Day 7: St Ignace to Charlevoix

We (I) were (was) overjoyed to leave Mudville with its slumbering drunken muscle-car lovers. I tried to rev my engine and squeal my tires as we left, but it didn't quite have the desired effect.

Being responsible for route selection and research, I had carefully figured out how to get across the Straights of Mackinac: All sources (including the Adventure Cycling route guide) told me that we needed to take a ferry to Mackinac Island, then another to Mackinaw City. Complicated and expensive, but necessary. Jon, not respecting my expert opinion, not trusting me to be thorough in my research, had the nerve to ask around anyway. I assured him it would do no good; he was wasting his time and insulting me in the process.

Of course, just like my wife tells me all the time, it usually pays to ask. What's the easiest way to get a bike across the straights? Just go to the Bridge Authority offices, pay $2, and get a ride in a Bridge Authority maintenance truck. Gosh. We didn't even need to explain ourselves. As soon as we peeked in at the cashier's window the nice lady said, "That'll be $2 each. A maintenance truck will be along soon."

To celebrate our saved time and money, we had a nice sit-down breakfast in Mackinaw City when we arrived.

This day had some of the nicest scenery of the trip. The road out toward Wilderness State Park looks exactly as it looked when I was a child camping there with my family 40 years ago. The roads south from there, past Bliss (the town) and toward Harbor Springs, went through lovely rolling meadows. This would be a nice place for day rides. (In my touring scenario #2 below, one could stay in a nice hotel or B&B in Cross Village, and take 75-mile rides from there.)

Near Harbor Springs, we jumped on the Little Traverse Wheelway, a paved multi-use trail that runs (almost continously) from Harbor Springs to Charlevoix. Although there were some spots where the "wheelway" looked suspiciously like city sidewalks or US-31 shoulder, it was mostly a very nice route. The bit before Charlevoix was particularly nice, running right along the lake with occasional lakeside rest areas.

For some reason, we were pretty whipped by the time we rolled in to Charlevoix. It hadn't been a terribly long day, although we had had some good (bad) hills and a headwind between Petosky and Charlevoix. We picked up dinner fixings in Charlevoix and headed out to Fisherman's Island State Park. Again, the last few miles of the day, into a stiff headwind, competing with trucks on a busy state highway, were the worst.

Fisherman's Island was lovely. Nearly empty, it was a classic Michigan State Park. Large spaces, nicely shaded by white pines, right on Lake Michigan. Because it's a rustic campground (no showers, no electric, no flush toilets), there were no RVs or casual "campers". Although we missed showers, we liked this campground. As usual, some animal or other ate our food in the night. The moral is, when you're bike camping you really need to hang your food even if you're not in bear country.