2020, Day 6: Recalculating

I've been waiting weeks to use that title, biding my time for the perfect opportunity. I may have Jinxed dad... #worthit

From Dad:

“The best laid plans…” Or as Carmen, my Garmin, says, “Recalculating!” Less than 5 miles into my ride today (on a nice wide shoulder on a divided highway), a Michigan State Trooper kicked me off the road. Even though Highway 131 is a US Highway, not an Interstate Highway, they consider it as such, and only motorized vehicles are allowed. He wouldn’t even allow me to ride to the next exit. Mom had to come pick me up while he waited with me, and we had to shift our route over to the old highway. (In all fairness to the State Trooper, he was very friendly and nice about it.) Before I came on the trip, I called the Michigan State Police and asked them if it was okay to cycle on the divided US Highways. They told me it was. I mentioned that to the trooper, but it didn’t sway him.

So that totally torpedoed my riding itinerary for the next several days. We looked at the map and found another route that heads almost directly south for the rest of the journey through Michigan, but it’s about 35 miles east from any of the motels I had mapped out for the trip. So we will be doing a lot more driving back and forth for the next couple of days. After that, there are motels on the altered route.

So, with all the putzing around trying to figure that out, I lost most of an hour of riding time. After working our way through Cadillac, we hooked up with Highway 115, which diagonals southeast to 66. However, about 10 miles out, 115 was closed for construction! So we had to divert east to Marion, then south to where it would have connected in. Additional distance, about 4 miles. Not a major issue; just another setback for the day. It looks like the new route will add about 6 miles to my overall trip, so that’s no big deal. Now, though, instead of having a nice 5 foot shoulder to ride on, I have about a foot-wide shoulder much of the time, for the next 160 miles.

Mom’s response: “It’s fi-i-ine.” Which is good, because she’s the one who really likes those nice, wide shoulders.

Around 12:30, it started to mist. It didn’t seem like much, but after riding in it for a half hour or so, I was getting pretty wet. So we had to quit before I would have liked to. We completed 45.2 miles today. Estimated riding time, taking out the time for “Recalculating,” about 3:45.

From Mom:

Tonight we are staying in Big Rapids, Michigan. Quality Inn, really nice, big room! We asked the people at Culvers where the "Big Rapids" are so we could go see them. The kid we asked didn't know. We asked the girl at Walmart and she said possibly it was on the Muskegon River, but she really didn't know. We asked Google to take us

to the river walk which it did, and there were small rapids....there must be big rapids somewhere cuz Grand Rapids is only about 50 miles away and surely there are "Grand Rapids" there! Anyway this is what we found on the Muskegon River...

But, hey! It's a beautiful river!