Day 5: Escanaba to Blaney Park

The day started well. This was our first day on US-2, the main east-west route across the southern upper penninsula. We would be following it for two days, 140 miles or so.

The first bit, from Escanaba to Gladstone and on to Rapid River, made us feel like supermen. It goes northeast, along Little Bay De Noc. The wind was on our starboard quarter, and we just flew along. This was going to be an easy day.

But when US-2 turned eastward, we knew we were in trouble. First, we lost the water. The scenery could have been central Indiana. Worse, we lost the tail wind. In fact, we gained a head wind. So for the next 40 miles, we humped along US-2, looking forward to Manistique and a return to the water.

But once we reached Manistique, we realized we didn't have a good plan for ending the day. We had gone 52 miles, but if we stopped in Manistique we would be hopelessly behind schedule. Jon would never reach the ferry by Wednesday, in time to return to work on Thursday. But ahead of us stretched plenty of nothing. No real towns, no campgrounds near the road, for another 30 miles.

We had a long, leisurely lunch/dinner at Arby's (I had TWO jamocha shakes!), trying to decide what to do. Suddenly, our casual old-man circumnambulation of Lake Michigan was turning into the normal, frantic, grind out the miles kind of bike tour we swore we'd avoid. We're too old for that.

I take much of the blame for the bad planning. I had casually said, "And on day 5 we need to get to Lake Whosis campground . . . it's a pretty long day." I'll say. 90 miles.

What we should have done is limited ourselves to 50 (hypothetical) miles every day, with the assumption that 50 miles would turn into 60 miles by the time we were done taking wrong turns and getting back to the road from the campground and going to the store. We also should have built in one blank catch-up day, either to be used catching up lost miles, or just staying put in one particularly nice spot for an extra night. But if we had done these things, our trip would have lasted two full weeks.

Anyway, after our Arby's lunch/dinner, we decided to set off and see what happened. Perhaps we'd just camp along the road or in a rest area. Perhaps we'd actually get to the campground. In actuality, we got to the Slumberland Motel after 20-some miles. It was a shining oasis along US-2. We decided that one night in a motel wouldn't kill us, especially not at $45/night. And it had a restaurant for breakfast, which sounded good to us. We were far enough along that we would be able to make St Ignace the next day, which would keep us on schedule (although the schedule itself was still seriously flawed). Next.