Day Thirty Nine - Michigan 2nd half and Indiana 1st half

After a great nights sleep we got up early and our hosts made us a nice breakfast of hot oatmeal (NOT instant!), coffee, juice and fruit. We were really getting spoiled compared to the hotel breakfasts. All too soon it was time to shove off, so we said our goodbyes and got onto the road at 6:54 AM. It was a cool 55 though it felt colder than that. We had an extra layer of gear on, but I wasn't sure if I should have added another layer. We would run east for a bit before getting onto Hwy 66 headed directly south.

Day 39 Track

We would cover the 68 miles to our first checkpoint in 1:26. Nashville is for the I've Been Everywhere Man Tour.

I've Been Everywhere Man Tour - Nashville

From Nashville, we'd head another 25 miles down 66 to Battle Creek and then over to the northwest side of the city to catch our next checkpoint - Springfield - for the I've Been Everywhere Man Tour.

I've Been Everywhere Man Tour - Springfield

It would be a short hop on Hwy 83 westbound over to Richland - the "r" in Strange for the TS30GT.

Team Strange Grand Tour - Richland, MI - "r" in Strange

Right after this photo, we stopped for our morning coffee break at a local McDonalds. We'd spend just 20 minutes here before heading out for yet another short hop - this one over to Kalamazoo for the I've Been Everywhere Man Tour.

I've Been Everywhere Man Tour - Kalamazoo

From Kalamazoo it was another short hop south to get to our next checkpoint - Vicksburg - for the I've Been Everywhere Man Tour.

I've Been Everywhere Man Tour - Vicksburg

Vicksburg would be our last checkpoint for Michigan, but we were far from done today! We would soon cross the state border into Indiana and we would stop in Warsaw for lunch at the Chicago Dog House. There we got authentic Chicago style hot dogs - which were pretty good! After lunch we headed west on Hwy 25/110 which would take us to our next checkpoint - Monterey - for the I've Been Everywhere Man Tour.

I've Been Everywhere Man Tour - Monterey

It was 1:30 PM when we left Monterey. It would take us another hour to get to our next checkpoint - Buffalo for the I've Been Everywhere Man Tour.

I've Been Everywhere Man Tour - Buffalo

We were really clicking them off today It's 2:28 PM and we've got seven checkpoints already! Our last two for the day will be Presidential - one county line and one city. From Buffalo we would start heading east again to get over to Logansport where we would join onto US-24. We would continue east on that over through Peru where we stopped for an ice cream cone break :-) After the break we continued on 24 over to Wabash where we got on IN-15 headed south and east until we turned south on CR-300W where we grabbed the Grant County line for the Presidential tour.

Presidential Tour - Grant County line

Just a few miles from the county line we got our last point for the day - The Van Buren post office for the Presidential tour.

Presidential Tour - Van Buren (city)

We were now just 12 miles from our hotel destination, but we had been watching the darkening skies with hopes that we would not have a repeat of yesterday. A few miles down the road and it did start raining on us, though lightly enough as to not require putting on the rain gear just yet. We held out for a few minutes and the rain tapered off and then ended. By the time we rolled into the hotel, the sun was back out and all was well with the world!

Today's Stats: 375.1 miles in 10:05 elapsed time, 7:56 saddle time.