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Today was about riding and eating. No extra stops to look at points of interest…just enjoying being on the bikes and looking forward to seeing family in Ironwood.
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As I sit here in the dark thinking back over the day, a couple of things occur to me:
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At the rest area where we ate our Lehto’s
pasties, there was a point of interest sign…seems we were at or near the
northernmost point on Lake Michigan. Walked
over to read the sign. It mentioned that
about a mile west of there was the northernmost point which had historical
boundary significance, blah, blah, blah.
All I could think was “Okay, so that would still be in the water and not
on land because the lake is west.” It
all became clear when I keyed into the little map picture: since we were at the
top of the lake west was actually land and south was water. All my life of living on the west side of the
Mitten I’ve been secure in the knowledge that west was always toward the lake. Now I learn that in parts of the U.P. Lake
Michigan is south. This only adds to my
directional confusion.😕
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It was a beautiful day for
riding; temperature in the low 70’s. Sun
most of the day; in the late afternoon we started seeing the occasional big
fluffy cloud. The sun and wind felt oh,
so silky warm on my arms…not hot at all which is probably why I felt safe without
sunscreen. I won’t
make that mistake again.
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Rapunzel took us around
Escanaba…like through farmland and along winding roads. Can’t believe it was quicker than the usual
route along 41 but it was more picturesque.
This ‘shortcut’ brought us out to 69 which has a significant amount of
small non-towns. There are the regular
green signs indicating the town name but there was no town…not even crossroads
that might lead to a hidden downtown. I
counted seven houses in Helps, MI, between the two town signs…no gas station,
no post office, no grocery store, no feed store. Wikipedia doesn’t even list it
as a town…it’s an unincorporated community with signs just because it wants to
be noticed.
The town of Hardwood does have
a gas station which also doubles as its downtown according to the sign out
front. It wasn’t a large gas station but it did have a well-maintained
bathroom. Most of the little towns we
encountered had a community center along the highway. Some had playgrounds. I imagine the community center could be a
hopping place on a Saturday night. No community center in Helps, though.
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All combined I walked maybe
three quarters of a mile today and yet I logged 32,299 steps and about 15 miles
on my Fitbit. That’s a whole lot of wrong
information, for sure. If I take my
Fitbit off while on a trip like this I run the risk of forgetting what safe place I put it
in so I'm choosing to wear it knowing that the vibration of the bike will inflate
my step count. The downside to that is
that the Fitbit doesn’t know I'm not actually walking that much so my goals for
the next Bingo challenge are going to be horrendously high.
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Total miles: 384
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