Wells. MI to Gulliver, MI; 78 miles, sunny 10-20 NW mostly tailwind, 60-70’s
We became reacquainted with US 2 today. If you have been a consistent reader of the blog and have a good memory, you will remember that we rode US 2 in Montana for days. US 2 more or less parallels the Lake Michigan shoreline between Escanaba and Mackinac our next destination. The ride started out on a very nice new bike trail out of Wells and then followed some parallel side roads. At about 10 miles the route joined US 2. It follows the lake shore or cuts across the forest between bays. As US 2 is the major east-west highway along the lake it has a high volume of “recreational and commercial” traffic as the map says. I can verify that by experience today. The good news is that it has a wide shoulder. Two observations about riding along a busy highway. You always need to be alert to the traffic of course, but you also need to watch where you are going to avoid the shoulder debris; stones, chunks of dead tires, hunks of wood off logging trucks, road kill in various stages of decomposition, and miscellaneous stuff like bolts and random hunks of unidentifiable metal. I wonder, where do all these parts come from, and does it matter that they’re lying in the road instead of where they came from. You do not hear the sounds of nature such as bird songs as was true on low traffic county roads unless there is a temporary lull in the action. Instead it is the whoosh of wind as vehicles pass including a little push when semi-trucks pass, the roar of engines, and the sizzle of tires on the pavement. Tonight we are staying in the “Dreamland Motel” that is not close to anything, and that has an attached restaurant and bakery. Perfect.
