July 5, 2018
Day 48 Gulliver, MI
60 miles
Gulliver, MI
Goodbye Wisconsin! We’ll miss you! Hello Michigan and the Eastern time zone!
We decided to make our last breakfast on the island a good one, so off to the Red Cup for their incredible bacon egg and cheese on an Asiago bagel. I sort of took the wrong route to get there, but thankfully it’s a pretty small business area and eventually found it. The owners are great people...used to work in Chicago and left the big city for island life. We hung out at Gibson’s for a while waiting to touch base with our boat charter. When we eventually talked to him, he said that the weather looked good and he could meet us around 2:45 to take us up to the UP of Michigan. Once we knew we had some time to spare, we went back up to the Red Cup with Karen and Grace for some iced coffee and frozen lemonade. Back at Gibson’s, we said our farewells to our friends; this was such a great place to stay. Around 2, we biked to Jackson Harbor, had some ice cream and waited for Victor from Death’s Door charters. He was right on time, got our gear and bikes loaded onto the boat and set off for the UP. While the name of his charter company sounds a bit ominous, it refers to the name of the section of water between the Door peninsula and Washington Island, so named because of its history of rough waters that two warring tribes of Indians encountered, shipwrecks and French fur traders scaring off the English. Our boat ride north didn’t take us through these waters, so all was good. We cruised past Rock Island, which has some nice hiking trails and a lighthouse where you can actually spend the night. But we’d been warned that the bug hatches there can be brutal, so we didn’t venture over during our stay. There are also some beautiful rock bluffs. After that, we powered through the 1-2 ft waves and 1.5 hours later, we were on the Michigan state shore line. We looked at our phones and realized we’d changed to Eastern Time. It was 5:30 and we were just starting our ride for the day. We’d told the proprietor of our stay tonight that we’d be there by 9. We had 50-ish miles to go, so that gave us 3.5 hours. Riiiiight. Off we went, rolling up and down along the north coast of Lake Michigan. We passed by Manistique and briefly saw the lighthouse off to our right. Stopped for a quick water bottle fill and kept cruising. The shifting winds and tired quads prevented us from a 9:00 arrival, but we pulled into The Dreamland motel at 9:30, just as the sun was setting. We cooked up our freeze dried dinner, enjoyed some UPA and crashed. Not the best way to reintroduce our bodies to riding after 4 days off, but it is what it is. We’ve got a wedding to get to!
Today's ride: 60 miles (97 km)
Total: 1,225 miles (1,971 km)
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You are making it look easy and extremely fun to do.
You are a source of inspiration to do our own tour when time allows
5 years ago