Day 46 - Wed, Jul 9, Milwaukee, WI to Muskegon, MI

DAY 46 - Wednesday, July 9, MILWAUKEE, WI TO MUSKEGON, MI

57.3 mi
3.24.42 st
16.7 avg
TTD-2335.34

Tuesday was mostly getting laundry totally done, some more blogging, mending some shorts and a compression sack, etc. We were in bed by 9:30 for the early departure today.

We were up at 4:18 in order to catch the 6:00 ferry across Lake Michigan. Dad and Mom were kind enough to drop us off.The ride across the lake was perfectly smooth with only a little bit of rocking motion. This was good; I didn't want to start riding on the other side with motion sickness. The skies were clear and blue and the temp nice and cool. There were only about 40 people on board and maybe 15 cars. We had the only bike. It was a three hour trip and we arrived at Muskegon at 9:50 (We crossed into the eastern time zone in the middle of the lake.)

We wound our way through the city and pointed the bike east on hwy B72. It was great for all 11.6 miles of it. That's when we got our first flat of this third leg. Can you believe it? All brand new tires and tubes. We absolutely could not find anything in the tube or tire, thus we dubbed this one our "mystery flat". Oh well, we figured God wanted us delayed for some reason.

The back of my knee started hurting again shortly after we began. Oh no, I thought it had healed up on the days off. I finally resorted to Dr. Tylenol and that helped a bit.

Susan, you would've loved the ride today! Clear skies, not too hot (lake effect), very gentle rolling hills, beautiful countryside. I was wishing you and Chuck were pedaling with us.There were fruit orchards on both sides of us, in addition to all the cornfields (Ethanol is big here.). This picture is of a new orchard; I was trying to catch all the metallic ribbons on the trees that were fluttering and glittering in the wind.

Because it was too early to eat at 4:30 when we got up (Who eats at that time of the day?!), we waited and had only a bagel when we got off the ferry. So now it was lunchtime and we decided it was a good opportunity for the Italian buffet at Angela's in Sparta.

Well, we can say we've finally been to Podunk - right in the middle of Michigan.

When we reached Greenville at 4:00, we weren't too surprised to find there was no place to camp. And I guess we expected more than two motels, but, hey, we were happy that at least one of them wasn't known for crack-heads. (That info was courtesy of a clerk in the automotive parts store.) We picked that one.

Tomorrow...

Gerry and Pat