Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Day 31 - 7/25 - Caro + 24 to Marine City

Thanks again to Karen for driving across Michigan to bring Gwen to join our traveling group. 
What a fun day it was today.  With Gwen riding along, we had additional navigation skills on board - so we never got lost.  As advance crew for several routes, we were able to provide alternate routing information to the guys - road closures and no riding on the interstate - info not included in our routing maps. 
Great hotel in Saint Claire - right on the river - Canada on the other side.  Looking forward to our journey in Canada starting tomorrow.

Patty with a buddy in the car


Notes from Tom:   Today was our last day in Michigan.  First thing tomorrow we cross into Ontario.  We've been in Michigan for quite a while when you consider the time we spent on the U.P.  Today we only had to ride 75 miles, but we had some crappy roads and some less-than-accommodating drivers.  It seems like we had more unfriendly drivers the last few days than we've had anywhere else, and earlier in Michigan we had a close encounter of the scary kind with a large truck--the closest we've had since we left the logging trucks of the west.

On the wildlife update, I saw a mink today, albeit a little squished, on the road.  A couple of days ago we started seeing a lot of possums which we hadn't seen before.

We're staying on the St. Clair river tonight in an old riverside hotel--very quaint and fun.  Today we actually rode part of the day on a bike path on the Adventure Cycling route, and enjoyed getting off of the crappy roads with the unfriendly drivers.  I thought our GPS had malfunctioned when I saw the East China water tower.



Notes from Jerry: What a great start to a day - continental breakfast at our motel followed by a few miles of riding (24 miles) to have a real breakfast at a Bob's Big Boy, which is no longer called Bob's, just Big Boy. 

The quiet route that we followed yesterday afternoon to take advantage of the tailwind is evidently a major north/ south commuter route early in the morning.  We should have known because we saw 3 park and ride lots within a 5 mile stretch yesterday, which we thought was hilarious - out in the country.  But at 6:30 this morning as the cars and trucks were whizzing by we were freaked out!  As Tom said, the closer we got to civilization ( not sure if people were commuting south to Detroit or west to Saginaw or southwest to Flint) the less friendly were the drivers.  Luckily we turned east and got into a neat area of ritzy houses and gentleman farms and golf courses and hardly any traffic - very enjoyable.

Marine City where we cross the St Clair River tomorrow to enter Canada is a very small quaint little town, with a little lighthouse, and 1 mile of cute little shops. 

That is where we ended up today with ice cream and root beer floats and great views of the beautiful blue water of the river with everthing from jet skis to giant freighters to watch.


We forgot that our phone plans don't work for Canada - duh.  Time to check into our plans and modify!!

Short Note from Gwen:  What's left to say? No ice cream sundae or root beer float for the navigators! Patty and I didn't have much free time -- no book-reading time, but lots of map-reading and dashboard navigation.  Nice view across the river to Canada...ferry trip in the morning to cross the St. Claire River to cross the border.  Jerry's right, we updated our cell phone plans to accommodate international service.  Bye for now from the short-timer.

1 comment:

  1. So much fun!
    Do the ladies ride anytime or are they always stuck with the AC, refreshments, and tunes?
    Re rude drivers, it's probably only going to get worse...the NE is the worst in the country

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