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Sunday, July 26, 2009 A lot of clouds but a nice tail wind.
- Start: Bruce Crossings, MI
- ATW: Trout Creek, Kenton, Sidnaw, Watton, Covington, Three Lakes, Michigamme
- End: Champion
- Day Miles: 65.7 Ride Time: 6:25 Total Trip Miles: 3210
The unexpected ride from the day before and the early start with the crows found us waking in Bruce Crossings around 9:00AM. Everything was damp and packing was slow. A guy by the name of Dave stopped in and while we packed he entertained us with magic tricks and tested our knowledge on sports trivia.
Around 11:00 we were packed up and everything was mostly dried before being stuffed away. The next city was Ishpeming and last night we were warned that nothing existed between here and there. We'd heard that before (many times) and people were usually wrong. Which ended up being the case today. Several small towns lined our way as well as campgrounds and a few state parks. We even found a few roadside rests with vault toilets, practically civilization! What do people expect a couple of bicyclists to need when crossing a state?
"It's completely flat after Covington and the most boring stretch of nothing ever!" the grocery clerk exclaimed slamming her hand down onto the conveyor belt scooping up the frozen bag of peas and tossing them into a bag. She was far from right on all points. It wasn't flat and it was very pretty. Dense tree growth has been the theme the last week or so but it is a wonderful change from the open air of the farmlands and plains.
I don't think we expected to make it all the way to Ishpeming as it was 80 some miles on anything but "flat" land but when we got to Michigamme we voted to stop early. It was around dinner time for the rest of the world and we were near a couple of nice state parks. Why not?
Maybe I mixed up where we were headed but what we thought was three miles further was 10 to Van Riper state park. Once in the park we talked to several people interested in our bike and trip and managed to get to sleep around 11:00PM after amazingly hot showers. Usually in parks they're luke warm at best. Another night of thwarting mosquitoes and extreme darkness allowing the stars to fill the sky.
Source: http://hunts-upguide.com/champion_van_riper_state_park.html
