OK, so the WordPress app for the IPhone can lose posts if it has a flaky Internet connection, and I lost the original version of this. Here’s what I remember from before.
I waited for the rain to die down before leaving home, around 12:30. (For the record, the odometer was at 1907 miles.) It was still raining lightly, but hard enough that without my Frogg Toggs I would’ve been pretty wet pretty quickly. I headed mostly due west from home, then followed the north side of the Grand River until I started getting close to Ferrysburg. To save time, instead of following the lakeshore I turned north at Nunica, then turned west when I got even with Muskegon.
From there I followed a few roads that shadow US-31, taking me to Whitehall/Montague. Along this way I saw my first distinct shadow, as it had not only stopped raining the clouds were breaking up. I also happened to pass Michigan’s Adventure amusement park (which has grown up quite a bit since it was Deer Park Funland), so I now know a non-highway way of getting there.
Add another item to the Things I Have Nearly Hit On My Scooter list: a turkey. OK, she was moving predictably enough, and I saw her from far enough away that I was in no real danger of hitting her. But I could have.
When I stopped for gas just south of Whitehall, a guy struck up a conversation with me. It started about my rain gear, but he was curious about my travel plans, etc. He didn’t notice at first that my “motorcycle” was a scooter, so I had to correct him about travel times. He thought it was great that I was taking the Badger across the lake, and warned me that the on ship bar operates on Eastern time not Central, so they stop serving at 1am Central. By the way, my gas mileage at that fill-up was 88mpg: not bad but nothing to get excited about.
I was making up for lost time, so I didn’t stop for anything else, except to take off my rain gear at a McDonald’s near Whitehall. I got to the city of Ludington around 4:30. I grabbed a Subway meal and headed to the state park. Even though I was late arriving (technically 26 hours, since I’d reserved the night before as well) they didn’t give me any hassles. The park is actually close to full, despite the weather.
There’s an art fair or something going on in the city, but I didn’t feel like heading back into town, so I went for a hike on Ludington’s fairly extensive trails. My hike took me out to the Lake, past the day-use beach, and along an inland lake. On the latter stretch I startled a big blue heron, and also saw a few deer, including a speckled fawn. But it was dark and the autofocus on my camera is horrible at locking onto objects when there are stray twigs in the frame so I didn’t get good shots of them.
Although the afternoon was pleasantly cool and sunny the evening has become humid and cloudy, with the rumble of thunder and flashes of lightning. So although I am back at the campsite, I’m not out of the woods yet.
