The title of this post comes from a sign over the Little Traverse Wheelway. It was a mystery to me and everyone else that I asked about it. I finally Googled it and came up with the following explanation:

This portion of the Little Traverse Wheelway dates from the late 1880s when it was a bikeway, predating the railroad (completed in 1892). Three arches (also called “gates”) are replicas of a gate that once stood where the third arch stands now. The sign announcing “NO TEAMING OR DRIVING” refers to a time when people were prohibited from riding horses or horse-drawn carriages on the trail. Bicycles were the recreational rage for a couple of decades before 1900, and they also served as inexpensive transportation.

Back in the day, bicycles also served as vehicles of emancipation. One could purchase a bicycle for just a few dollars, while owning a horse could cost more than an order of magnitude more. This provided low-cost transportation and freedom of movement for the working poor, women and youths. Even to this day, bicycles continue to shoulder their share of our nation’s transportation needs. On early morning bike rides in the Park, I routinely see bike commuters on their way to school or work. The economic divide between owning a bike and owning a car is as great now as owning a horse was then.

Sorry for the political rant, I do not know where that came from. [Yeah right!] I’m on vacation now and politics, economics and all that rot should be the furthest things from my mind. Tuesday, was a rest day. We slept-in and didn’t get up until 8:30. We had been getting up every day at six. Oh no, the trucks are leaving in half-an-hour and are bags are nowhere near packed! [Calm down, everything is alright, you can even rollover and go back to sleep if you want to.] Laundry was our main achievement for the day, that plus lunch at Penny’s Kitchen. It’s a beautiful beach day here, but what with our recent long exposure to UV rays, neither of us has made it down to the lake yet. Maybe we’ll make it after dinner?

Describing the rest of the photos in this post’s gallery, the first one shows a portion of the nightly tent city that formed at the end of each day on the bike ride. The rows of uniform tents in the background is Bubba-Ville. Bubba, a former Saint Louis police officer, owns and operates Bubba’s Pampered Peddlers. Bubba and his crew setup and takedown these tents every day, for a fee. Kelly and Dawn Sleeper elected to go this route. There was more than a few times during the ride that I looked wistfully at Bubba-Ville. My Bubba quote for the tour is, “It ain’t easy being Bubba.”

The ornately carved shutters are from the Red Rooster Tavern. We stopped there for a late afternoon beer. Rumor has it that Walter Payton used to use Pikes Peak at the Warren Dunes as a training aid. A few of the cyclists ventured up to the top. A local man was doing it. He does it ten times a day. Pair of women was also climbing it; they climb it five times a day.