Circling the U.S. Chapter 22: Hills & Detours in Michigan

Day 47: Tuesday, July 23, 2019     59 miles to Luddington, MI

Our Monday night hosts worked hard to convince us that it was foolhardy to try riding the 50 miles from Arcadia to Luddington in one day. It was too far, they said. There are hills, they said.

Little did they know that Rob and I are invincible.

They offered to give us a ride part of the way. No, thank you, I said. We’ll be fine. We'd already ridden some hard hills to get to their house, so we had a pretty good idea what was coming. And it was only 50 miles. There was no reason to skip any of the miles of the quiet bicycle route along the picturesque Lake Michigan shoreline.

We were out the door and on the road as the sun was still coming up, shedding orange and yellow through the clouds in the sky, the colors reflecting on the water of the town marina.

As we approached the first hill, we had water views on both sides of us, mist rising, a single swan swimming, clusters of grasses scattered about. The air was cool, the temperature perfect for climbing.

The first hill was a humdinger, a couple miles long. Rob had shown me up the last couple days, riding up hills I had walked. I was determined to stick with it, and tried what I’d seen Rob do, and teased him about. I call it the “Drugan Weave.” If you take short turns right and left as you go up a steep hill, it scrubs off some of the steep. A guy I’d ridden with on my long bike trip back in 1980 had also done it.

Few cars disturbed my concentration as I talked myself into staying on the bike and I made it to the top, proud of myself. It was a long hill so I had enough time to take out my tin whistle and played "Road to Boston," one time through while I waited for Rob. He came up, doing his weave, and said, "I know I'm getting to the top when I hear you play."

The next hill wasn't so bad. Then Rob, behind me, said, “As your nutrition mentor, I don’t think that toast is enough of a breakfast for you.”

“I had three-and-a-half pieces,” I said. Our hosts had cinnamon raisin bread, a pleasant switch from oatmeal and easier to prepare. Rob had Frosted Flakes. He loves cold cereal.

“You need eggs,” Rob said.

“You mean you want eggs,” I said. "I could get into that."

Ten miles after we’d begun our day’s ride, we arrived in Onakama. We stopped at the town park to use the restroom because it didn’t look good for a breakfast stop. There appeared to be only a handful of businesses in this little town on the M22 highway. Then we passed the last building in town, the M22 Grill. It had a view of the water and lots of empty tables. I stopped. “What do you think?” I said. “Looks good,” Rob replied.

I took this picture as we were leaving. Cars parked up and down the street showed that this was the hot spot in town for breakfast. Lake Michigan is behind it. We could see the lake from our table.

It started raining just as we were locking up our bikes. Just a sprinkle.It wasn't in the forecast. But as we waited for our breakfast it came down hard. As we ate our omelettes with homemade biscuits and shredded homefries, the rain slowed down. When we paid our bill, it stopped. Outside, unlocking our bikes, we saw blue sky overhead.

The weather gods are smiling on us this trip. So far anyway. Three days of rain out of 47 on the road. Twice we've been able to time storms perfectly by ducking into a restaurant or cafe. And only a couple days of heat when it might have gone over ninety degrees.

Library time, lunch, and a grocery stop ten miles later in Manistee, then we left the lakeshore for some inland riding on back roads, following U.S. Bicycle Route 35, which had treated us well so far. We were cruising along a quiet country road when we saw a “Road Closed, Detour” sign. Detours suck on a bicycle. You have no idea where it is going to take you or if you can ignore it.

A truck drove right past it so maybe we could, too. Riding a bike, we never know how serious that detour sign is. Can we get by? We stopped a couple cars to find out. The first driver had no idea. The second said, “It’s a sinkhole from the rain the other day. You should be okay.” We proceeded, and it was terrific riding on a closed road. Then, in case we missed the first one, we came to another Road Closed sign by a convenience store. We stopped to talk to someone inside. The owner told us that a bridge was out. “Maybe you can go over it. I haven’t seen it so I don’t know.”

We decided not to take a chance and rode back the way we came, took the detour out to the main highway, two miles out of our way Then another detour for a sink hole which sent all the highway traffic onto the quiet narrow road that was the bike route. Heavy traffic at the end of a long day rattled my good mood. Then we left the detour traffic behind, finishing the day on another quiet road as we hit the outskirts of Ludington, our final stop in Michigan before taking the ferry across the lake to Wisconsin.