Pictures

Pictures are updated since Lambeau field! I will be reaching the coast on Saturday, weather looks good.  I have about 130 miles left!

Need Clear Gold

Wednesday 6/20 Day 61
I woke up pretty early today and topped off four liters of water before rolling out. The goal was to get a big portion of the ride done early before the heat set in. It was suppose to get almost as hot as yesterday. The ride today was very similar, right along the coast on a two lane road. Barely any traffic, lots of windmills, and great views of the lake. One thing that I also saw with the giant windmills where protest signs saying no more windmills, research health concerns. Got me a bit curious about it but the few people that I asked didn't know what that ment. I still need to do some research on it.
Something that I have been missing through these hot times has been ice. Or I like to call it the clear gold of biking. There is something about the substance that makes water so much more enjoyable to drink, it flows right down to my stomach and cools the body from the inside out. Well I missed it.
One thing I did find today were sprinklers for grass, which I ran through and got soaked! helped me stay cool for a little bit, but I dried up in about 20 minuets. The cars were giving me some weird looks when I was running through them, as if I was a homeless person taking a shower or something.
When I was getting close to the end of my day I met my warm shower host Dale on the road and he led the way to his house. It was great because as we went in through the town I got a mini history lesson about the Welland Canal and the different states of it. I didn't even know that this canal existed, but there is still bits and pieces of the older models of it. It is really great to be discovering this part of the country, and this part of Canada :).

The Bridge

Once we arrived at Dale's home we cracked a few beers, well I had two before my shower. They were so refreshing and cold! Just to be in a house with cooler temperature than the outdoors was a relief, it was so dang hot out. The evening was great, Dale made steak and potatoes for dinner. Suzi, his wife, came home and joined us with celebrating the end of the biking day. When it was all said and done I finished four beers for the night, so worth it. We had a great time talking through the evening sharing experiences and life in general. After two hard days of riding I crashed in the bed, knowing it would be a nice mellow day tomorrow.

Oh Canada

Tuesday 6/19 Day 60
From the moment I woke up this morning I had Oh Canada by Five Iron Frenzy going through my head. If you have not heard it, I recommend it, very good song! So after 20 miles along the boarder I made it to Marine City where I would take a ferry for 1$ to Canada!  By the time I made it over...It was hot, and only getting hotter. When entering into Canada I got this hot shot boarder patrol guy who asked me 20 questions in the matter of 1 minute, he didn't even crack a smile.  Someone must have hinted that a terrorist was crossing the boarder today and he thought it was me, on a bike... haha At least I didn't have to do a strip search.
Once in Canada I headed south to the coast. It was a bit out of the way, but I thought I would follow the map that Adventure Cycling put out. This would be the first time that I followed their route this trip but I figured their route would have less cars on it. The first thing that I noticed in Canada was that there were zero shoulders! Through most of my travels through the country I found very few shoulders but the drivers were VERY respectful and I had no troubles. Another struggle I had was when I got off the main highway to the back roads I found it difficult to find food or water. Thankfully I had food that I brought with me. For water I had to stop at a few houses and ask to fill up.

Sunset

One of the places that I stopped was at Toni's house. He was able to help me with water, and he also gave me a steak to cook up for dinner and a phone number just in case I ran into any trouble. Very nice family. haha he tried giving me more food for dinner but I couldn't carry more. That wasn't the only act of helpfulness that I ran into today, about 30 minutes later a kid passed me in the car and did a U-turn and gave me a couple bottles of gatorade. I think somethings just happen in life when you need them the most. I may not have noticed it but I think my body was missing was lacking something, something that wasn't being replenished. I had my gatorade powder that I had been drinking all day because of the heat but there was something about this drink that after having it I felt reenergized. I was very thankful for both of their help.

Camp

As the day wore on it eventually got cooler. I went through a couple of coastal towns that were just breath taking. The Eire lake had some beach property that rivaled Lake Michigan. I road till about nine PM where I pulled over and stopped at a house to see if I could camp in their yard. The man said yes, I never got his name but he came out and chatted with me when I was cooking dinner. Sadly the steak didn't make it through the heat and had already spoiled by the time I made it to camp. I was also able to enjoy an amazing sunset by their lake for the evening. Oh if it wasn't for the heat today would have been perfect.

Off to the Boarder

Matt, Joy, & the kids

Monday 6/18 Day 59
So as a few of you may have noticed I went a different path than the map at the bottom of the page.  I decided to go through Canada since there would be less traffic to deal with. My desired path would basically follow the southern coast of Ontario. Today though, I will be headed to the boarder and stay with Bob, another warm shower host.
This morning I had breakfast with Matt and the family, and then started the day. I followed Matt up north to where he worked. We took the back roads to avert the traffic. The final stretch of roads in Michigan were not to bad, there were enough back roads and enough shoulders to stay safe.  Just like yesterday the rain came and hit pretty hard but this time I stopped and had some lunch. I stayed much dryer :).



Sadly I stopped about two hours before the European Cup was playing so I missed the game today. Even though I was inside waiting for the rain to pass for two hours I headed out right as the game started, poor timing. All the people that worked at the bar were very nice and were great to talk with. It makes me laugh some of the reactions of people when I tell them what I'm doing. The cook was amazed, and told me to "get out". haha, so I did I headed to the boarder.
Funny thing happened when I got to Bob's house. It turned out that I had the wrong address. For some reason Warm showers gave me his old house address haha, so I had about five miles to ride north before the night was over.  It went quick and before I knew it I was in a shower washing off for the day. Oh right before I got to his place I have been perfecting my riding while looking at the GPS, it didn't work out to well. Long story short, at the end everything still works :).
For dinner Bob took me out to dinner where we talked biking, of course. It turns out that he has biked over 109,000 miles around the USA. Trips including, Ride the Rockies and other state rides. He also has amazing maps of all the trips that he has done. Speaking of maps he was able to donate the Erie connector map to me, the next part of my trip across Canada. This gave me the Adventure Cycling route across Canada, I was going to wing it but this will help. Now I just have to deal with the boarder patrol tomorrow morning.

Swimming to Detroit

Sunday 6/17 Day 58
So I sad goodbye to Luke and Megan last night because they were leaving at five in the morning to get back home. It was so nice that they drove so far to see me for such a short time. After a great breakfast my vacation came to an end. I said goodbye to Kenny and Vicky and the girls. I had a great stay. It is so hard leaving sometimes when it is good but at the same times it make the trip easier because I know there are more good hearted people just waiting to be discovered.

Me and the girls

The highlight of today was riding in the rain for a good three hours. This was a steady flow of rain, I had water running off me. I enjoyed it since the water was warm but after a while, when I was about twenty miles out I stopped and took some shelter. When I was there I had rivers of water running off my bike and out of my shoes and off my cloths!
After a call home to wish dad a happy fathers day and waiting for the rain to stop I went on my way. Now I ended up going through he northern part of Detroit. The hope was to bike to the north of it, but I ended up ridding through the northern part of it almost 35 miles north of he city. I found my way easily and for the most part I had bike paths.
When I got to Waterford, the northern part o Detroit, I met my warm shower host Matt. It turned out he was from Fort Collins and moved out a couple years ago. He works at a bike shop so he was very knowledgable. His wife Joy came home a bit later and we all had dinner. In the evening we took a walk around the neighborhood and stopped for some s'mores at one of their friends houses. The area that we were in actually was the vacation homes for Detroit in he 30s and 40s.
I was able to meet Joy's kids later in the evening. Then we stayed up and chatted for a while. I crashed when I crawled into bed it was a great day getting the body back on the bike.

Final day of vacation.

Saturday 6/16 Day 57
So today we woke up and had some breakfast prepared by Kenny. Fabulous raspberry pancakes. The berries were hand picked that morning too. After breakfast we went out back to he ponds on the property. It was weird, when I was younger it seemed like it took forever to get back there in a little vehicle. But today we walked back there in very little time.
Now my plan for the day was to go into Jackson and give them the standard tour with Coney dogs and the dairy. But then I remembered at last minute that they were vegetarians and Megan is lactose intolerant. Ehhh so the plan changed. No dogs but we did go to be dairy. Haha the dairy was great, luke ordered the fudge browny but it was way to much ice cream for him. We also managed to go to toys r us and go see the avengers! Great day!! When we arrived back home Kenny gave me a detailed report on today's soccer games and then we had some dinner followed by cheese cake and early bed.

Oh Kenny also drilled out some screws on my bike that had their heads break off. So now I have a functioning front rack.

The hunters

Friday 6/15 Day 56

One of my hopes while I was up here was to have Kenny show me how to shoot a bow. So this morning we got the target and the bows out. Now Kenny gave me a demonstration of the bow, how to load it and shoot it. He still had pretty good accuracy even though he has not been out for a while. Then it was my turn, it was not to bad to hold. I tried to load an arrow but was unsuccessful. I definitely have no upper body strength. So I could not shoot at all since I could not even cock it back. Haha oh well I will have to practice, or just get a cross bow. My hope someday is to be able to hunt with a bow and be able to skin the animal that I hunt.
We moved on from bows to guns and were shooting the pellet gun and bb gun at a door. It was good times. I was getting pretty good with the pellet gun when it was all done. The bb gun we were shooting was not accurate at all so we spent some time trying to zero in the scope. It didn't help. Kenny's last shot with the bow sent the arrow through the door taking off its fetching. Showed the power of the weapon. We eventually retired to the euro cup and a nap. It was a tough day so far.
In the evening we went down to the airport in mason to see If anything was happening. We talked with a few people then went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. We went with Dave and Debbie and their daughter. It was here where I found out Kenny's nick name gammpy or grampy because he is getting so old. I was also told of some good practical jokes played on him. We said our farewells after dinner and headed home for some ice cream.
This evening my good friends Luke and Megan came up to visit me from Indiana. I was so excited to see them! We talked till about 230 in the morning then decided to call it a night. I miss having them around, you can tell true friends when I seems like you can pick up he relationship where you last left it off.

Jackson

Thursday 6/14 Day 55

Kenny & Vicky

Today was Jackson Michigan day, that is where I go to Jackson and do all the things that I did on all my vacations over here in the past. On the list is the Virginia Coney island hot dogs, the dairy, and grandmas house.
We went out for lunch at the Coney island, where they have the best hot dogs ever! They are served with a chile on top them. When we usually come out here we try and go here a couple of times. It was hard getting Kenny to go, he was not a big fan but he was a good sport about it. Afterwords we got some ice cream from the dairy that my dad used to work at, very good. By the time we were done we were stuffed.
We finished off Jackson by driving around the city and seeing the sights. This year it was grandmas old house, it was hard to see all the changes done to it but at the same time it was good to see. We also drove by Kenny's old place and he told me some stories about dad.

The Dairy

In the afternoon Kenny took me over to Dave's to say hi and see the t-6 he was working on. After the shop we went to mason airport and took a ride in the Cessna. Kenny let me fly it for a good twenty minutes, it was my first time flying a plane. It was a good time, I'm ready to take lessons when the price comes down.
Afterwords we put a wing on the wing holder with Dave so he could work on it. He then let me drive his 1942 ww2 jeep that he refurbished. So cool, I was pretty excited to drive it. I drove it down to watch a plane take off and land.



After those two events we called it a night. Fun day.

Michigan

Wednesday 6/13 Day 54
So one thing I have been struggling with over the past few weeks is keeping up on the blog. It seems like I get caught up and then a few more days pass and I'm back to ground zero. One thing I do to help is write notes down about the day at the end of the day so when I write it I know what the hell I did. I will slowly keep plugging away at it. So speaking of blogs I started today off by blogging a little bit.
Oh Kenny and Vicky have two dogs, ha I forgot to mention. Thelma and Macy. Macy is the new one and she is pretty funny. One minute she will be best friends with you and then the next minute she will forget who you are. The dogs are become so curious when they see my closed door to my room since there is usually no closed doors in the house. They will just sit in the hall and stare.
After Kenny took me out to show me the plane that he was building. It is a stearman. It was interesting to see how far the wings have come since last summer, they are now covered and stitched and they have the base paint on them. He was suppose to have it finished for my trip out here but something happened. So he said he would pick me up in Japan in it ;). Just kidding.
For lunch my cousin Adam and uncle Tom took me out to a place in Leslie. We caught up and talked about our current events. After coming home I watched some euro cup. It brought back some memories of the summer of 2008 when I was in Mexico watching it. Good memories.

For dinner Debbie and Dave came over, they are friends of Kenny and Vicky. Dave does a lot of work with airplanes and we helped Kenny move one of his finished wings and take out the wing holder outside. Finished the night off with some ice cream and watched black hawk down.

Day off

Tuesday 6/12 Day 53
This morning I spent my time renewing my teaching license and also catching up on some JET paperwork. Other than that I sat and watched tv. I was able to catch the euro cup. I was pretty excited I thought I was going to miss most of the games but I should be able to see quite a few while I'm here. I had to teach Kenny to like soccer. By the end of my stay he was giving me detailed reports of the games. Of course I'm rooting for Germany, hoping they can beat Spain this time around. They won today so they are closer to the finals.
In the afternoon we headed over to Ann Arbor for a doctors appointment for Vicky. And afterwords we had dinner with some of their friends. And headed home.
My body was very thankful I did not do any riding today. I think it was waiting the entire day for me to get on the bike as if I was tricking it. We finished off the night with some ice cream and then bed.

P/F Gamble

Monday 6/11 Day 52
Today was a day of first, first time being accused of stealing, flipped my first car off on the trip, and had a car almost hit another car right in front of me.
I started the day off by going to the bathroom at a gas station, and afterwords I filled my bottles up with water. As I left the guy asked me to pay for my tea that I got, i had to show him my water to show I wasn't takin anything. Never had that before, asked him if he wanted me to pay for the water. Haha he said no and I left.
I discovered the search for restaurants tool on the gps his morning which worked great for finding some breakfast. Once I left I had most busiest roads of my trip. The roads were funneling to the main highway that led into Lansing. When I was going through one of the little towns I had a guy pretty frustrated that I was in the road, he was honking heavily at me for a while and yelled at me to get off the road. Haha I had my limit and flipped him off after he passed me. Even though it does nothing I felt better. I was surprised I made it this far through the trip without doing that.
My final first was right before I got to the main interstate. One of the cars passing me almost rear ended the car in front of him he averted it by swerving into my lane. I was pretty thankful that I was not two feet in front of me because I'm sure he would have hit me.
Once I crossed the interstate things started to mellow out on the road. Oh I had a P/F gamble that I almost lost. The p/f gamble was created at my last job and it is a poop fart gamble, you know those times when you don't know whether it is going to be poop or a fart. Haha, well I almost lost it. I made it the gas station and it was ok.
OH I almost forgot, about ten miles out from the house I had to pee so I just pulled off the side of the road and started peeing. A car started to come from my back so I thought I would rotate with it so they would not see me. I ended up rotating as they passed and turned to a second car coming right behind them...opps haha.
About an hour later I made it to Leslie. I staying with some family friends for six days, Kenny and Vicky. I called Kenny when I was at the end of the driveway but he would not come and pick me up :(.

We went to dinner at a mexican reseraunt and had some ice cream for desert. We caught up a out the bike trip and my next adventure to Japan. My body was ready for a break and some time to rebuild it self. I finished the day by finding out i forgot to put sunscreen on my arms, big burns.

Rails south

Sunday 6/10 Day 51

I saw 3 bears today this is their picture

Started today by getting more supplies of food, and filling the calorie tanks. Gary took me to the store where I was able to by dinner and lunch food. And when we got back French toast had been prepared by Mary-Ellen and Marian. It was very good. Marry-Ellen also made me some Nutella and peanut butter sandwiches for the road. I have not had those for a while. After I filled up I said my goodbyes and went on my way.

cross roads for the rails to trails

My ride south was pretty uneventful, and I noticed the traffic getting heavier and heavier. I had a goal of finding the rails to trails today that went south to grand rapids. I road over it a couple of times, the problem I had was that there were not spots that I could get on the path. So When I passed it the third time I walked down a hill through some grass to get to it. I was worried I go some sort of poison ivy or oak on my leg because it started to burn. Turned out I just scraped them. Once on the path it was amazing. I was on the flat straight trial for the rest of the day. There were a few parts that sucked because they were all sand and I almost wiped out but for the most part it was great.

As it got dark I was looking for a place to camp, I found a school right off the trail that worked. I camped right on the outside of a base ball field. I made some dinner and got in my sleeping bag. After a little while some wild cats snuck up on me and scared the crap out of me. I showed them off because I didn't know if they would be friendly. Eventually I set up the tent because the bugs were so bad.

Paved for just a little while

Sleepy bear Dunea

Saturday 6/9 Day 50
Today was a lazy day, I was active but, Felt vey lazy throughout the day. I started off the morning with a breakfast with waffles. Although my body willingly got up and ate food it struggled to move. After breakfast I gathered some lunch and a few things and headed out to the coast. My goal was to go to the sleepy bear sand dunes state park on the north west coast of mainland Michigan.
The ride out to the beach wasn't to interesting, I was just on a small shoulder on a fairly busy road. I made it to the beach fairly quickly and when I got there I sat and enjoyed the beach. Not many people here, and it was a picture perfect.
On my way home the heat started to hit me so I was going pretty slow. And since I was only on back roads there were no gas stations to get ice. I eventually made it back home for the night where I devoured some ice cream, cold drinks and took a decent nap.
For dinner we had fish cooked up Asian style. Marian was from Japan and was trying ease me into my future diet. It was really good. Gary cooked the fish on the grill in foil which reminded me of camping. I turned in pretty early due to my exhaustion of the day.

Bike path or the Road...

Friday 6/8 Day 49
Today the discovery was the traffic on the roads and the condition of the roads in Michigan. I took M31 along the west coast and my target area was just south of Traverse City. On M31 I had about a foot of shoulder, which is not to bad, but it and the road were falling apart which made it quite difficult to ride my bike on. I was noticing the deeper I got into Michigan, the worse the roads were getting. Along with the amount of traffic. There was so much traffic today on the road, thank god for that foot of shoulder. The worse part for riding the bike with this traffic was in the little cities along the coast. The shoulder turns into a lane of traffic so I have to occupy that and it tended to make several drivers mad.

Water Machine

When I could I did get off the main road. There was a section along the coast for about 22 miles that was a bike trail which was quite beautiful to ride on. Although it was quite annoying to ride with other bikers. they can be quite disrespectful, using up the entire lane, stopping in the middle of the path, and just wearing to much spandex. It was trying to be around my own kind and I can certainly understand why people hate bikers so much. My last part of the day I spent on the back roads going to the house that I was staying at. All of these had no shoulders, very few cars but steep hills. So my last 15 miles were exciting. I finished the day stopping at a store and getting a snickers bar, I forgot how many calories that they have, like 280 or something.

Bikes need to pee also

Tonight I was staying with Marry-Ellen. I found my way to here little area of town just south of Traverse City. Where I took a shower. We had pasta with garlic butter sauce for dinner and chatted. Her friends from her last work came over and spent the weekend with her, so I met the whole gang tonight. The gang = Marian, Garry, and Sue. After a long exhausting day I crashed in the bed. I love that feeling.

Mackinac Island

Thursday 6/7 Day 48
I got up early this morning and made some oats for breakfast on the beach. I saw the sunrise, so it was cool to see the sun set and rise in the same location. As i ate I took in the calming sound of the lake moving in. At this point I could also see the upper part of Michigan, just bellow the UP. After a relaxing start to the day I packed up and hit the road. It was also great that no one kicked me off the beach because it was such a great view and so peaceful without anyone else there. 

Bedroom view

Today's goal was to go to Mackinac island, tour around there then finish up at a warm showers location in northern Michigan. The first 40 miles of my ride today was breath taking. All coast riding with sandy beaches and light blue water with light houses here and there to look at. I stopped a few times and enjoyed the view and enjoyed the water.

Light house

Connecting the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to the mainland of Michigan is the Mackinac bridge, which bikes are not allowed to cross. If on a bike there are two options. One is to go on the ferry to Mackinac Island, from St Ignace, to Mackinac City.  The other is to get a van to transport you across the bridge. I will be going by ferry today from St. Ignace. Coming into St. Ignace I had a little bit of time before my ferry so I stopped at Big Boy restaurant. I don't recall ever seeing these except for in the movie Austin Powers, so I was excited to get a picture in front of the big boy with my bike and eat there. There was nothing special about the food there, just the statue outside the building.

Rush Hour on the island

The boat ride over to Mackinac Island took about 20 minutes and it was great because it gave great views of the harbor, and the hotel on the island. I forget the name of the hotel but it is the largest wooden structure in the world. It looks like something out of the Civil War. Once on the island it was as if I stepped out into a time warp. The island has no cars on it, the only forms of transportation are walking, horses, or bikes! So as i road through the streets weaving in and out of horse carriages and other bikers it reminded me of what some countries do everyday.
While on the island I took the chance to ride up to the highest point, ride on some of the back roads, and take the highway all the way around the island. The highway was about eight miles and it had perfect overlooks on the mainland in Canada and the USA. Oh and while I was there I still had all of my gear with me and I had so many people ask me if I was going to hide away somewhere and camp on the island...Who would ever do that, that is just stupid. Just kidding I would have probably done that if there were not so many signs around saying don't do it. But I was on the island for a good deal of time. I did not go into the fort or the hotel because each one was another 10$ and there was enough for me to see while riding around.  So in the evening I headed to the mainland of Michigan where Mackinac City was.
Once there I asked the dock workers where the rails to trails path was to head south. They told me and I found it.  It was a great path, for one reason.  There were no hills! It was like 1% grade up and down. The downside was that it was a dirt path so it was a bit harder to control my bike on. But I managed. One thing I did notice about 15miles into riding was that I was going south east when I needed to be going straight south. I ended up getting on the wrong rails to trails path and headed down the east coast of Michigan. So I had a few extra miles today getting back on path but I managed.
My destination was a warm showers place tonight. I was excited because the hosts let me stay in there place and they were not going to be there. I was excited because I could have the comforts of home and still decompress by myself! I did have one companion, their cat Libby who ended up cuddling with me during the night.
Oh if you don't know what Rails to Trails programs are I'll tell you. It is where groups convert old abandon railroad tracks to bike paths. This idea is popping up all over the USA creating many paths for bikers.

Along the UP

Wednesday 6/6 Day 47

It has been pretty warm at nights lately and I have only been sleeping in my liner. A 30 degree down bag is way to much for the summer time up here. I started off riding before breakfast this morning, I wanted to make it into town and post some blogs and McDonald's. Oh that seems to be a great start to mornings, stopping there for a complete breakfast.
When I was leaving town I hopped back on Highway 2. The last time I as on this road was about a month ago when I was leaving East Glaicer. It was one of the moments of realization, seeing how far I have come on this trip, let alone in the last month. Well over here they were busy doing road work on it! Thankfully they were creating a shoulder to the road to help with all of the bike traffic, the only problem was there was no place for me to ride today. So I figured if I came back in a few months it would be perfect to ride on. Today I decided to get a ride through the construction, it was far to crowded and the back roads took me 20 or 30 miles out of the way. I got a ride with a couple that was up here doing a bit of roofing, they just dropped me off on the other side of the river which was all I needed.
Once there I continued on my way. the coast quickly disappeared and I spent most of my day riding through this tree corridor. There were so many trees and they were so tall. I could see nothing except what was in front and what was behind me. So I had in my mind a plan to get back to the beach by tonight. It was a ways off but I wanted to be by the beach. The road was really flat and Highway 2 had a huge shoulder. For lunch I made it to a little pull off overlooking the lake. It was here I met Lynn, she was riding from Minnesota to some place in Ohio. We talked about our struggle of flats in the back tire and came to the conclusion that we just have to much weight on the back. So making sure that it was entirely filled with air was key.
After lunch I moved on and went to Manistique where I stopped and went out to the light house. Little know fact about Michigan is that it has more lighthouses than any other state. After seeing it I continued on my way. One great thing about Michigan are its roadside parks. Today I stopped at one and was able to go into the water and cool off for a bit. By evening time I made it to a private beach. I was not suppose to go on it but no one was there and it was to hard to pass up.  I cooked my dinner on the beach while watching the sun set. Than I ate dinner while the stars rose. And finally I was laying in my tent, without the rain fly on, and watched the moon rise. It was a perfect finish up here in the UP. The only downside was all the mosquitoes, but once I was in my tent it kept them far far away.

The UP

Tuesday 6/5 Day 46

Me, Mel, & Jann

This morning had breakfast with Mel and Jann. Jann set me up for my trip by giving me some extra coffee for the mornings, the Starbucks instant coffee. I had never had that kind before but I remember quite a few of my coworkers drinking it in the field. It was her last day of school so she had to leave pretty early. We said our goodbyes. Mel asked me this morning over breakfast if I wanted to have an interview with the local Peshtigo paper about my trip that I was doing. I thought about it and said sure.  So I took a shower and got ready and we headed down to Peshtigo for the interview. As we were heading out this morning Mel gave me five 2 dollar bills. The 2 dollar bill is known for good luck so he wanted to give me some good luck on my trip.
The interview lasted about an hour and a half.  I was asked questions surrounding my trip, my activities before the trip and after, and different thoughts of responsibilities of bikers. I thought the experience was great, it was my first time I had ever been interviewed. But I thought it was great because it gave me a chance to reflect on the trip as a whole and see where I have come from, and what I had left to do. I have really come a long way so far, when I told her that I have road about 3,000 miles it hit me how far that I have come. It seems like yesterday that I just started this trip with Pete.
After the interview Mel took me into town a bit further and dropped me off at the local bike shop where I got a few extra tubes for the trip up into the Upper Peninsula.  I wasn't sure how many bike shops would be up there but I imagined that there would be very few. Mel and I went our separate ways and I headed north. I crossed a bridge heading north from Marionette and saw a Navy destroyer in the river. In this city they have a port where they create a lot of the navel ships. As i was riding through the town I crossed a street and was welcomed by Mel honking his horn at me and sending me off north. It brought a smile to my face.
The rest of the day was pretty mellow. I was able to go up the coast leisurely on M35. I spent most of my time stopping at all the roadside parks, eating lunch, catching up on blogs, and just sitting and watching the lake. The water here is perfect, it reminds me of some tropical resort down in the Caribbean.  Light blue on light sand beaches. And to top it off there was hardly any wind so it made staying by the beach even more enjoyable. I also spent a little of my time today writing in my journal, which I have not done enough of on this trip. I had some dinner and waited around to watch the moon rise but it never came. Well it didn't come while I was still up.