We started off by riding to church this morning. It was such a pretty morning for a ride. Temps were about 50, and it was mostly sunny. Tony thinks he has a pulled groin muscle, so we took our time. When we ride in such a leisurely way, I realize what a powerful stoker he is, simply because he isn't pushing as hard. Not that we are speed demons or anything, but it seems that Tony is often timing how fast we do a a certain distance or something like that, and when he does that he tends to put more oomph into his strokes. At times I have to remind him, that the captain is supposed to set the pace. If he were the captain I have a feeling I would be pedaling my fanny off, or we would have single trikes, and he would leave me in the dust. Anyway, none of that was a concern today, so we just took our time.
We rode past where the cows, self milking barn is going to be. They have started the frame work on it. No idea when it will be done, or what it will look like, but looks like it is going to be big.
When we got to church, Pastor asked if I had my cell phone with me, and if it was a camera phone. I told him I had it along, but it wasn't a camera phone. He said he was wearing the purple tie our grandchildren got him and had hoped I could take a picture of it for them to see. Since we were going riding, I had my camera along, so I did get a shot of him for the kids.
After church we decided to head up and over TV tower hill and ride into Cadillac for lunch. Once again I attempted to get a picture, but since the hill is so long, its hard to get a good one of it. If you look closely , in the distance, you can see where the road cut through the trees at the top of the hill. It didn't take us as along as it did the last time we did the hill, but since we haven't ridden in nearly 2 weeks we had to kick our mountain drive in sooner.
I tried 3 times to take a pic that would show the magnitude of the hill, on the last try, my camera gave a low battery signal, which of course meant the end of pics for the rest of the ride. I was bummed, because we were riding a new route today, and I was looking forward to posting some new pics. Oh well, once again, my word pictures will have to suffice.
The ride down the other side of the hill was fun. I started braking when we hit 34 MPH, we just weren't comfortable going faster than that on the trike. It's to easy to lose it if we hit a pot hole and the roads in our county, have plenty of those. I promise to get some shots of the colors in that area this fall. It's a sight many drive to see. It seemed like we were going down hill for miles, I think we only had to engage pedal power once or twice between there and M115.
M115 is a state highway that is a trunk in the NW portion of the lower peninsula of MI. As far as I know it is the only diagonal highway in the state. It is about 96 miles long, and is a 2 lane highway, with some passing lanes. In 2009 traffic flow was measured at 12, 079 cars daily. This was near Lake Mitchell and Lake Cadillac. Many accidents occur on M115, and quite a few of them are fatal. However, the road has a shoulder wide enough for a car to park on, which gave us plenty of room to ride. None the less, we were glad we were only on it for 3 miles, before turning on 48 Rd. and riding on to Cadillac.
When we got to Cadillac we too to the Clam River Greenway over to Plett RD., which is where our new work location is. Since it was Sunday, the parking lot was empty. We stayed on Plett Rd, until it dead ended at Wal-Mart. Then we rode across the parking lot to Ruby Tuesday's where we had lunch. The ride across the parking lot was likely our riskiest part of todays adventure. People are less likely to see us in a parking lot, even with our tall orange flag,. I tried to stay on the outer edge of the lot as much as possible, so we would be out in the open more.
Since the trike is 10 ft long, it's to long to park on the sidewalk, so we parked in a car parking space, and asked for a table where we could keep an eye on the trike. Probably wouldn't feel safe doing that just anywhere, but Cadillac is a pretty safe community. As we watched, 2 older guys stopped and looked the trike over pretty good, obviously discussing the gearing etc. One of them even picked the front of it up to see how heavy it was. Had we been out by the trike, they likely would have had many questions.
The restaurant was busy, so it our lunch took awhile, we didn't mind, it was nice to have a rest, before heading home. By the time we were done eating it was after 3PM. We took the Clam River Greenway back across town, and connected with the White Pine Trail for our ride back.
Saw some young turkeys on the trail, even if my camera had been charged up, they were across so fast, that I wouldn't have gotten a picture. About 5 feet down from where they crossed, on a ridge that over looked the trail, we saw the adults of the flock. They made themselves pretty scarce once they spotted us.
We met Tom on the trail. Tom is a C-7 quadriplegic who rides a hand cycle. We stopped and had a nice visit with him, before continuing on. He has such a positive attitude towards riding, it's refreshing to see. He sure doesn't believe in sitting home and feeling sorry for himself. Says he would rather get out and see things and meet people.
The weather was so nice to ride. Temps were in the mid 70's with some clouds. The trail had a lot of shade, so it was comfortable riding. We were so full from our lunch that we didn't even stop to eat our snack on the way home. It was after 5Pm when we finished our ride. We rode just a little over 46 miles.
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