Last night was a pleasant evening; with temperatures in the 50s, Dad and I finally hopped on our bikes after toting them around for almost a week and rode into Silver Lake and around the lake itself. We'd like to thank MDOT or Oceana County or whomever the responsible party is for completing the new asphalt from the campground to the lake just in time for us to ride our bikes. I was riding along thinking about my trusty old Giant mountain bike, which I emasculated last week by putting road tires on it. I bought it my freshman year in college and rode it all around campus for almost four years, lashed it to the back of my old Honda for spring breaks in Myrtle Beach and Pensacola Beach, moved it with me to St. Louis, wrecked it hard at Castlewood State Park, and took it on vacations in Colorado, Door County, the Outer Banks, and everywhere in between. It was replaced as my primary bike two years ago by a new Cannondale, but the Giant still travels with me. I waxed nostalgic about it until about three miles into the ride, when my backside reminded me the Giant's original saddle wasn't holding up quite as well as the rest of the bike. Almost two decades equals crunchy foam. I need to remedy that when I get home.
This morning dawned, as predicted, cold, rainy, and windy. I woke up with only one goal for the day - to replenish my cookie supply in the trailer with real bakery cookies, not grocery mini-frisbees - and then managed to blow almost three entire hours doing nothing more than catching up on email and watching a movie. We headed into Silver Lake for lunch at the same restaurant where I had thrown away Dad's cell phone two days earlier. For those keeping score, I picked a time to vacation in Michigan when it's cold, rainy...and desolate, with almost nothing open for the season yet. Take a look at the dining room of the Sands Restaurant, the only restaurant in town that's even open, during lunch hour:
It was then off to Muskegon (boooor-ring) and down to Grand Haven. For those still keeping score, I also picked a time when the entire state of Michigan, from the road outside our campground to the main drag in downtown Grand Haven, is under construction. However, my cookie goal was fulfilled by a bakery in Grand Haven, and I saw the Pere Marquette 1223, sister to the operable 1225. I was pleased with the condition of the locomotive, including what looked to be abatement of the boiler lagging. I was even more pleased by the positioning of the exhibit next to a coal tower.
The navigation pier light and house in Grand Haven were attractive, even through the wind and rain. Mom worked some magic on the teenager working the entrance gate to the state park to get through without paying the vehicle fee so I could play tourist for a moment.
So, as I settle in for the evening, two questions loom: Do I drive the entire 540 miles home on Thursday, even though my pet sitter isn't expecting me until Saturday, or do I take my chances finding a good campground in Illinois for Thursday night and get home Friday? And, given how splendidly I've done with planning this trip (not), where do I go in late August, when I again have Gina, the Fabulous Sitter, scheduled for a week? Colorado? Door County? Eastern North Carolina? After all, the best way to get over the end of one trip is to start planning the next.
