Sunday’s ride was from Charlevoix to Harbor Springs, by way of Petoskey. It was rated as a 32 miles ride, or at least the route we chose to take was. We ended up with 36 miles, still a half rest day. The tour offered three route choices, we chose the easiest. We rode with Kelly, Dawn and Tom, so this made the day a social bike ride and with half the miles as normal, there was plenty of time for stopping, gawking and noshing.
There is a guy, Bruce Weber, who had a column in Sunday’s NY Times travel section. My brother, Chris, called and told me about it. Bruce is attempting to ride across the country and has made 500 miles so far. He is in eastern WA now. In his article, he talks about hitting the wall, bonking and generally reaching his limit. He lays his soul bare, so it makes it easy to ridicule him. Even so, I recognize a kindred soul and I sincerely share his wish for the perfect ride, “Optimally, one would like an amiably undulating, curvy, deserted, newly paved road through a scintillating landscape with a pleasant, cool tail wind.” Who wouldn’t?
We saw Charlevoix’s mushroom houses. I was expecting mushroom growing houses, not the hobbit holes that we found. We kind of missed Petoskey, partly because the bike trail we were on skirted the town, but also because of our previous stop at the hoighty-toighty resort, Bay Harbor. We ended up stopping at a frozen concrete stand in Petoskey, talk about hauling coal to Newcastle. We ended the day, with a beer, at the Harbor Bar in Harbor Springs. After dinner, there was an end of tour party. One more bike day to go.