Chicago to Ann Arbor (3 days; ~260 miles)
I had two weddings a week apart in the midwest - Dave and Ellie in Lincolnshire, IL (northern suburb of Chicago) on the June 14th and Rob and Tali in Ann Arbor on June 21st. So what was I going to do? Well, ride from one wedding to the other, of course! Fortunately, I had a spare road bike stashed away in Grosse Pointe with my folks so when I visit I can still ride.
Logistics
I flew into DTW (Detroit Metro Airport) on the redeye so I arrived on Friday at 8 am. I met my dad at the airport...he brought the bike over from Grosse Pointe. Then I picked up my one-way rental, stuffed the bike in, and headed to Ypsilanti to drop off some gear at my sister's house. Later that day I finished the drive to Lincolnshire. My plan was wedding on Saturday and start riding on Sunday.
Day 1 - Lincolnshire to Milwaukee to Muskegon
About 70 miles
Sunday (06/15/08) started out pretty crappy. Within the first hour, I had two flat tires and it raining cats and dogs. I must had made it about 10 miles in the first hour and a half. At least it was warm outside. I guess it's best to get all the bad luck out of the way at the beginning of the ride rather than at the end. The other thing is that it's kind of hard to find an open bike store on a Sunday...bike stores must be closed so people can do group rides. In any event, I finally did find an open bike store in Zion, IL.
It turns out that WI has much better roads than IL. They also have the Jelly Belly factory off of route 31. I stopped in the gift shop but felt a little too awkward (alone in my stretchy pants) to take the factory tour. There were a lot of children about and I wasn't too sure how their parents would be able to explain the skinny man in Lycra.
Jelly Belly Factory
I made it to Milwaukee pretty early in the afternoon so I headed into town to find something to eat. I ended up at a Jimmy Johns in this rather bohemian looking part of town with lots of bicycles and a few hippy looking characters. After a tasty veggie sub (but no tomatoes...stupid disease outbreak) it was off to the Lake Express Ferry terminal where I called my folks and waited for the 7 pm ferry for Muskegon. After an uneventful ferry crossing, I arrived in Muskegon at 10:30 and found my way in the dark to a kinda ghetto-tastic Motel 8 in the SE corner of the city. Since everything in the area looked closed, I had an extremely heavy late night snack-fest at the vending machine. Corn nuts never tasted so good.
Waiting for ferry
Lake Express ferry (about 2 and a half hour crossing + 1 hour time change)
Day 2 - Muskegon to Portland
About 90 miles
Monday (06/16/08) was really a showcase of the nice roads in west michigan and miles and miles of farm country. It felt good to be out of the desert and in a place where one can actually live off the land rather than trucking in food from elsewhere. Despite the appearance of rain, it actually stayed dry and cool all day....wonderful riding weather.
Farmland near Sparta, MI
I decided to stay out of Grand Rapids but I was worried that finding food could be a problem. My mistake...I forgot that in southern MI, there is a town every 10 miles or so and a *lot* of fast food. I think I ate too many cinnamon melts at MacDonalds. I spent the night at a very nice Best Western in Portland, MI. BTW, the downtown of Portland had a really cool stretch buildings backed up against the river...it reminded me a lot of Florence (which I visited in September 2007).
Grand river flowing through Portland, MI
Day 3 - Portland to Ann Arbor
About 100 miles
I had purposely left this day as the longest one since I knew that the last leg would be easy as I started to recognize my old riding routes. Nothing too crazy this day...my biggest problem was that I remember the Chelsea-Dexter leg as being a lot less pothole-y than it is now. But after two days on the road, I wasn't about to let that stop me. With prior warning that Huron River Drive was closed, I took Dexter-Ann Arbor road then Miller road into town. Once I hit the AA city limits, it started to hit me that I've been gone for over three years now and things just aren't quite the same. Oh well, I just kept trucking until I got to Ypsilanti and my sister's house. She's got a 4 month old daughter (my first niece or nephew). Sure, things aren't quite the same, but there's something special and new, so I'll always look forward to coming back. Plus, Rob had a pretty sweet wedding.
me and Ugly the Pug