I made a tactical mistake in planning my route from Algonac (where I returned to the States) to my campground for the night. Like most of my planning blunders it came from not enough knowledge of where I was going. In this case, I steered too close to Metro Detroit. I should have known better, considering that Lake St Clair also borders some of the northern suburbs, but I didn’t think they’d affect traffic as far north as I was going. I got a warning of my mistake when the Maps app on my iPhone overlaid traffic info on one of the streets I was taking. That’s a car-strangled-metropolis-only feature; they don’t even do that for Grand Rapids. And sure enough, as I was trying to make my way northwestward at around 6pm, bunches of commuters were trying to get… somewhere. Just as I was despairing that I’d be tailed the rest of the way by dozens of irate suburbanites unable to pass my 35mph scooter, an onramp for I-94 appeared and sucked them away, and literally a few blocks further I was in Smalltown MI (New Haven, actually) and traffic was sane again.

For a while the scooting was fine, as I rode the backroads of southeast Michigan. Then the opposite blunder happened: In my efforts to avoid busy main roads, I’d routed myself onto a dirt road. A gravelly, pitted dirt road. I backtracked eastward a bit to find a better alternative, and ended up on a not-quite-as-bad dirt road. This one was passable, but not enough. I backtracked east again and found the paved road I had opted against, fearing it would be too busy. It wasn’t. From there it was pavement all the way to Metamora-Hadley State Recreation Area, which I reached as the sun set.

This is another underbooked campground, which I could have skipped the reservation for. For that matter, there was no one on duty when I arrived, so I might have skipped paying altogether. But not only would that be wrong, it’d be Wrong.

The mosquitoes aren’t too bad here: not much worse than the front porch at home. In fact I’m sitting at the site’s picnic table with nothing more than this noon’s bug repellent application, and I’ve only been attacked a dozen times in half an hour. For a while I was watching the fireflies dance around the site, but they’re gone now.

It’s my last night on the road, my last night in a tent. I’m ready to go home tomorrow, but I’m a little bit saddened by it. To have the prospect of losing a glove, or too many commuters itching to pass you, as your biggest concerns, is appealing compared to Life As I Know It.

Regardless, that’s tomorrow’s agenda: get up, break camp, and ride home. With some chance of rain in the afternoon, I may even rush it.

Which sounds sadly similar to the commuters I was dissing a moment ago.

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