Day 65: Ludington to North Muskegon

August 4, 2021

New Friends through warmshowers

“There are more hills than we’ve been used to from the past two weeks on rails to trails,” Rachel says as we leave Ludington and continue South on US 31 and encounter a few hills.

We are up at our usual time 0600, but we are now in Eastern Time zone and it’s 0700. After packing up, we ride into town for breakfast at the Historic Hamlin Restaurant….only there’s no explanation why it is historic except for photos of who has owned the Restaurant. The route on 31 has a good shoulder for most of the way. At Hart, we stop at the bakery for pastries and chocolate milk. There are day cyclists also at the bakery, and we talk. Many recognize Patrick’s Dutch accent. They are 6 siblings with a Dutch heritage and their spouses from southwest Michigan on vacation. We follow them to the trailhead of the Hart-Montague Trail as they are on their return trip to Shelby.

This is the best trail we’ve been on so far as a smooth paved surface. No longer do we only see corn and bean fields, now there are apple orchards and asparagus. We pass by Shelby and take another break for ice cream at a Farm Market. We have been texting our progress to our Warmshowers host and he has offered to ride out to meet us. When we reach the bridge at Whitehall, Rick arrives within minutes. He escorts us along the shoreline of White Lake on a much more scenic way to his house.

We meet Sandy, his wife, and settle in after a shower. They’ve cycle toured in Arizona on a tandem. We talk about cycle touring in Asia and in the evening we are joined by their friends Tim and Karen. Sandy fixed a wonderful Mexican dinner, we had great fun sharing stories. Upon hearing that Patrick is still looking for a Michigan license plate Tim drives home to get him one.

Friends from Tennessee are house sitting in Richland, MI until the 8th and have been invited to stay with them.