Sunday and Monday (Labor Day), we hunkered down at Shanty Creek, venturing out only to hike around the roads at the summit. Of course, Sunday was the day of a huge thunderstorm that blew water in under the tarp we put over the bike.

Monday we began to realize the folly of starting a bicycle tour at a ski resort and planned our packing for a Tuesday departure and chose a new route. Given the heat and hills of the ride out from Traverse City, we felt riding the 45 miles to Petosky on Tuesday and another 45 miles to Mackinaw City was stretching our ability a bit far. So, we planned an early departure (Tuesday instead of Friday), taking a route east to Gaylord to the North Central Trail, which, though quite a bit longer, allowed us three 35-mile days and a stay with Warm Showers hosts in Gaylord and Indian River.  This also allowed us to replan the rest of our route to include shorter days and more rest days.

Tuesday, we set off with a hard push up the steep hill from our unit to the Summit complex, followed by a long fast downhill in to Bellaire, where we obtained a state map and a county map, since our new route was off the ACA route.  We knew the rest of the day was one long climb, with a total of 3000 vertical feet of climbing.  What we didn’t know was that 2.5 miles of road in the middle was dirt, which in this part of the world means packed sand if you are lucky, and loose, freshly graded sand if you are not.  One leg of the dirt section was being graded, which meant a walk, during which we had a nice conversation with the grader driver about tandem touring.  Fortunately, the packed part was either downhill (Osland Road), or flat (Bundy Road).

Our first stop of the day was in Alba, about halfway to Gaylord, and past most of the elevation gain, if not the climbing.  Alba proved to be the typical food desert we often encounter in many regions of America where the nearest full-service grocery is 25 miles away, or 30 minutes by automobile.  Further on, we stopped at a gas station/convenience store looking for bananas, not finding any at Alba.  None here, either, but we learned that the next turn on our Google-designed cue sheet was a closed road.  We got directions to a better road, and excellent road that was not only smooth, but had little traffic and took us right into Gaylord, where we replenished supplies and found our hosts for the evening.

Joe and Jeannine were excellent hosts for our first time on the Warm Showers guest list, after having hosted 75 cyclists ourselves over the past three years.  We were treated to a tour of the Gaylord Elk Farm, with close encounters with most of the herd, closing in on us for handouts of apples picked near the park from a city tree.  We were served dinner on the porch of their delightful old house and invited to help prepare both dinner and breakfast, which featured fresh produce from the community share.

Joe had to go to work early, so Jeannine saw us off the next morning.