Paulette’s Milkweed with Monarch Caterpillar

After the excitement of the wedding, things have settled into a routine. We are down to four. We have the geriatric couple and the proto-geriatric couple. I am of course the youngest of the bunch. My Zen this year seems better than normal and I feel happier here than I have in years, not that it was ever all that bad.

After laundry, we hit Wicked Sister for lunch. It’s close proximity to the Cisler Center, where the MUP riders are staying, guaranteed that we would run into cyclists. We met Bob, who is both a regular on the MUP and based upon his interactions with Bob the bartender, also a regular at the Wicked Sister. Bob the biker has been doing the MUP for eight years and I remembered his face from our 2015 iteration. When he started telling jokes, I knew he was a regular, from Bob the bartender’s reaction. I think that I gave as good as I got. Bob the biker did have one funny story. He said that he had once picked up a hitchhiker. While driving him, he asked the rider if he was ever frightened about being given a ride by a serial killer. The hitchhiker said no, because he thought that it was statistically unlikely to ever find two serial killers in the same car.

I have been formulating outings. both to keep my sanity and to have something interesting to blog about. There is an artisan bread bakery is the last place you might expect to find one, off the grid, on the road west of Tahquamenon Falls. It is Brick Oven Bread. We discovered it, when our 2015 MUP ride stopped there for a little something. I wouldn’t recommend that you visit it the one day out of the year when 150 hungry bicyclists have descended upon the place, but any other day should be fine. Anyway, it is on our list of places to visit.

PS – The Milkweed and the caterpillars are courtesy of Paulette. She hosted Jay and us at her beach house. I was so glad to hear that her grand-nephew Archer has gotten the state mediation so desperately needed. This little guy has had the toughest of lives, but with his support network, we can hope for the best.