PALM 30 Bike tour, day 1

The blog entries for our 283 mile, 6 day PALM 30, bike tour are posted later than the dates we rode.  I will simply refer to them as Day 1, day 2, etc.

Day 1
Ludington MI

Well, our gear is all packed and we are set to go.  We each chose some scripture verses to write on each bag.  Hope that will be not only an encouragement to us, but to others as well.

 Our friends Keith and Ann took us over to Ludington, MI where we will join over 900 other people to participate in PALM 30.  PALM stands for "Pedal Across Lower Michigan, the 30 indicates that this is the 30th year of the event.  It is very family oriented and geared towards beginner and intermediate riders, with optional loops in the course for those who want longer rides.  Ludington is about 66 miles from where we live.  We loaded the trike up on our 10 foot flatbed trailer, got the gear and Button in the car, and off we went.  We got about 12 miles down the road, hit a bump, and blew a tire on the trailer.

 Keith and Tony unhooked the trailer, and we decided Tony and I would stay there with the trailer, and keith would go back home and get another tire or find some type of solution to the situation.   The Lord was with us, when we stopped, we were right by someone's driveway,  No one was home, but  there was a nice shade tree in their front yard.  Tony, Button and I, sat under the tree and waited.

 Keith was gone about 40 minutes or so.  when he came back he had his cargo trailer, pulled with his truck.  There was no room for Ann to come along, as the truck isn't an extend a cab. Tony, Keith and I, pushed and winched our trailer into the cargo trailer.  It was a tight fit.  The wheels of our trailer had to go on top of the wheel wells in the cargo trailer.  Once again we were on our way to the Ludington high school.

When we arrived, the buses were just getting there.  We found a place on the football field to pitch our tent.  Keith helped me.
 We got the tent up fine, had a bit of a problem figuring out the rain fly, but I walked around, looked at  a few others,and finally we got it up. t was amazing to see so many tents up, with people still arriving and setting up.  Tent city, had our neighbors pretty close by.

 Stowed our gear, and we went to get something to eat with Keith.  Had a very good meal at Luciano's.

After Keith left, we went to registration and got our packets, with our numbers on them.

 Even though we had sent our registration  in March, back by over night mail, we had numbers 562 and 563.  We were supposed to write our names below our number, and where we were from.  Below our names I wrote "Christ is our strength."



We walked around and found our online friends from Holland MI, Jeff and Kirsten.  Kirsten and I have been emailing back and forth for a few months, so it was nice to finally meet them in person.  Although, they have a tandem, like ours, they are riding single trikes in PALM.  It is a first PALM for all 4 of us.  The picture was actually taken later in the week, but I'll post it here.

Went to the informational meeting, telling us what to expect each day.  There are SAG drivers, (SAG  stands for "Support and Aid Group."    These people will transport all the gear each day in trucks, plus patrol the route to see if there is anyone who is in need of help.  If we want a SAG person to stop, we need to put on hand on top of our helmet.  I am already amazed at how smoothly registration and the meeting have  gone.  It's obvious that these people have done this many times.  Did I mention that they all volunteer their time and still pay the same fee we pay to participate in PALM?   About 10 PM, we  headed for bed.  it was kind of hard to get to sleep, because of the anticipation of the next day.   Hannah and her Dad Mike from Ann Arbor, were our tent neighbors.