Timing is Everything

Day 45: Munising to Newberry, MI--60 miles

Boy, did we climb out of Munising today! Climb and sweat; sweat and climb; etc. OK, it only took about 10 minutes, but it was a wake-up call to beat all...

After that, it was all flat and straight for almost 40 miles! And when I say straight, I mean straight as an arrow. Once the hills started at about mile 40, they continued for the remainder of the day. On the flats, we booked! We were going 15-18 mph all morning, which I think means we are getting stronger (at least we SHOULD be by this point).

Also on the flats, there were no towns at all. We had been warned that this would be a lonely stretch of road, and so we were expecting another green desert like Minnesota. But it wasn't that bad. We went alongside a wildlife refuge (which allows hunting in the state season, by the way--wonder how much of a refuge that is???). We saw a wild turkey, and hawk glaring at us from the top of a tree, and a whole family of sandhill cranes! The cranes were the first we have seen (maybe ever) and they were REALLY cool! It was fun to watch them walking along together watching us suspiciously. The baby of the family of three looked to be less than half grown--and he followed his parents very closely!

Another interesting thing happened when we encountered a grasshopper plague on the road. At a rest stop, I noticed one of the "popper" grasshoppers like we have in Colorado--they make a fun clicking noise as they fly. Then when we went back onto the road, I noticed a few smaller grasshoppers on the shoulder who seemed to be playing chicken with us--hopping out of the way just as we almost ran over them. About one minute later, there were millions of grasshoppers all over the road! They were hopping everywhere, hitting us, and generally being a nuisance just like a plague! I was glad to have a helmet on!!! After about 1/2 mile, they disappeared.

Newberry came sooner than expected--that's because we actually stopped at Newberry Corners which was on Rt 28 instead of going to the little town about 3 miles off the road. Hey, it saved us 6 miles total! That's a big deal for us. There were hotels and restaurants out at the main road, so we decided to take advantage of that. Newberry is the Moose capital of Michigan! There were huge, fake moose everywhere, but we didn't see any real ones. However, David did find the local country club and hit a bucket of balls while I was blogging (he got in quite a bit of trouble for leaving me out of the fun). We both got a pleasant surprise because a massage therapist was working out of the hotel--her name is Stephanie Metzler and she comes up to the U.P. from Traverse City once a month to work with clients. She's the only person doing medical massage in that part of the U.P. and she was great! We both felt MUCH better after she finished with us!

I asked during my massage about the eating habits of the Yoopers. Stephanie said that they eat lots of comfort food, and the fact that there are no veggies at the restaurants is no accident--Yoopers don't eat many of them. She also said they are the most fun and laid-back bunch of people you'll ever meet, and that if you start partying with them, you'll never want to stop! They don't have a ton of interest in active lifestyles or fitness in general, but they're great people. We think that may explain why we see so many ATVs up here--easier to move than bicycles! We agree with her that the folks up here are just great! We definitely want to visit again.

So, massaged and happy, we were off to bed!