August 19, 2024. Farmington Hills to Monroe, Michigan

     We were getting ready to leave and Jim was trying to put the panniers on the front of his bike. Even though he had made the slots on the replacement rack the same as he had made on the original one, the bolts that attached it to the frame were slightly different. So he had to work for about 20-30 minutes to make those slots a little bit longer for the panniers to fit on the rack. So it was close to 10:00 by the time he got done and we were on our way.   
.      When we planned the routes, the app had taken us into the neighborhood almost immediately after exiting a bikeway. This was a way we had never used by car. Today, the app took us out of the neighborhood a familiar way but we would be on a busy road longer. So Kay suggested we take the same way as we had come into the neighborhood when we arrived. As we wound around on the streets, we came to a corner where we were unsure which way to go. Kay said she was stopping but Jim didn't hear this and ran into the back end of her bike and fell over and scraped up his elbow, the same elbow that he fractured 1 1/2 years ago. But this time, no issues except a little bit of blood loss, softer pavement?
  It was a beautiful day to ride, with cool temperatures, and we had a tailwind. What was sweet was in about 13 miles there was a bike store right on the route which had the replacement inner tube we had been unable to get previously to have a spare. He also told us about a bike shop in the area that specializes in recumbents.
  A lot of our route was a bikeway along I-275 which made for a noisy ride. But then we traveled on mainly paved paths along the Huron River and through a chain of parks stretching for long distances south of Detroit. 
               Sign We Saw Today
  When we passed the nuclear plant in Monroe, we decided to text Kay’s nephew who works there, on the chance that his work schedule would allow us to see him. We were tickled when he texted us back saying he would be able to meet for a short time after he got off work that evening and suggested a time and place we could meet. So after we got to the motel, we unloaded some stuff off the bikes and rode about 4 miles to the restaurant—and did make it there before him, but he also was delayed by a train. We had a great time visiting before he had to leave to get some sleep. When we got back to the motel, it was just sunset.
  When we had checked into our hotel, we were surprised to see a jacuzzi in the room. But upon closer inspection it appeared to be non-functional—there was no plug for the drain and no apparent way to turn it on—we didn’t try to see if the water would turn on. This room was probably in the worst shape of any room we had stayed in, only 1 of the three ceiling lights worked, the one that did had a broken dome and only one bulb. The floor gave a little under the carpet when you walked by the jacuzzi on the way to the bathroom and the mattress sunk way down when you sat or laid on it. Oh, well, the sheets looked clean and soon we would be on our way again. 

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