All go, no quit, no boundaries

Depending on your natural tendency toward life, optimism and karma, we either had a very late start this morning or an extremely early start this afternoon! Last night we went to bed comforted in the knowledge that we only had to cycle 34 miles into Ellsworth today. A consequence of which being that getting out of bed this morning was not a hurried affair.

Eventually mounting Trusty & Steed (without having breakfast, we add) and completing our first 2 miles along the cycle path at the edge of Little Traverse Bay, we checked the time and realised it was already past lunchtime! Fortunately we were still in downtown Petoskey where the famed eatery, Roast & Toast served simple but sublime creations for many a hungry cyclist and the uber-rich clientele. Propping up our bikes against the outside of the building, we wandered in to see what treasures we could consume. We weren’t disappointed! An Avocado BLT sandwich, two chocolate cookies, a very nice Latte and a bottle of apple juice later we had found that 60 minutes had passed by without much complaint and we were now sitting outside soaking up the sunshine chatting with a great couple Pete & Chris about our adventures around America. Chris then produced her iPhone to show us a picture of her, Pete and none other than Lance Armstrong. Pete then explained how he had once ridden with the “God of Cadence” for 28 miles, which was a humbling experience…very cool.

Time was now pressing on and we knew we had to get on the road if we wanted to arrive in Ellsworth before dark. Saying bye bye to downtown Petoskey we pushed off into the head wind and some very steep hill climbs, which was pretty much how the rest of the ride panned out. Yeah, of course the weather and temperature were perfect for cycling, the wooded and lakeside scenery was calm and peaceful, and the roads where smooth and not very busy; but the hills just kept rolling and the head wind just kept blowing. But it was only for 34 miles and we did plummet down a very steep hill at one point hitting over 44mph (into a headwind)…awesome.

Halfway through the ride, we stopped at a bike/outdoor adventure shop in Boyne City, NO BOUNDARIES to buy some Chamois Cream aka Butt Butter and energy bars. It’s a great little shop with a good selection of quality items, which was opened by Bob (the owner) and Ben (the manager) in April this year. They certainly seem to share our philosophy of life (credit to Bob and Ben for the title of the blog today), and we wish them well in their venture, which we are sure will be a success. Describing our epic journey to Ben, Bob and Meryl (their trusty assistant), Bob kindly gave us some free t-shirts and advice for our trip…Thanks again Bob, Ben and Meryl.

Arriving in Ellsworth, we cycled past a nice-looking restaurant in the village, where we planned on eating tonight (good job Kat for making the reservation last week) and just 0.3 miles further we pulled into our B&B, “The House on the Hill”. That’s not “Amityville”, the House on the hill sang by Lovebug Starski on “Now That's What I Call Music! 7 (disc 2)”…a classic eighties hit! But the picture perfect one run by Marci and Philip perched atop a hill over looking Lake Saint Clair Lake. Marci and Philip showed us around their estate (trust us, it’s an “estate” complete with acres of woodland, gardens, sun porch and kayaks for messing about on the water) and then to our lovely room with a view. It’s a shame we’re not staying here an extra day, because there’s loads of relaxing things to do.

After freshening up, we took a leisurely walk to the restaurant, had a great meal and then strolled back to the B&B to retire.

More cycling tomorrow, and then a well-needed rest day! Talking of tomorrow, many happy returns to Kat’s super-cute nephew, Leo, who is celebrating his first birthday!

Us x

Lake Mich-again

What a day! We jam-packed so many things into yesterday that we were too tired to write the blog by the time we got in, and we forgot to charge the Gamines! Unheard of…

We set off pretty early from our super comfortable motel in St Ignace, MI (we wrote earlier this week about our accommodation criteria and the Moran Bay Motel ticked all the boxes, as well as being fantastic value for money – we can’t rave enough). After stopping at a nearby restaurant to grab a couple of breakfast sandwiches, we hopped aboard the ferry to Mackinac Island.

Mackinac island is a place where the bike is truly King. No cars or other motorised vehikkles are allowed: only horses and bikes. We rode the 8-mile loop around the island, which was stunningly beautiful and surprisingly unspoiled, given that the island was teeming with tourists. It was definitely necessary to keep your wits about you to avoid the “steaming road debris” (gotta love those horses) as well as the people who were on bikes but didn’t seem to have ever learned how to ride one…

By around lunchtime, we were ready to depart and caught another ferry to Mackinaw City, putting us back on the mainland and across the other side of the Mackinaw Straits that join Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. And then our brief but enjoyable flirtation with Lake Huron was over, as we will now be skirting down the East side of Lake Michigan for the next few days heading south to Indiana.

We’ve discovered that this part of Lake Michigan is a bit of a playground for the rich and famous. We cycled through a couple of really chi-chi little towns, where the houses were big, the views amazing and the cappuccinos plentiful. We took full advantage of this, stopping at a little café in Harbor Springs to sip a couple of lattes with another cyclist called Scott, who we’d met earlier in the day at a gas station. Arriving along a bike path into Petoskey, MI, our destination for the night, we overshot our motel by quite some distance, ending up in downtown and having to double back. Not the Gamines fault this time, but Google, who had put the hotel in the wrong place on the map!

This also contributed to us having a rather long walk into downtown for dinner, which we ate (late) at the City Park Grill. We had a ball talking to our waitress, Catherine Stakoe, who is having a great summer cavorting with said “rich and famous” in the area (her words!!) At the end of the night, Catherine offered us a lift back to our hotel to save us the 2 mile walk, which we gratefully accepted – thanks Catherine!

Us x

Lake Huron

It was only 45 miles from Naubinway to St Ignace, but it was a weather extravaganza of a ride! We left at a reasonable time this morning with the sun high in the sky and a cool breeze blowing in from the west. We were travelling east, so everything was good. Good that is, until we hit Moran Township, a place just 15 miles outside of St Ignace. It was truly weird! One second the wind was blowing from the north west then the next second as we had an unobstructed exposure to Lake Michigan’s vastness, the wind suddenly switched, blowing hard from the south east. To make matters worse, looking high over our right shoulders we saw what could only be described as a big black sheet the size of Wales hanging from the sky. With blue cloudless skies ahead of us and the fast approaching vale darkness to the right and above us, we upped our speed to try and out pace the wind, blowing in this massive thunder cloud …we lost, and 10 seconds later we were soaked and cycling in rain drops the size of golf balls.

Our fully dressed Power Shower lasted a short, but very long! 30 minutes. Abruptly stopping to allow the clouds to peel back and reveal blue skies, sunshine and rainbows. Unfortunately, we weren’t out of the woods just yet. Replacing the torrential rains were orchestral claps of thunder and blinding lightning that crackled ferociously as it zapped the ground beneath. We were scared riding upon our trusty Lightning Conductors, but risked the last 5 minutes cycling out in the open, knowing that we had only 1 mile to go before reaching our destination.

Safe to say we’re now in St Ignace, which is just around the corner from the Mackinac Bridge that spans the straights where Lake Michigan meets Lake Huron. It’s beautiful around here! Words don’t quite describe the atmosphere and ambience of this place. We can’t explain it but it’s magical to witness these two huge bodies of water meeting underneath a bridge whose span is wider than that of the Golden Gate Bridge. Fortunately, we arrived at our Motel early in the day and managed to clean the bikes, do the laundry, paddle in Lake Huron, take a few photos and eat dinner all before 9pm.

We’re back on the Ferries tomorrow to witness the Famous Mackinac Island

Us x

Blazing Saddles

Last night was what you might call an experience. The sort that people would probably refer to as “character building”. Having met the owner of the hotel at 4.30pm to get into our room, we were not best impressed with the state of it. Still, at least the owner had shown us his loaded gun while we were checking in to reassure us that we, and the bikes, would be safe in his establishment…at which point Anthony switched his muscle reflex mode onto “ultra fast-twitch”!

It was one of those places where the more you looked, touched and experienced, the more uncomfortable you started to feel. We won’t go into details, save to confirm that the silk sleeping sock made another appearance and that we woke this morning to find a spider on the ceiling near the bathroom (we weren’t really surprised since there was a whole family of them just outside the door to our room). It was lowering itself down, Little Miss Muffet style, and then shooting back up again with alarming speed. Kat kept her beady little eye on it throughout observing the age-old cyclists’ proverb: “a watched spider never crawls into your pannier”. Oh, and it would be remiss of us not to mention that we were woken up at 7am this morning with the not so gentle sound of a tarmac machine right outside our window, mending cracks in the car park… like that was the most urgent thing that needed fixing in the whole place?

Anyway, the whole experience had us pondering over breakfast about the complexities of finding suitable accommodation on this trip. When it’s raining outside, or it’s a ridiculously hot, humid and mosquito-ridden evening, we count our blessings for whatever roof we have over our heads, nodding at each other and saying “better than a tent”. But the truth is that we take quite a lot for granted, and get all squirmy when even the basics are not present.

As cyclists, our needs are a little different to your average tourist. At times, we have taken the estate agent’s view that the three key factors are location, location and location, but that’s not really the whole story. For us, an ideal location means: being within walking distance of a restaurant which cooks hot food from scratch using fresh ingredients; a gas station or grocery store to buy the gallon of water we consume every day; and of course somewhere not too far off the cycling route. On rest days, we need a Laundromat (always), a bike shop (often) and a post office (sometimes). But on top of that, it’s essential for us to know that we can either take our bikes into our room or keep them secure somewhere else on the property; and also that we can get a decent WiFi signal or other internet connection in our room for blog-posting and the myriad of other things for which we rely on the lap top. And of course, we’re on a budget, so we need to get all of the above for a bargain price!

We’ve been pretty lucky so far, and we identified a number of places on the trip that would definitely go in our Top 10. Last night we’ll definitely place in the Top 2 Worst Places, but you can’t win them all.

On the positive side, we had a fabulous, hearty breakfast this morning at the Cedar Street Café and Coffee House, an absolute gem of place. We had lovely chats with a couple from Pennsylvania as we let our eggs and bacon settle, and also with Scott and Pacific who were on vacation in the area. And, as we were putting our helmets and gloves on outside, we were caught by Sheryl, a Manistique local, who was interested in our trip and told us a bit more about the town. Hi to all of you guys!

With full tummies and our spirits lifted, we rocketed the 45 miles from Manistique, MI to Naubinway, MI in a little over 3 hours. We’re now in a café just round the corner from our motel in order to get WiFi access to post our blogs. We’ve managed to pack away a bowl of meatball soup and an extra large salad in the process…yum. Hurrah for the Michigan Cafes!!

Us x

Hot & Humid

Well! Umm…umm. Nothing much happened today. We got up, ate granola and fruit in our room for breakfast and began cycling in 85°C heat and ‘sauna like’ humidity. Our first 10 miles were along a busy highway with a very narrow hard shoulder and a population of drivers who seemed to be unable courteously to give us a wide berth when speeding by.

The journey back down to the northern coast of Lake Michigan was only 45 miles, dropping to approximately 580ft above sea level. It’s crazy to think that we were once in New Mexico writing Blogs explaining how we were elevating to dizzy heights in excess of 8,000ft or completing 3000ft climbs in one day, and now we’re impressed with a being 580ft above sea level …we guess we’re coming home!

Feeling hot but not tired, we arrived at our motel at 3:20pm to find the owner was not in. He left a note saying he’d be back at 4:30pm, so we took the opportunity to wander up Main Street to find somewhere to eat, which we did, and you guessed right …chips, crisps, burgers and BLT’s.

Thought for the Day: “It’s strange how one can eat fresh grilled fish with salad and baked potatoes as we did last night, and then the next day just 45 miles away on a different body of water, the only choices for food are fried food and sandwiches”.

Us x

Truer, Madder, Deeper…

We’re pretty impressed with Lake Superior, especially now that we’ve seen it up close and personal. Today we took a boat trip along the shore to see the Pictured Rocks, an area where the bluff along the lakeshore has become patterned with the vibrant colours of many different materials bedding down over millions of years: beautiful. Check out the photos.

It also brought home to us how enormous this lake really is. Our trip was a mere 37 miles… a teeny tiny little corner of the lake. Lake Superior is over 30,000 square miles in area, the same size as the whole of Scotland. It is the largest body of fresh water in the World: the widest, cleanest, deepest of all lakes... at least according to the Captain. Before wandering back to our motel, we took a quick paddle in the lake. It would have been rude not to. It was much warmer than we expected, given that its surface is 600ft above sea level and its deepest point (just 40 miles from Munising) is 700ft below sea level. Incredible! It was also crystal clear, partly because only 2 million people live around its 2,727 miles of shoreline… about the same population as Greater Manchester. Fortunately for Lake Superior, Yoopers live on its shores and not Mancunians; because if they did, we’re sure one would see all sorts of kebabs and chips floating on its surface!

After some fresh fish for dinner, we’re back in the room contemplating our next 6 days of cycling… yes, 6 days until another rest day this time. Bring it on…

Us x

Lake Superior

Now that we’re in Great Lake territory, it only makes sense for us to try and dip our toes in all 5 of the lakes. We’ve already swum in the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific so why not try to complete the “large body of water, I’ve been there” experience. So thanks to Bob and Kris’ recommendation we left Escanaba on the shores of Lake Michigan and headed north this morning toward Munising, MI, on the south shores of Lake Superior. Needless to say, we felt very delicate this morning (thanks again Mat & Heather and thanks for the donation) but having another rest day was not an option. Therefore we packed up, drank loads of fluid and set off in the glorious sunshine on our 68-mile uphill ride through the picturesque Hiawatha National Forest.

The ride through the Forest was tough at times but great fun. It was very peaceful and full of surprises. We cycled for some 54 miles before taking our second stop at a General Store 14 miles south of Munising, where we met a couple groups of very interesting people. The first group were sitting outside on the porch of the General Store, having just finished running a marathon, then swimming across a nearby lake (we think it was Town Lake) to eat ice creams. The ice creams looked very yummy, so instead of embarking upon our usual consumption of energy bars, we too tucked into a couple of very scrumdiddlyumptious ice creams. Whilst tucking into our frozen treats, a group of Parish Bikers thundered into the car park with one thing on their minds…eat ice cream. We all sat and chatted over ice cream and before leaving they kindly offered to bless our bikes.

Refreshed and still wanting more, we reluctantly tore ourselves away from the store and completed the remaining 14 miles with a lovely downhill finish to the front door of our motel, where we met Alain, another Epic Adventurer from Québec. His English was of course far better than our French but our French is atrocious (where’s MG when you need her) so communicating was a bit difficult. We did manage to get his blog address [www.routard-en-velo.blogspot.com] and he kindly donated to the cause.

We’re having a non-cycling day tomorrow to see the sights of Lake Superior.

Us x