Indecision reigns until 10 am this morning, when I decide to leave Bay City. I had accidently reversed the orientation of my rear tire yesterday in the late afternoon repair, so I needed to switch it back this morning. Plus email. Plus blogwork. (Let's forget to mention the late night coverage of the Tour de France). It's getting harder to rise and shine early these days!
At last I get moving through a series of in-city construction zones, but with a hopefull breeze at my back, I head SE on SR 15. Soon, we reach a biketrail crossing, but after inquiring at a nearby car service center, find that we are at the southern terminus of a gorgeous local loop trail. Oh well... It's off into the farmland. Today, we'll try to keep off the secondary roads that are major truck routes, as the shoulders, tho consistent, are only 24' wide and the semis persistent.
First a jog east thru Munger and Gifford and to quaint and quiet Fairgrove for a quick lunch at Angie's Place, where all the locals, chowing on big burgers, were all "ears" as my story unwinds over soup and salad. I guess after you have cycled 3000+ miles, it is easy to gather an audience. I appreciate the attention in spite of my stained garb and smelly essence and blab on and on. Out of town, I take a wrong turn and end up on busy SR 24, heading into Caro after a few miles, but quickly find my way back to small roads. (My map indicates many tertiary roads without names or numbers, thus I am relying on conferring with locals and, as we know, such info is often worth the cost.) Jog east 5 miles, then 7 miles due south for an ice cream stop in Silverwood (I highly recommend the Mackinaw Island Chunky Vanilla), then east 2 miles, then 6 miles south to North Branch. There, a helpfull policewoman tells me to avoid south Port Huron and that the reason the hotels in Yale and Peck didnot answer their phone by day is that they specialized in "hot sheets" rentals. The fun aspects of approaching a border crossing!
My rear tire, with it's patched tube, is slowly losing air, and after 3 stops to pump it up, I decide to replace it with my other (patched) tube. As I do the roadside repair, a small blue car pulls up and a smiling face pops out the window, asking "Do you have everything?". This is a standard question one cyclist will ask another cyclist upon encountering, since it is often the case that one doesnot have everything. And indeed I was short one floor pump. And indeed, this is exactly what Marc Smielewski had with him! Marc, an avid mountain biker, lives closeby and was heading home after a ride with friends. We progressed into a lively 45 minute chat and finally, at 7 pm, I needed to ride on before losing the daylight and Marc had to get home to cut his lawn. Cheers to you Marc for the help today! I really enjoyed meeting you! (and it was great to run on fully inflated tires!)
It's quickly thru Lum and finally into Imlay City (after 83 miles), amidst a very pretty sunset.
Dinner is some fine salad, bread, Cajun salmon, and Labatts at Lucky's across from my Super-Duper8 motel while B-hound snoozes in the bed of petunias outside...
No comments:
Post a Comment