretty beat. This starts a couple conversations - with a gentleman behind me in line, who offers homemade hot sauce that he'll run home to get, and a couple with bikes on their car that offer tools if I need them, and the cashier who wishes that I get to my destination soon.  Basically that was everyone who I came in contact with there. Wow. 

I also ran into the other couple riding a tandem that we first ran into at frankenmuth. They had pizza and beer in hand. They were also targeting Glidden for the day but had had enough and opted for a motel here in town. We exchanged stories about yesterday's heat and today's headwinds.

Sagola convenience store

I race the last 10 miles to camp. The wind is down, the route is straight and I can't wait to get off the bike and eat my can of beans and package of in the shell peanuts. And get out of these damn shorts.

AFTER eating my cool canned beans and some peanuts I could concentrate on getting the tent up and camp ready

The log is the perfect spot to do this, and catch up here a bit on the blog while I wait for heather. 

No chipmunk, I am NOT feeding you any of my peanuts. All mine. I earned them today.

Sunset over Glidden from our campsite