Michigan!

Michigan was a pleasant surprise. All I really knew about Michigan going into it was that Detroit is there and the whole rust belt thing, so I basically expected the entire state to look like a mixture of the worse parts of Baltimore and closed down car factories. As it turns out, we biked through a pretty cool, nice part of the state.

The first day into Michigan was our longest on the trip, 115 miles. I actually felt fantastic for pretty much the entire ride. There were some major logistical delays during the day which greatly complicated things. By 5:00 we still had 45 miles to go. Fortunately the sun did not set until 9:30, which is about when we finally rolled in. People we met during the day were also really nice and friendly. We were stopped on the side of the road changing a flat for a while and several cars stopped to ask us if we were okay. That definitely wouldn't happen in Baltimore, or at least it never has to me. Maybe people really are friendlier off the East Coast.

Unfortunately I spent most of my energy on that day and paid heavily for it the next day. Although it was only a 70 mile day to Lansing, I thought I was going to fall asleep on the bike. But we made it. Yay. We passed through a town called Hell on this day, which I thought was appropriate.

The following day to Rockport was one of my favorite of the trip. We were flying. Highlights of the day including seeing lots of llamas and getting an impromptu tour of a fire station that we stopped to get water at. The fire chief showed us all their trucks and equipment and even let us try on some helmets. We were also lucky enough to see a famous historical marker: The oldest roadside picnic table in Michigan. It was a pretty epic picnic table. We finished the day with homestays at a rider's house on a beautiful lake where we went tubing off the back of the motorboats. The tubing was pretty violent and difficult but was awesome.

The rest of Michigan was good. Stayed at some churches, ate some good food, biked along the Great Lakes.

That's all for Michigan. Stay tuned for Indiana.