While yesterday was mostly agony, today was mostly delight. It helped that the distance was below my average And the head wind was much less today. It was a slow roll through the bucolic hinterland of central Michigan Under sunny skies.
Is this what they mean when they say “Big Blue”? I will have to ask my brother who got his PhD at Michigan.
I waited minutes for this train to go by.
I stopped at a little town called Durand where they were having a farmers market and sampled some local products. They were very impressed do you have a bike come from Boston.
I figured I was in the midwest so I better have a brat at some point. Very friendly people all around.
I found another use for my bicycle … baguette holder
Hey little buddy. What are you up to?
I knew I like Lansing right away because they have great bike infrastructure. I entered by East Lansing and went through MSU. That is quite the school. There are over 40,000 undergraduates.
I got suckered in to buying some delicious lemonade from cute little kids.
As I approach my destination I texted my host and she suggested that I could get a tour of the Michigan State house if I liked. We met at the Statehouse and it turns out she is a political reporter on the state house beat. She was a wonderful host and new lots about all things Lansing and Michigan politics related
Later she took me out to show me around the city and grab a local ice cream from the MSU dairy bar. This reminded me of my school, UVM, that also had a dairy bar and a course in the ag school related to making ice cream. It was packed to the gills and took us probably 20 minutes in line to order. A lot of the ice cream flavors were related to the university including his famous coaches.
I hear Grand Rapids is a very nice city and look forward to a 70 mile ride tomorrow to get there after so long on the bike I am having more Time to really experience things in the moment as my discourse of mind runs out of things to discourse on. I try to make sure that every day I spend a fair amount of time just enjoying doing exactly what I’m doing instead of trying to think of other things.
By the end of the tour I will have gone through or by the capital of New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota.
Tour for Becky 