on the trails

Eve’a post: I haven’t written since we began riding in Michigan, but all is well. We were joined by several friends and Paul’s medical student, Julia, in Detroit last week and are now about to embark on the Upper Peninsula (whose denizens are knows as Yoopers). The route for the most part have been on rails-to-trails and other local bike trails which have been terrific. We did go through Midland, which was the site of the burst dams. Although part of the trails was technically closed because of flood damage, we were able to get through. We saw amazing scenes of smashed cars, buses, ruined furniture and more strewn along the trail and had to walk our bikes through deep sand in several places. A huge storm came through while we were in Gaylord (the remnant of a hurricane) and left strong winds in their wake. There were several downed trees on the trail (see above), which made for interesting riding. The temperature dropped precipitously from the 80s to the 40-50’s as well. We took the ferry to Macinac Island 2 days ago and after a hearty lunch, rode our bikes around the island (although road damage cut that short). The island is beautiful, with huge cedar and spruce trees. The winds were still quite high, so we took another ferry to St Ignace, our site for our rest day. The hotel overlooks Lake Huron and it was quite restful listening to the waves lapping on the shore, with seagulls calling overhead. About to head out and resume our journey.

 

 

 

O