Day 2: Fri Oct 2

Wards cottage in Casco twsp to South Bend, IN (82 miles)

Weather: 41 in am, 54 in afternoon rainy (again)

Today was a challenging day for me.  I woke up and was on the road by 8 am.  By 10 am there was a constant light rain until 3 pm.  I learned that riding 82 miles with a 38 lb load is much harder than riding with no load. 
Though, in spite of these challenges it was also a very scenic day.  I rode down a more rural part of bluestar and took a brief detour onto Phoenix to ride through downtown South Haven.  The road ended at Lake Michigan and South Beach.  That is, the lesser known south beach of south haven. The views of the black river running out from Lake Michigan, the lake itself, and the big red lighthouse were spectacular.

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  I opted to ride monroe along Lake Michigan for several miles.  About 20 miles south I went through Saint Joseph after crossing the Kalamazoo river.  Again I followed along the river which is US bicycle route 35.
When I finally arrived at the popular Warren Dunes I was pretty bushed and was prepared to fork over money to camp.  Though the cheapest sites they had were 25 clams and I would have to ride my bicycle one mile to a bathroom with showers and running water.  This was unacceptable to me.  And so I began the hilly 25 mile journey on rural roads toward South Bend; home of Notre Dame with the hope I'd find a suitable camping alternative along the way.  No such luck. 
82 miles of riding later and I arrived at the Motel 6 in South Bend at 6 PM utterly spent.  My left knee was sore from all the steep climbing.  My sneakers were still damp from the rain earlier and my showers pass rain booties now have holes in the bottoms after only two days and 118 miles of use.   When they told me they only had 2 person double bed rooms available for 73 a night (its friday) insult was added to injury though I lethargically agreed and forked over the money.  I then proceeded to eat a whole 12" pizza and passed out for 8 hours.  Only to wake up at 1 am to switch beds so I felt like I got my money's worth.