Day 29 - 7/23 - Alpena to Standish

A long day.  The landscape has changed - oh, and the weather.  Traveling from Alpena to Standish along US Hwy 23 is a time to look at mail boxes, family flags, wind socks and such.  Each neighbor attempting to outdo the next with a creative way to show off their house address.  So many ideas.
Our mid morning snack spot was wonderful.  At the end of a lane, a small space with benches and sea rope, over looking Lake Huron.  The sun was silvery behind the clouds creating a soothing atmosphere. 

Lunch in East Tawas at the Harbor Park, green grass, shade and a wonderful picnic table.
It was an adventure finding shade for water and rest stops after lunch.  With temps in the mid to high 90's and humidity in the 40-50% range - oh yes, and a gale wind blowing - made it difficult at best.
On the street sign watch, I came across a sign with the same name as our son - Christopher.  Chris and wife Cortney are celebrating their 7th wedding anniversary today!

Patty in the heat

Notes from Jerry:  Today was a rough one.  In an attempt to carve out an extra day of sight seeing in the Niagara Falls area after my wife, Gwen joins us tomorrow, we scheduled another long one.  The wind and temperature was reasonable at first but continued to get worse as the day wore on.  It seemed no matter if we headed South or West following the east coast of Michigan on Lake Huron, we had a head wind.  I ran over a rock at mile 88 and got a flat so that added extra time out on the road.  By the time we ended up it was 96 degrees and blowing right in our face.  Not nice. 

Can't wait to meet up with Gwen and our friends Karen and Jim who picked up Gwen in Grand Haven and have hosted her while we have made our way down the lower penisula.  They will drive across the state tomorrow for a rendezvous at dinner.

Notes from Tom:  Today moved the day from Wolf Point to Glendive in Montana out of the faves cellar.  The wind didn't blow in our faces for all of the 100 miles we rode, but it did for the last 70.  As Jerry said, when we finished it was brutal with a 96 degree wind in our faces.

Today we said goodbye to Lake Huron, and we'll not see another Great Lake until Thursday when we cross into Ontario and we get to the north shore of Lake Erie.

Since we've been in Michigan, we've totally run out of good beer options--we're down to the big national brands and it's so bad that we had milk shakes for drinks at dinner.  What have we come to?