The day to say goodbye to family and get back on the road was hard. And it was also hard to believe I only had 29 days of riding left! By the end of the day I would be 2/3rds of the way done my tour.

I had been through South Haven on my way to Long Beach, where I spent a week off the bike so when Amy and Bob offered to drive me and my bike there to start, it didn’t take me long to convince myself it wouldn’t be cheating and say yes. Thanks!

I took advantage of the 35 mile Kal-Haven rail trail that runs from South Haven to Kalamazoo. On the way I stopped in a nice park picnic shelter to eat my lunch in Bloomingdale, Michigan. While I was packing up, I met a young guy who was local, he was riding an E-bike but had taken a bike tour with his brother a few years ago.

The Kal-Haven trail was in great shape compared to some of the other trails I took (and chose not to take) in Michigan. A gravel or crushed stone rail trail that is in good shape is wondrous. Even though it is a bit slower than pavement, it usually makes up for that with it’s lack of cars, it’s direct routing, it’s easy grade and the string of small, former “railroad towns” that are usually along it.

When I made it to the edge of Kalamazoo, I had to head 10 miles South to my Warmshowers host. That riding was not as idyllic but it brought me to Tom’s house which made it worth it. Tom works in the field of synthetic chemistry, figuring out how to make molecules for clients (mostly pharmaceutical companies). I got cleaned up and we went to a Lebanese shawarma restaurant and a great local ice cream shop on the way home. I discovered Tom had done organized bike rides across many states, goes backpacking, canoe camping and does an annual white water raft trip with a group of friends. He also has a freeze drying machine in his basement that he uses to dehydrate meals for some of his trips.

Tom let me know he needed to get on the road in the morning to South Haven, he was going to gather signatures on a petition for rank choice voting in Michigan. Then he told me a personal story about rank choice voting. One year he was organizing his annual rafting trip with his friends and he sent out an email asking if they would like to raft on a different river this year since they had rafted on the same river the two years prior. So he took a poll with three choices:

1. Raft the same river again.

2. Raft River A

3. Raft river B

“Raft the same river again” won the poll but on the trip that year he discovered that the majority of people wanted to raft a different river than the one they had been rafting on. The “different river” vote was split and lost even though it was the majority. If the poll had employed rank choice voting, this wouldn’t have happened. Something to think about folks.

Once again, it was splendid to see my wife Beth. I am so lucky to have met her in 9th grade gym class. I wouldn’t be out here riding my bike across the country without her. She suggested that I should do it now and she is home working and taking care of everything on the home front. She is the best and I am grateful to have her as my life partner.

An added benefit is I get to have her marvelous family as my family too. Her sister, Amy and her husband Bob were so kind to host my time off the bike in Indiana. Thanks Amy and Bob!

The week off the bike with family let me recuperate and be ready to get back on the road for the last leg of my tour. My wife was the one who suggested that she come out twice for a week and I take a break from riding. Thanks Beth for being so thoughtful, giving and wise.

The parks and roadside rests in rural Michigan almost all had bathrooms or at least porta pottys. This is much appreciated by the bicycle traveler. This one was in good order and had the funniest thing written on the wall.

I ate my lunch and enjoyed a cup of coffee and a pastry at a picnic table with a view of the biggest splash park I have ever seen. Every five or ten minutes the little fountains of water would turn off and a ring of monster fountains would spray for a few minutes.

My next stop was Warren Sand Dunes State Park it had some gargantuan dunes! Try to find the 7 people and 1 Bigfoot in the picture below and you will get an appreciation of how big that dune is.

There was also an excellent swimming beach that I took advantage of at Warren Sand Dunes.

When I made it to New Buffalo, MI I happened into a Farmer’s Market and picked up some tomatoes and peaches. Then I went to church, Beer Church that is, for an early dinner. If all churches served great beer and marvelous wood fired pizza, I would get to church more often. Can I get an Amen!

As I was getting near Long Beach the Canadian wildfire smoke was making a reappearance. It gave everything a slight misty quality.

Those farmers market tomatoes made an exquisite tomato salad to go with my Sister in law’s superb sourdough bread for late dinner.

I had made it! Even a day early, before my wife would arrive at her sister’s house in Long Beach. I covered 2,530.6 miles from Glacier National Park to Long Beach, Indiana in 38 days averaging 66.6 miles a day with no days off!

And one thing I wasn’t anticipating was I crossed back into the Central Time Zone when I crossed the border into Indiana. You’re supposed to be going East Carl!

I made the first 20 miles pretty quick so I could stop in Holland, Michigan at deBoer bakery for a treat and a cup of coffee. I met one of the Brothers that own and run the operation. He is a 4th generation baker. His grandfather came to Holland, MI from the Netherlands in 1956. The business and knowledge of baking was handed down through the generations. He could tell I was on a bike tour and asked the usual questions and I had questions for him about his family’s bakery. The bakery has two locations and the North location where I was and it served Breakfast and Lunch, it was hopping on a weekday just before noon. The baked goods I had were excellent.

Holland, MI has a windmill that was disassembled in the Netherlands and shipped here. I was hoping to see it close up but it is in a gardens that has an entry fee and I didn’t have a lot of time.

Eventually I made it to Van Buren State Park and had to set up camp in the rain. I broke out a tarp that was my Brother Mark’s and was able to rig it over the picnic table so I could cook and eat out of the rain. Up to this time I had only used the tarp to cover my bike if the forecast was for showers overnight or if I was stealth camping and didn’t want the bike to be seen. It was validating to get to set it up and use it this way. I think I have been really lucky with the weather, I expected I would have used the tarp more by now.

I had some great conversations with my campground neighbors who were out testing out their fairly new RV trailer. They were sitting in chairs under their retractable rain awning facing my campsite. I felt like I was putting on a show for them riding up and pulling things from my bags and setting up camp. I wasn’t sure if they were shaking their heads in disbelief someone would choose to travel like this but after I talked to them and answered some of their questions, I felt they were fairly impressed with my pluck. It was nice to get a warm shower after riding in the rain. I slept well.

Sleeping under a bridge is overrated. But at least it was right on the bike trail and I was up and riding first thing in the morning.

I stopped for a treat before long at a trail side farm dairy store. And when I was leaving I got into a conversation with a couple, Clay and Sally, that were out for a ride on their bikes. We rode and talked since they were going my way. I told them about a problem I was having with my leather Brooks bike saddle. Five days before, when I had gotten dumped on by a thunderstorm while riding through “the tunnel of trees”, my leather bike seat stretched. It sagged enough that I had to raise my seat a half inch. But a day later I realized the agreement that my bike seat and my butt had worked out over so many miles was null and void. There is a way to adjust the seat and stretch the seat tight again but I lacked the proper tools. Clay and Sally offered to help me out. We rode to their lovely home and rolled my bike into their basement workshop and they were able to stretch the saddle for me. Thank you Clay and Sally.

I stopped for lunch at a bagel shop in Muskegon, MI and took a swim at a state park just out of town.

I was able to line up a stay with Warmshowers hosts (John and Cindy) in Grand Haven. Cindy was shaping some sourdough bread when I arrived and had bridge club tonight so I got to hangout with John. He made a wonderful dinner and we had excellent conversation. I learned he recently retired from dentistry, he has been bicycle touring since his teens, has ridden around lake Michigan more than once and rode the cross Michigan ride (155 miles in a day!).

He also told me of his plans to be part of the Edmond Fitzgerald Memorial Swim that would memorialized the 29 lives lost in 1975 when the Edmond Fitzgerald sunk to the bottom of lake Michigan. It was going to be a 411 mile swimming relay, with 68 swimmers taking a leg in the relay. They would start where the ship went down and symbolically bring a piece of iron ore ( what the ship was hauling) to Detroit where the ship was to unload it’s cargo. I have since found out that the swim relay was successfully completed. Congratulations John!

The story he told me that most captured my imagination was how in 1974, at age 20 he decided to go on a bike tour out west. He had ridden around Lake Michigan the summer before, his draft card number was A-1, eligible for selection to serve, but the Vietnam war was winding down, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do for a career and wanted to see the country but was low on funds. So he thought, “well, I’ll go on bicycle.” He had a friend just crazy enough to join him and another one joined them last minute before they left. A real adventure was afoot.

They used road maps and knocked on folks doors for places to camp. They were met with the magical kindness of strangers that really affects you.

When they reached South Dakota they started to call their tour the Seattle Sojourn but they wouldn’t make it that far. The last minute friend turned for home in Jackson, Wyoming. And when John and his other friend made it to Bozeman, Montana, John just couldn’t leave. He got a job as a bartender and his friend stayed for a few months but John was hooked on the place. He skied, white water kayaked and eventually found a job in a dental technician lab. He stayed in Bozeman for 4 years. Eventually he left Bozeman to work shortly for a dentist in Spokane, Washington before moving back to Michigan and attending the University of Michigan and graduating with a dentistry degree. For a period of seven years he was in a residency program and owned and worked in his own dental practice in Pennsylvania before taking over his father’s dental practice. And this was the practice from which John had recently retired.

Thank you John for hosting me and sharing stories of your adventures. I hope there are many more in your future. And next time I want to hear Cindy play the steel drums!

My new friend Eric (that let me stay at his place last night) and I went to a cafe in Onekamama and got some breakfast together, my treat this time. And then I started on my bike from his house.

I made it to Hart, MI and decided the campground was a little too pricy for me. So I decided to make dinner in a town park. The Tin Man watched.

I was on the hunt for a stealth camp again. Eventually I decided I needed to check off sleeping under a bridge on my bike tour bingo card.

I packed up, fixed myself some breakfast. And said goodbye to Joan and Dan who shared their campsite with me last night. They gave me some good advice on what I might want to spend time seeing in the rest of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on the rest of my way through it this morning.

I went to a trail head called sleeping Bear point and met a local photographer/teacher who was just getting ready to hike the dunes to take photos. He gave me some more recommendations.

I was having trouble lining up a place to stay again. Then I decided ice cream would help or at least make me feel better. So I stopped at an ice cream shop. On my way out of the place, I held the door for the guy behind me and when he saw my bike, he was all questions. It was no more than 5 minutes and he was offering me to stay at his place down the road. We traded numbers and he gave me his address and agreed on when would be good for me to show up.

His name was Eric and when I showed up, he let me take a shower, do a load of laundry and took me down the road to a restaurant at the local casino.

I learned Eric is an iron worker, has to travel a lot for work and treats the whole world as his friend.

He has a vertical 40 foot piece of steel I beam in his back yard to practice climbing. He competes in Climbing competitions and of course uses his climbing skills in his work.

We have checked in with each other as I continued down the road.

Thanks Eric for your warm hospitality.

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.

I can’t remember the name of the owner who gave me permission to camp next to the Atwood Sloane Premiere Gallery, my brain wants to say Ray was his name. Whoever it was, thank you for giving me a place to pitch my tent for the night. Later that day, I found out that the Warmshowers host I stayed with knew the Gallery owner.

I was lucky enough to happen upon the Elk Rapids Farmers Market. And, predictably, I made a visit to The Flour Pot Bakery and Coffee Shop.

Because I rode farther than expected yesterday, it wasn’t very long before I picked up the TART trail system coming into Traverse City, Michigan. I had heard that Traverse City had an excellent bike trail system and was looking forward to experiencing it. What I didn’t know was my Warmshowers hosts, John and Rachel, were involved with the non-profit, TART Trails, that established the system and is working to expand it.

The Traverse City Area Recreation Trails (TART) vision statement:

“Our vision is a future where pathways are woven into everyday life—shaping culture and community, fostering movement and connection, deepening care for each other and the environment, now and for generations to come”

Sounds like a good vision.

The TART trail coming into Traverse City runs along Lake Michigan.

I was welcomed to John and Rachel’s home. They let me take a shower, do my laundry, clean and lube my drive train and fed me an excellent dinner. Then they asked if I would like to go to a local brewery to hear a friend of theirs play in a band. It sounded like a good time to me and it was. I really enjoyed spending time with them and hearing about their past trips, their kids and the community they have built in Traverse City. Thank you John and Rachel.

Besides sending me off in the morning with snacks for the road, my hosts Jen and Doug sent me with a hand drawn map of what I should see today, including “The Tunnel of Trees”, a swimming beach behind a church and Pond Hill Farm.

I had heard of a section of Michigan Route 119 that is called “The Tunnel of Trees”. It is part of United States Bike Route 35. I bet you didn’t know there is a US bike route system.

“The United States Bicycle Route System(abbreviated USBRS) is the national cycling route network of the United States. It consists of interstate long-distance cycling routes that use multiple types of bicycling infrastructure, including off-road paths, bicycle lanes, and low-traffic roads. As with the complementary United States Numbered Highways system for motorists, each U.S. Bicycle Route is maintained by state and local governments. The USBRS is intended to eventually traverse the entire country, like the Dutch National Cycle Routes and the United Kingdom‘s National Cycle Network, yet at a scale similar to the EuroVelo network that spans Europe.” Wikipedia.

The tunnel of trees and other points of interest lured me into following USBR 35 down the shoreline of Lake Michigan even though it wasn’t taking me East.

I got to Pond Hill Farm just in time for lunch. They have quite an operation, wood fired pizza, microbrewery and a farm store.

I had decided on camping at a state park but somehow missed the turn for it and was a few miles down the road before I realized it. I decided to press on even though it was getting late in the day. I found a brewery on my route that was in a rural area and thought I would ask if I could camp there or if they knew of a place to camp. The nice person I asked said she would get in touch with the owner. I waited a bit and was getting nervous about the imminent night fall, so I did what any intrepid bike tourist would do, I ordered a beer. After I finished the beer she said the owner couldn’t let me camp here but that he owned an old church down the road that he had turned into an art gallery and I could set up my tent there. So on I rode. The Canadian Wildfire smoke was making for a spectacular sunset as I rode there. I had just enough time to pitch my tent before it got dark.

PSA and season Finale spoiler: I made it to Bar Harbor, Maine and won’t be posting for a week so I can spend time with the love of my life.