Day 73

Day 76 to 78

The past four days in Michigan have been wonderful. From the scenery and vegetation to the people and towns. We left ludington a little late, forcing us to make a shortcut to our campground for the night. The woods started to get thick and very green. Rolling hills stood in our as we cycled to Leisure Time Campground. Sitting outside as we all re-grouped we spotted a cyclist walking towards. He hopped over the fence still in his spandex, reaching us his first words, "its quite expensive here." He was silent as we asked him how much, staring at the campsite for a while he turned and faced us " you usually can bargin the price down but I'm a little to tired." the campground host came walking out asking if he could help us. Hank asked for a site that could fit all five of us. The health department only allows two tents per site, even though we could easily fit ten. He said he could make a deal with us if we got two site. Talking it over amongst ourselves, he made the deal for us and said " what the health department doesn't know doesn't hurt them" and allowed us to have one site. That was easy...the couple came over later in the night to chat with us. They were on a world bike tour. starting in New Zealand than to L.A, up the pacific, across the northern tier, than to Europe to ride to china. Some of us were extremely jealous and inspired by their journey. Warren, the guy talking to us before said that in the states, everyone they encountered have been extremely nice, giving them money, food places to stay. Saying that you would never find that in Europe, he said we have something very special here in the states, something to be very proud of. (At least we have that :) ) Thinking back on the trip, he is indeed right, the people and culture here have been amazing in many ways towards us. We do have something to be proud about and hope it continues throughout our trip, and even after than.
The following day we made it to Luther. Around 30 miles, the group was moving really slow as a couple of us were a couple miles ahead riding around 8mph waiting for the others. With 50 miles to the next campground, daylight would not of made it possible. Once again the negotiation of a discount on a campsite was easy, getting on campsite for only 20 dollars, showers included. The ended early as the clouds grew thick over head.
Waking to rain, we covered ourselves in our rain equipment and got to it. Packing up as quickly as possible. By the 5th mile the sky cleared and we were sweating once again, stripping layers every 500 feet. Making it to Lake George we stayed at the local campground, taking showers, reading, and cooking up chili dogs.

Day 75

Once again we woke up late...This time 11'oclock. Minneapolis still has her claws on us, we decided to stay one more night in Ludington, hoping to finish the blog, venture through town and go swimming. Visiting the same restraurnats, the same stores and riding through the same streets we headed for the lake. Today's weather made for a great day to take a dip. Running through the sand like a group of teenage girls, giggling and pushing eachother we jumped into lake and amazed by the tides. Body surfing and wave jumping for a couple of hours got a little tiring. Hungry, we headed to grab lunch. Devoring our meals in no more than 5 minutes we decided to call it a day and sleep on the beach once agian.

Day 74

another time change in michagian, had us waking up at 9:30 instead of our usual 8:30. Scrambling to pack up our gear before a camp staff member finds us camped out in the middle of a trail, we got ready to hit town for breakfast and figure out just how many days Minneapolis put us back on our shcedual. Splitting up, three of us went to subway, our usaul breakfast stop, while Hank and Beau went to a nearbye cafe for a good homemade omlete. Since we took a more straight shot through wisconsin, we have nbeen off the planned Adventure cycling planned route. Grateful to be back on the maps for they took away the stresses of finding good roads to ride on, where to camp, the nearest town, and bike shop, we took a look at just how many miles we have left to accomplish. 1300 miles are ahead of us, not alot since we have already acomplished 3000. Deciding to take a nice break in Ludington we stayed at the cafe for about 2 hours, and then hoped over to the nearest bar for a couple of beers and blog. On our way a cyclist passed us and turned around to talk, we all scrambled away, tired of the same constant questions and answers. Evan got traped as she started to talk about how she sttempted to conqure the southern tier, but quite with hopes to try it agian. Offering us dinner, we declined because we needed to catch up on our blog, she quickly starterd to dig into her backback and pullked out money for us, Evan said it was to much and that we were fine on money. She insistied on helping fellow bikers and told us she was buying us a beer. We gave in and headed to the Blue Moon tavern for our beers and homework(Blogging). They bartender, a very friendly freespoken woman demanded that she was to be put into our blog. Here you go Annette, thank you for the laughs and the beers! We found the local beach and great place to sleep. Right on the beach by the ocean like lake and under the bright stars, we made a nice temperpedic bed out of the sand and drifted to sleep with the waves crashing onto eachother.

Throughout the trip we have had checkpoints, certain areas that standout and entice us in different and unique ways. The first being Sandpoint Idaho, followed by, Glacier National Park, Fargo North Dakota and Minneapolis. Reaching the next one today, we will be boarding the S.S Badger to take us across Lake Michigain. The four hour ride turns into 5 hours from the Eastern Time Zone, our final time change. We camped 25 miles away from Minitowoc, a quick hour and half ride brought us to the downtown of the lake city. We stopped at a local pub to pass the two hours in till the ferry left, choosing the first one we found we were surprised to be walking into the oldest house and bar in the whole town. Autographed pictures hung from the wall, all saying there thanks to the Stage Door, and how much they loved it. The Lady serving us was the second owner of the bar, which was built around the 1880's. Talking with her about the history of her building and our trip she turned on the news for us to watch as we enjoyed our Irish style beers. The weather channel instantly grabbed our attention as warnings of the east coast hurricane Irene was being brodcasted. As the news anchor was urging everyone in the area to stay inside and away from the beach, we quietly thought about the different historic events that we have encountered or have happened on this trip, from the Williston oil boom, to the flooding in Minot and now the first time New York City has been evacuated from a Hurricane. At least we have a month for the coastal cities to repair and clean from the aftermath. Realizing that we have to make our boat, we road down the street and to the harbor. A huge boat in the far distance floated towards us as we eagerly waited to board. The constant questions about who we are where we are from and were we are going to a little to repetitive. With the cars unloading from the ferry we watched the works drive the cars out and then sprint back to drive another from the belly of the boat. Finally it was our turn. Stacking our bikes under a stair well, we climbed to the upper deck and waved bye to Wisconsin. Finding a quite room, some of us slept others updated their journals, and some grabbed drinks from the bar. Four hours latter we rode off the boat and entered our 7th state, Michigan. After dinner we headed for a campsite in town, the road turned off into a gravel road leading to a dark creepy forest. Following the trail we gave up and found a nice spot to set up where hopefully no one would harass us.