A few weeks ago when we were in Minnesota our volunteer staff router, Bill, enthusiastically said, "This should be a great ride, you'll see a lot of corn on the right side of the road and soy beans on the left. Later you will see some soy beans on the right corn on the left."
He was sure right for that day and several days to follow through Minnesota. Now that we are in Michigan we have started to see a little bit more of the corn and soy beans again but on a lesser scale than Minnesota. The actual route and scenery didn't make a huge impression on our minds -- no monuments, hills, forests or rivers. Just soy beans and corn for much of the 87 miles.
We left Frankenmuth this morning and arrived by about 2 p.m. in Richmond, Michigan. Frankenmuth was an interesting change of pace as it had a Bavarian Village theme. Even the local muffler shop had a Bavarian look to it. It was a tourist trap to be sure with about five fudge stores, a couple large breweries, coffee shops and german themed gift stores. But it was also nice to ride through and hang out for a few hours for dinner and breakfast the next morning. We camped out in our tents at the local middle school. Due to the heat I hung out at the local library and did a blog entry. I wasn't much into the tourist trap shoppiing mood.
The last two days I've been hitting it hard on the bicycle so I wanted to relax a bit. All went mostly according to plan until the end when a "pelaton" of cycling friends road past Philippe and I and we found ourselves in their midst. But it was great fun to finish together at a strong pace without getting too wiped out. Because I relaxed a bit in the morning it felt good to finish strong with another average day of 17 miles per hour. To put this in perspective, before the trip I rode by myself and often would average 14 miles an hour. So with several weeks of riding and some flat roads and the company of stronger riders it has boosted my normal average. I normally don't follow this too closely but this past week it has been interesting for me to note whether I'm burning out or growing stronger.
Some friends have texted me and asked about how my butt is doing? Sort of a personal question you would think. But my simplest answer is, "Raw Hide." You may be interested to know that every day I am covered from head to toe with some kind of lotion. For my feet which have tended to crack due to sandels I have some lotion to keep them from hurting or even bleeding. For my legs, arms, face and neck it is sun block as often as I can throughout the day. And for the bums, there is a special chamois cream that is used with cycling shorts to minimize the chaffing that occurs mile after mile after mile after mile. Some call it "Butt Butter." Still, the sore butt syndrom, even with the precations, never goes completely away. I / we do what we can but there is no quick fix solution. It is just one of those things that comes with the territory! This is all for the, "in case you were wondering" department.
The Richmond Public Library was right next to the High School were we are staying at and is open till 8 p.m. Funny, these are the simple pleasures we find on the road. I've spent so much time under the shade in local parks and find myself very content in the air conditioned buildings of local libraries along this whole journey. Even though my wife, Cindy, is a librarian I am mostly spoiled as she brings books home to me. Soon I may be able to say I've been in more libararies around the nation than she has!
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