July 1-7, 2024 Prelude, part 2. Family Reunion at U.P. Sunrise Cottages. on





On to the U.P!  After crossing the Mackinac Bridge, we stopped at Straits State Park and stopped at the bridge viewing area, then down for a walk along the beach.  Then westward to the family reunion! There were 25 of us in all with only 3 people unable to come.  
We had a great time eating, talking, sitting around the campfire, making s’mores, swimming and playing on water toys, kayaking, pontoon boat rides, watercolor painting, and much more.  Jim even took grandsons fishing and taught 2 of them how to clean fish.  A special treat was all of us doing the Pictured Rocks Boat Tour and enjoying God’s creativity in the colors and patterns in the cliffs.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

June 6, Monday Newport WA to Clark's Fork, ID

Image
https://ridewithgps.com/trips/92483960 Got a good start about 7:30, started with a busy road with a hill.  Day of beautiful scenery, with mountains (a few with snow) and many views of water.  We again paralleled the Pend Oreille River upstream, then the Pend Oreille Lake, then the Clark Fork River, which is what it is called upstream from the lake. Who would have guessed there is a 2 mile bridge over water in Idaho? One part is like a roadway but is just for bikes and pedestrians, the other section for vehicles.   We asked some locals about it and they said that the old bridge couldn't handle the traffic load any more, so they built a new bridge for vehicular traffic next to it.   Staying with a couple that have lived in Clark's Fork area for about 2 years and are loving it.  They have two friendly dogs and are also raising a couple of hogs.  They live about a mile from the Montana border, so we started about 2 blocks west of the Idaho border and ended up almost at
Read more

July 13 Amazing hills and whittled wood

Image
 Today we had a pleasant breakfast and enjoyed chatting with our Warm Showers host.  It was a beautiful day with normal humidity.  We got about 3 miles out of town and a heard a voice say, “Jim!”  Our host had meant to take our pictures and had forgotten so tracked us down and got us live on the road.          We got to ride on the Golden Road today! Today was a shorter day mileage-wise, but we had more and bigger hills, as we were in the part of Iowa that was not crossed by the last set of glaciers. So we often had beautiful views. We came across a church building perched on a hill, then with a lot of steps up to the original doors.  We sat on the steps and had a snack while looking over the countryside.  Just beyond, was a corners called Gunder, and after going around the corner, we saw a sign on a building “Home of the Gunderburger.”  We had heard about the Gunderburger from our host and the place had just opened for the day, so we decided to eat an early lun
Read more

August 22 Landslide and West Virginia

Image
It rained a moderate amount late yesterday afternoon and early this  morning so we were glad for a roof over our head last night. Due to how places with lodging were spread out, we decided to just go as far as Wheeling, West Virginia.  This gave us a low-mileage day, which was good as there were scattered thunderstorms predicted for later today and tonight.  As we left this morning, it was cool but very humid with low-hanging clouds and almost foggy. Our route followed McMahon Creek for most of the day, which was brown and swollen from the rain. About 10 miles into our route, there was a sign that said the road was closed 6 miles down the road and had a detour sign.  We asked a driver of a pickup coming out of the road why the road was closed and if a bicycle could get through but he didn't know. then asked a homeowner out on his porch near the corner. He said there had been some sort of landslide causing closure of the road and thought a bicycle might be able to get through.  He a
Read more