August 12, 2023
Day 56 Alanson MI to Gaylord MI
I have to say that I made sure I took an ambien before I went to bed last night. I was really, really hoping that I wouldn’t have to get up to pee during the night. Around 1:30 am we had a big thunderstorm and lightening. Hubs had to pee but luckily I didn’t have to and did mange to get through the night without having to go. 🙂 We got up, packed our bikes and off we went. We had to head back into Alanson center so we stopped at the bakery and cafe for breakfast . After we were on our way. Hubs had told Matt, our warm showers person that we would probably be in early. Boy was he wrong.Before we came to the bike trail we saw this cute train and a truck made out of stone. We went about 14 miles till we hit the bike trail. Jen had told us it would be limestone and was probably packed down well. It was and we weren’t getting speed like we would on a road but it was nice and quiet. The only bad thing is it going uphill gradually practically the whole time. Some parts did have more limestone than others which Hubs bike would sink in. He really did not have a good day riding and said it was his worst day yet. I felt bad as that is so discouraging. We did jump off the trail I and as we got close to town we heard a parade going on so we had to zig zag around it and got back on old route 27. At this point the road had no shoulder and tons of cracks plus a head wind. We went about 2 miles and Hubs suggested we get back on the trail which we did but had to go back the 2 miles to town to pick it up. At one point on the trail we came to this plaque about the elk. Well, if it was 1918 then the elk must have come by train and I guess they didn’t like the area as we didn’t see one elk!! Knowing that they named a road after us put a smile on my face but we still had to ride the damn trail. If only they would pave them, it would be wonderful. We did get to ride in a tunnel which broke up the monotony. Again we got off the trail and as we rolled along I saw these what looked like ropes in blue. I said to Hubs that they remind me of the sap lines when we ran the Vermont 100. Hubs noticed on his GPS that if we stayed on the road we would be doing a big loop so back on the trail we went except this time we had to push our bikes up a dirt road to get back to the trail. Darn, I thought we would get away with not pushing! Well, when we got to the top I noticed they are sap lines. Yay, we made it to Gaylord but not as early as Hubs had hoped. It was almost 3:00. We saw an ice cream shop and decided we would get an ice cream first. It was homemade and they had 32 flavors. Yes it was very good. We made it to our warm showers and boy did it feel good to take a shower ( as we actually slept in our biking clothes at the “Resort”).After we met Matt, our warm showers host and we came into the house, it was so heartwarming to see a welcome sign. Thanks Matt for making us feel so comfortable. Tomorrow we head to Roscommon MI.
Today's ride: 46 miles (74 km)
Total: 1,384 miles (2,227 km)
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8 months ago