Day Thirty Eight - 1st half of Michigan

We arose this morning and got on the road at 6:54 AM and started out running 60 miles on I-94.It  was a cool morning at 56 degrees but we had an extra layer of gear on and the sun was coming up nicely. The only "problem" for the day at this point was that just 23 miles down the road we crossed the state border into Michigan where the time zone changed and we LOST an hour, so 23 minutes into the ride, we are now at 8:17 AM. Not a disaster as we knew this would happen, but it works oh so much better when heading west as opposed to east.

Day 38 Track

From I-94, we would get off and head north on I-196 for a bit before we would snag our first checkpoint for the day - the Van Buren County line for our Presidential Tour.

Van Buren County line - Presidential Tour

We would get off the interstate at exit 13 and head east to 140 and then a short jog north and turn east again on  CR-378. Along this stretch of country road we would spot a large flock of turkeys on the side of the road. Then further down, I had a driver pull out of a side road directly in front of me, forcing me to brake hard. Don't know what she was thinking, but she just continued on down the road like nothing happened... Next we came to a construction zone that we had to work through before finally entering the town of Bangor where we grabbed this photo.

Bangor - I've Been Everywhere Man Tour

From Bangor we would head east on Hwy 43 and then north on Hwy 40 up to the town of Tamarack where we turned east onto 116th ave to then get on US-131 northbound. Somewhere along here we stopped to shed a layer as the temp had risen into the low 70s by now. Later we stopped again for a morning coffee break at a McDonald's in Wayland. From there, we called some friends who planned on meeting us up in Cadillac to let them know what time we would get there. We then continued on up 131 through Grand Rapids where just north of town we got onto Hwy 37. We would stay on that all the way up to Grant, MI which was our next checkpoint for the Presidential tour.

Grant, MI - Presidential Tour

After we got the Grant photo we stopped for fuel.  We then headed north again on 37 and then turned east on 82 which we took along through the Manistee National Forest. Eventually we turned north on US-131 which would take us all the way up to Cadillac, MI. which was our next checkpoint for the I've Been Everywhere Man Tour.

Cadillac - I've Been Everywhere Man Tour

When we got up to Cadillac we met our friends Jim & Carol Krieger, who are summering at a campground up in Traverse City. It was good to see some familiar faces after so long out on the road. We had lunch with them and then we took photos of our Post Office and got them in too! This was our last checkpoint for the day, now we just needed to make it to some other friends from Florida who invited us to stay the night in their summer home in Lakeview, MI.

From there we headed southeast on Hwy 115 where we would then pick up Hwy 66 south for a 41 mile leg. Things were going well, but as we got to about 20 miles out when we noted the skies darkening and knew it was only a matter of time before the rain would start falling. We got to just 7 miles from the destination when we spotted the road ahead was wet so we pulled over and put on our rain gear. Just a mile down the road we'd turn west on Howard City-Edmore Rd and the skies just opened up in a deluge. It was raining so hard that visibility dropped to almost nil. To make matters worse, Larry's GPS and my GPS had conflicting directions on getting to our destination, so he was trying to direct me (I was leading). He had another problem in that his glasses were so fogged up that he needed to stop to take them off so he could see to continue. We managed to keep going and after a few more minutes the rain lightened up considerably and we managed to find our way to our friends Tim & Penny's home. Then, just as we were pulling down their street we came upon the fire department who was there to put out a fire on a combine in the field right in front of their house. We managed to get by that and pulled into a nice dry garage where we were cheerfully greeted and got to shed our rain gear and start to dry off the bikes. We spent a real enjoyable evening there, complete with some great home cooking which was Oh so appreciated after all the days of commercial food out on the road.  Eventually we all went to bed, got a good nights sleep and were up again the next morning to start all over again!

Today's Stats: 333.9 miles in 8:05 elapsed time, 5:58 saddle time.