Day 38
Nice to see good friends again

Something about the eastern time zone...I hate it.  Because of the late sunrise, we get on the road an hour later by the clock...of course that makes us get in an hour later and then it doesn't get dark until about 9:30...makes for a long day and little sleep.  I was really dragging this morning and several of the riders were too.  Many were on the road as the sun was peeking over the horizon, but there were also some who were more laid back in anticipation of an easy day.  We are beginning to see some new faces near the back of the pack, but I think some of them were wanting to get in to check out the outlet stores by the motel...that is enough to get Barbara in early...did I hide her credit card?  I'll bet the luggage truck will be packed full tomorrow. 

Aside from the fact I hate this time zone, I love this riding area.  We get on a road or two for a short while that I wouldn't want to ride for a whole diet, but there are many good country roads in Michigan to ride and they are easy to navigate as they all run basically north and south, east and west, and they are pretty straight...best of all to some in our group, they are flat.  We are going to be on gentle terrain for the next few days and I'm sure everyone will be looking for a hill just to get out of the saddle a bit.  But fear not, we'll get plenty of climbing on the last couple of days...and I do mean plenty.

Our terrain today was mostly flat...I think we only climbed around 600 feet all day today.  That's hardly worth getting up for, but they are enjoying the flat stages for awhile.  Our next real climbing won't be until the last two days when we'll have to really work to get to the beach.  But today, flat and quiet country highways were the road of the day.  I'm not going to stereotype Michigan and say they have the roughest roads in America, but I think if you ask most bikers, they would confirm that a few of them were close.  In all defense of Michigan, at least they try to let us know when we get to roads that are probably not suitable for skinny tires.  As the road sign to the right clearly points out, we might want to bypass this road.

As I've said before, sometimes I have too much time on my hands or I've been on the road too long.  Today we came into the small town of Alma...another proud, small Michigan town.  Everywhere you looked there were signs indicating the high school's mascot...they were the Alma Panthers.  I think they should have used a tomato as their mascot.  Then they could have been called the Alma Maters.  Just a thought.  Sorry for that one.

You could make a whole trip out of just taking pictures of strange signs we see on our trips.  Yesterday I was riding along pretty briskly and saw the sign left.  Is this sign advertising 1 process or 2?  Either they have an unusual way of preparing deer meat (I would imagine the meat might be a little gritty) or you can have sandblasting done while you wait.  Now, I don't know about you, but just the other day I was wondering if I could get the paint removed from my car while my venison was being processed.  I should have called 796-7500!

All in all, it was a pretty short day...almost everyone was in by 2:30 and trying to relax or get laundry done.  It's amazing how soon everyone gets in when they don't have to figure out how to get around construction and road closures.  We skated by today without any detours...but only barely.  We did pass one road closed sign but the road wasn't closed until we turned off...whew.  For once, we got lucky. 

So much for today, I'm headed for the outlet mall to warn them about Barbara coming later.  They don't close until 9:00 so it may be late before we get to bed.  Tomorrow is our last day in Michigan...gee, the states are flying by now.  It won't be long before we will start to smell the Atlantic.  I hope you will join us again tomorrow for more adventures.