Monday, June 27, Hazelton to Gackle

The Hazleton Community Park was a  quiet restful place to sleep—it also probably didn't hurt the weather was very nice. 

Large round natural concretion at the park in Hazelton 

Today we had mild winds at our backs, sunny skies with a few white clouds, pleasant temperatures and low humidity on low traffic roads—what more could we ask for! After riding about 15 mi or so we saw a small grove of trees fairly close to the road so we decided to take a break there as we could sit in the shade. We ended up spending about 40 minutes there because in amongst this little grove of trees were a number of birds. Kay first saw an orchard oriole, then id’ed about 10 species by sound recording of their songs and 4 or 5  by seeing them. Also, as Jim went back to the bikes, a buck ran across the road just ahead of him and into the trees. Just west of Napoleon there is a large lake, maybe a mile diameter, and saw some people fishing there. They were catching Walleyes and Northern Pike from the shore.  We went to Napoleon to get some food and found a bakery/coffee shop. We were puzzled where the door was as it had a drive-thru right in front  So we tried to walk around the building and in the back corner somebody popped out of a door and swore at us and said you shouldn't be back here and shut the door quickly. The food was good but we did not feel welcome.

“Dinosaurs on the prairie”

   One time we came to a spot where we could see six and a half miles down the road. We looked at the odometer at the beginning to the top of the ridge we could see in the distance and came up with 6.7 miles.  Also amazing is how many lakes we saw today, from 50 ft across to 2 mi across. In Michigan there is almost always trees around lakes but here their lakes just have marsh grass around them. Also in Michigan so many of the lakes have cottages around them. Here most of time just pasture or tilled fields around them.  We saw some American pelicans today, some cormorants, some terns, many ducks, 2 bald eagles. We’re staying in a bike hostel in Gackle. Once again, even though it was just 6:00on a Monday night, everything was closed except for the bar so that’s where we ate again, had  pretty good salad and a pizza.