62 miles. Nice bike paths for a lot of the day.
Happy Birthday to Andy Lottmann (our illustrious site administrator) and to Kai Wessels.
The fog on the bog early in the morning
The day started out VERY humid … 76 degrees and 92% humidity! Foggy and mysterious as we made our way to the White Pine Trail. Eventually the fog was burned off and we enjoyed a wide, beautifully paved and very quiet way to start the day — perhaps our reward for all the noise and bother of yesterday.
We rode side by side for almost 15 miles on the White Pine and had to jump off onto county roads at the town of Leroy. Outside of Leroy a bee flew into the vent of my helmet and before I could skid to a stop and yank off my helmet he had stung me on the top of my head! Nothing serious but a temporary headache followed. The rail to trail routes are generally flat since they were rail road beds but the county roads have to go up and down all the ridges.
I had two ear worms or “stuck songs” in my head today. The first was enjoyable. It was Jeff Beck’s version of “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” Charles Mingus’ tribute to Lester Young. The second was at first funny then I couldn’t wait to get it out of my head. As we were cycling up and down the ridges I kept hearing The Kingston Trio’s “Run the Ridges” — “And we will run the ridges of our Greenland Tennessee, And we will hide for forty years if that’s what’s meant to be.” I don’t know the story behind the song but the ridge running was appropriate for parts of today. Lucky for me, Jeff Beck finally drowned out the Trio!
We dropped down into the town of Evart (we had thought of stopping here at one point in our planning but found that the only hotel in town has bed bugs — no thank you) where we joined the equally wide and well paved Pere Marquette State Trail that led us to Clare and tomorrow will take us to Midland.
Pere Marquette trail.
The only dark spot on this fine trail was that Maja ran off into a ditch filled with cattails and very mucky water. As a testament to her cycling skills, she didn’t fall off but managed to free her clips in time to get both feet down into the muck. I lifted her bike out of the “miry clay” and Maja climbed out of it, too. Wet and stinky shoes!
The wet spot marks where Maja climbed out of the muck
We followed our route into Clare, the seat of Clare County, and if you guessed it was settled by Irish you’re right! We are in the Doherty Hotel, a fine old hotel from 1924. Another great thing about this town is that we were able to finally do some laundry! I’m sure anyone who was downwind from us the past week or so would have been grateful!
T shirt on display at the front counter. The manager, a great grandson of the original founder of the Doherty Hotel, joked that those were the names of the first four bartenders at the hotel!
Tomorrow will be a long day as we cycle to Frankenmuth.
France or Michigan? Compare this shot to a painting by Jean Luc Messin below.
Admin’s note: Charles and Maja recommend that next time you’re in Clare, be sure to visit Cops & Doughnuts, a 100-year-old bakery that all nine members of the Clare police department rescued (financially) weeks before it was about to close.
bikewright 2.0 