Hints of two years ago riding in very cold weather washed over me as I rode towards Walpole ferry. As I listened to the Adam Carolla podcast I could slowly feel my right toes getting numb so I made my first stop in Marks work wearhouse in Wallaceburg Ontario to pick up some socks. The lady in the store tried to actually sell me synthetic socks that were $10 and I'm not sure why but I grabbed the $15 wool socks by a company called Wigwam that had a really nice fleece lining that I think she said could go do minus 70, they were wonderful...
I rode hours on the Interstate to Battle creek Michigan, it was an ok town, stopped to have some Mexican food. The restaurant was really small, clean (this blog entry the word "clean" might be overused) and the waitress was super nice. I wanted to pick something spicy, wimped out got some nice soft taco's with refried beans.
When I finished rode to the park to find that it was not really officially open, there were a few trailers scattered in the trees, no grass to be seen. That night I might have slept maybe a few hours total, all I could hear was a very loud train the whole night that could not have been more than a mile away. I did not like this park and lesson #2 (#1 is always bring warm wool socks) is when doing a search of state parks look at google maps to make sure you do not see train tracks near by.
Lesson #3 is that if you do plan on travelling like me in April make sure you have a better sleeping bag than the ~7 celsius one that I own. I literally wore my jeans, sweat pants and my insulated coveralls in an attempt to stay warm, didn't work. Also if you try to wear everything you brought with you inside a sleeping bag you can't move around inside the bag making you feel like Houdini trying to escape from a straight jacket, not comfortable at all.
Day 2 I planned on riding to Chicago and having left early from the terrible campsite I pushed the no highways, tolls and rode the back roads to Munster Indiana. The weather was sunny, warm I was having a great time and stopped in a small town to take a photo of the trees in bloom and take a rest. Near the park I could see a little car painted in a red white and blue flag theme that quickly did a u-turn towards me and parked. An old guy got out and spent 20 minutes talking to me about being a veteran, travelling in his little three cylinder Chevy sprint? He had it all kitted out to sleep in it and travel, felt a bit bad for him and not sure if this was something he wanted to do or financially he was force to do this but he seemed happy. I rode away and immediately thought I should have taken his picture or handed him $10 bucks...it was so quick and I guess I was still not thinking very straight from the poor sleep I had the night before.
As I rode and made quick stops for fuel, food I spoke to a few people and was told in no uncertain terms that going to Chicago would probably be a mistake. I planned on doing some vinyl record shopping or grab some t shirts for my daughters in Chicago and in the end decided to avoid going there. Getting hungry passing through Gary Indiana I stopped to have lunch at an old style hot dog stand that you could sit inside and met Wayne and an old military guy talking. I went in and had a Chili dog, fries and a drink for $5 and the owner after asking gave me a few Tylenol for my headache that would not go away. Wayne was super cool guy that was riding a Harley, very friendly, rode with me and showed me how to get to the park, with out his help finding Indiana dunes on the GPS was a bugger, five different locations showed up so it took a while to figure out how to get in. The "guard" at the gate was fun guy he chatted with me about how good he could sing Louis Armstrong at karaoke night and I think gave me a discounted price on the campsite. What a wonderful park Indiana dunes was, I should have stayed one more day and hiked to the water.
You can see the steep slope that goes up from my campsite, I was winded climbing up it.
walked and walked and cut through trails to find this.
When you finally got to the top and look out you see the water a very far distance away...miles of walking through woods to get to the beach. It was a tough decision not to stay another day and make the trek, if it was summer to swim, lay in the sun I might have.
The park was really clean and quiet at night so I decided I would wake up early, have a shower and head out and do a long haul ride back to Algonac all interstate. I had forgotten a towel (Lesson #4 bring a towel) and ended up using one of the 6 t-shirts I packed. The shower facility was clean what seem and I was looking forward to a nice warm relaxing soak. I got undressed turned on the water to find it wasn't hot or cold, it was barely warm enough keep you in and the thought of getting out was worse because you would be instantly cold. Warmish showers suck and I got dry and felt better and rode, and rode, and rode back to Agonac.
I have used the Walpole to Algonac Ferry for most of my trips and had never actually seen the Algonac State park. I was pleasantly surprised and arrived early and spent the afternoon eating some pizza and laying the sun. The price of the parks were a bit higher than I was used to than what Kentucky and even lower Indiana charged so my money went a bit quicker than expected, also fuel prices were ok, not great.
New tires and my windscreen made a huge difference on the Interstates, so smooth and the big beast ran perfectly. So far on this trip the best ride was the one side route and wish that I could avoid doing interstates, its just not possible to make distances in a short time by doing that. I'm jealous of the guys you see riding in places that you can get away with just finding a secluded place and setting up for the night.
Finally I want to say its true what they say that "You can't judge a book by its cover" This trip I put a big effort into being very nice to anyone I met and it paid off. I met some people that after talking to them I was somewhat blown away by how kind, interesting they were.
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