I’ve stopped in Middleville, just a little ways into Barry County, because… Why not? It’s a classic small town that time has pretty much forgotten about, with a struggling Main Street retail block just east of the dam, where a small park has been established. It’s Stagecoach Park, on account of the restored 1800s stagecoach parked there.

The weather’s been OK: mostly cloudy and cool. No rain or real threat of it…yet. I had to take a long detour on the way out of GR, but it ran pretty much parallel to the road I wanted, so no harm. Traffic’s been light and mostly courteous.

In what is becoming a tradition, the first day of the ride starts with rain. It’s not as bad as the start of my first big ride (when I stood watching and waiting for a deluge to end) but it’s another rainy first day today. Fortunately the forecast for the evening is dry, and the ride to my first camp site is only a few hours, so I can delay my start until pretty late in the day. In fact, I’m going to my parents’ house for Sunday dinner to celebrate birthdays in the family, so I won’t officially be leaving there until mid afternoon at the earliest. On the other hand, I have to leave home (on the scooter) around noon.

Here’s Flash, packed and ready to go (in chance-of-rain mode). The only thing missing from these photos is the rider

This year’s trip isn’t fundamentally different from last year’s (mostly just shorter), so again my packing list won’t be much different:

No need for the passport, since the only foreign country I’ll be visiting is Indiana. Similarly, I’ll be crossing no water, so no need for tie-downs on any ferries. I’m taking slightly more clothing and leaving out the laundry soap; I figure this trip is short enough to not require a laundering stop in the middle. Instead of one little pillow, I am indulging and bringing two, to give my still-recovering neck a little more support.

On my person – utter essentials:
T-shirt
Long pants
Socks
Underwear
Hiking boots
Helmet
Riding jacket
Gloves
iPhone 4 (camera, GPS, etc)
Keys
Wallet (cash, debit/ATM card, papers)

Bag (over shoulder/on seat behind me) health and safety:
Camera
Battery charger
iPhone charger
Frogg Toggs (rain gear)
Rain cover for rear rack
Hat
Water
Swiss army knife
First aid kit
Bug dope
Sun screen
Soap
Meds
Toothbrush, paste
Flashlight
Paper road maps

Pet carrier (under the seat) clothing:
T-shirts (4)
Shirt
Shorts
Underwear (5)
Socks (5 pair)
Hankies (3)
Camp shoes
Plastic bags

Rear rack – camp gear:
Tent
Sleeping bag
Sleeping pad
Pillows (2)
Jeans
Towel

Glove bucket – etc:
Extra bungees
20-oz bottle of spare gas

OK, pretty much everything’s been nailed down for “MI way 2011″… except the scooter, of course. I’ve got the vacation days and the camp sites all reserved. This year has more modest riding goals and less impressive scenery, due to some fairly minor surgery early in the summer, but it’ll still be more fun than a week at work.

I leave Grand Rapids on Sunday 8/14 heading southish for Fort Custer State Rec Area, between Kalamazoo and Battle Creek. Monday I’ll ride easterward, detour through the Irish Hills area, and end up at Waterloo State Rec Area east of Jackson. Tuesday I’ll resume riding easterly, hopefully avoiding too much traffic through/around AA, Ypsi, and Romulus, reaching Sterling State Park on Lake Erie.

All of which is set-up for the official “goal” of this ride, to finish one of the things I started on my previous two rides: riding all the way around the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. So the next two days will see me riding west, roughly following the southern border of the state. I’ll spend Wednesday night just over the Indiana border at Pokagon State Park. Thursday may involve trying to outrace an Amish buggy or two, a stop in Sturgis (no, the other one), and end at VanBuren State Park on Lake Michigan. From there it’s a fairly short ride home up the Lakeshore on Friday.

So only 5 nights of camping, and probably only about 600 miles on the road. But it’ll be nice to get away from the desk and phone, and to see something other than the same 10 miles of road that I typically ride around here. It’ll bring my tally of Michigan-counties-visited to 62 out of 83.