Traverse City to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore 53.7 miles

My good fortune and research allowed me to pull off a culinary trifecta in Traverse City that morning. First I went to Common Good Bakery and picked up some pastry and a loaf of bread, an excellent start.

Then I went to Oryana community co-op. I have discovered Co-ops are a great place to stop on a self supported bike tour. I refilled my plastic peanut butter jar from their bulk peanut butter, I got some fresh vegetables (they had good options for getting smaller amounts than a normal grocery store.) and then I found out they have bulk eggs! I could just get what I wanted to (carefully) carry.

Then to round out the trifecta, I went to the marvelous Saturday morning, farmers market. There was a baker at the market, Merlyn’s Patisserie, that had a huge line. It reminded me of my 10 years running my baking business selling at farmers markets. I had to wait in line to see what all the fuss was about. I got an excellent croissant and a brioche roll that had an intriguing mix of a sweet cream filling with sharp cheddar cheese in it.

I met a couple at the farmers market that were bike tourists and talked about our adventures.

I took another part of the TART trail system out of town called the Leelanau Trail. At lunchtime, I was passing a place called Farm Club. I had read about it back when I planned my route and wanted to stop. It is a farm/restaurant/bakery/brewery and it was about to open. By the time I parked the bike there was a line at the door. I asked the folks in front of me if they had been there before and what to expect. They said to expect to be put on a waiting list and that it would take a couple hours to be served. I decided I couldn’t take that long for lunch so I moseyed on over to their outdoor snack bar and asked if I ordered a beer, could I eat my own lunch somewhere on the lawn out of the way? They said yes! I had a Rye Chocolate chip cookie from their bakery for dessert. I hope some day to get back to Farm Club with my wife to enjoy a whole meal at their restaurant.

Not too long after lunch, I made it to Sutton’s Bay and was considering taking a swim when I met a young guy who was interested in knowing where I was traveling to and from. His name was Sean and he was local from North Point, Michigan. He said he was hoping to tour sometime in the future. He also told me he was a photographer/ videographer and had studied journalism. Since then I have checked out his instagram page and website, the kid is talented.

A little farther down the road was another farm/ bakery/ cafe that a few folks had told me about. One of them tipped me off that they had a wood fired bread oven, I’m a sucker for one of those. It is called “9 bean rows”, yeah, funny name. But they had it going on. I didn’t really need anything to eat and certainly didn’t need any more baked goods to carry on my bike but I stopped anyway. I talked my way into a quick tour of their oven and production space. Bakers are almost universally kind, generous folks. They had a cool oven! It was massive and had a rotating circular deck. The oven is so massive they just come in and add more wood to the fire in the oven on their day off because it would take too long to heat it back up if they let it cool off.

All this enjoying myself along the way made it pretty late when I rolled into the campground at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. I assumed that they had a no turn away policy for people arriving by bicycle like Glacier National Park does since they are part of the National Park System also. They don’t. On my way out of the park office a woman charging her cell phone while hanging out at a picnic table asked if I got turned away. I said yes and she told me that she had done some bicycle touring and asked what I was going to do. I said I would head down the road and find a place to camp, stealth camping if I had to. I got on my bike and hit the road. I was barely outside the park gate when the woman I was talking with, Joan, caught up to me on her bike and asked if I wanted to camp on her family’s campsite. I said sure! Back at their campsite we realized that there wasn’t enough real estate with flat, clear ground that wasn’t covered in poison Ivy to set up my tent. But she said that wasn’t a problem, have I ever slept in a camping hammock? And in no time her adult son and daughter had set their extra camping hammock up for me. They said that they come here from their home in St. Louis every year with their friends that were in a neighboring campsite and that they were going to have a campfire on the beach later. Would I want to join them?

So after taking a swim in Lake Michigan (I could clearly see my toes neck deep!), I found myself sitting around a campfire with my new friends hearing and telling stories, eating dinner and having a beer. Life is good.

It turns out that Joan had done a lot of interesting international bike touring by herself a number of years ago. I am pretty sure she said she toured in Australia, Asia and Africa. I was happy to hear some stories from those tours but I wish I had asked more questions. She met her husband, Dan, in Africa. He was working there and she was on tour in Africa .

Thanks Joan, Dan and family for sharing your campsite and making it a memorable night, I am sure if I went down the road and stealth camped it would have been memorable but not for the same reasons.