Day 77- The U-P

I was able and willing to get back on the bike this morning. I did not get an early start because I had to dry the tent out again this morning and I also am not used to the new time zone yet.

My route today is pretty easy to follow. I will be on Hwy 2 all day.

I stopped early for lunch today. With my late start, I did not eat any breakfast and my energy level showed it. I was hungry and needed some fuel. After lunch, I felt much better.

The riding in the U-P is interesting. First of all, people from the U-P are called Yoopers and they are proud of it. And they talk like Canadians but I doubt you would ever get them to admit that.

As for riding in the U-P, I am riding right along Lake Michigan for the most part, but I can only see it when the road is right in the shore. Otherwise, the forest obscures the view and you would never know the lake was there, even if it was just 100 feet off the Road. The wind comes off the lake but swirls when you get slightly inland. You get the wind from all angles as you ride. There are less bays as I get more on the extreme north shore and the lake has no end to it. There are also lots of light houses along the shoreline. With GPS, I don’t know how much they are used anymore, but they all have history and I enjoy seeing them.

Today, I had a goal. I wanted to get close enough to St. Ignace that can get there tomorrow. That means riding at least 70 miles today and the weather looks to be closing in on me this afternoon. To put an exclamation point on that, I received two text messages from letting me know there was some potentially serious weather coming from the west. I was very conflicted about this. My weather app said that any rain would hold off until around 8. I made a decision to try for Engadine as an end point for the day. It would be another long day at 83 miles. That would leave me with a very reasonable 46 miles for tomorrow, but I would have to ride hard to beat the rain and darkness.

Once in Engadine, there wasn’t much there. No campground or even a motel. It was going to be dicey getting to the next town by dark as well. Asking people at the town convenience store, they said it would be alright to camp at the city park and even use the covered pavilion as shelter if it stormed.

I took full advantage of it too. I slept on the pavilion stage and used 5 of the 10 picnic tables to spread stuff out onto dry things out from this morning.

I fell asleep waiting for the predicted thunderstorms to hit knowing I was going to be safe and dry.