Written by Dave

Day 63 – July 30 – 50 Miles, 420 feet climbing (Midland to Frankenmuth)

Wow, what a crazy day. Rain was forecast throughout the day but it wasn’t supposed to get heavy until around noon. Well, the weatherman blew that one. We exited the hotel to sprinkles at 7AM and watched the rain build. I’m not sure it helped but Chris was slower, coming out a bit later into what now was a right downpour. We mucked about getting our rain gear on and eventually pulled way about 7:30AM. It was still raining pretty good and it would continue this way for about an hour.

We followed Komoot and Michigan’s idea of a cycleway for most of the day. In town and for the first 20 miles there were nice cycleway signs, lots of traffic and virtually no shoulder. I’m not sure why they call it a cycle way, other than the signs. The one silver lining was very well behaved traffic. Everyone gave us lots of room and passed with a relative high degree of care. Perhaps, the signs did this. Maybe people just felt sorry for us in the rain. After about 20 miles, the rain stopped and we could remove our rain coats. It was 69 degrees when we left the hotel and probably over 80 by the time we took the coats off. I think we were just as wet from sweat as we were rain.

Other than rain, the other exciting thing that happened in the morning was riding through a major cucumber harvest. We saw the clever mechanical harvesters riding over the fields plucking the juicy fruits without damaging them. The harvesters fill massive trucks to the point of overflowing. As the trucks drove to the transfer point the odd cucumber would fall out. We saw a good number of them on the side of the road. It would have been very easy to stop and pick-up an entire cucumber salad, even being a little picky and not taking any damaged fruits. Michigan is the top producer of pickling cucumbers in the United States, and in 2022, the state harvested 216,726 tons, worth $45.5 million. In addition to pickling cucumbers, Michigan also produced 53.6 million pounds of fresh market cucumbers, worth $17.7 million. Who knew?

We stopped after a little over 30 miles at a funky deli, garden, knick-knack shop. Even though the roads were dry and we’d been riding without raingear for a while, we still felt pretty sticky. We had snacks and began working on plan B lodging options for the night. There were lots of black clouds around and the odd spot of rain, plus more thunderstorms were forecast. We agreed to stop in Frankenmuth, about 18 miles short of our planned ride, to have a look at hotels. We were planning on staying at Otter Lake city campground but the thought of camping with storms all about and then camping was not sounding fun. The choices were to stop 18 miles short or ride 18 miles past our intended destination. Tomorrow’s forecast is brighter so we put the priority on finding a place in Frankenmuth higher.

Almost all of the towns we ride through look the same on a map. Midlands looks no different than Clare which looks no different than Frankenmuth. Let me tell you, on the ground, there can be a massive difference. We expected another sleepy farming town in Frankenmuth but in the back of our minds wondered why it would have so many hotel options. Little did we know, Frankenmuth is known as Michigan’s Little Bavaria due to the city’s German heritage and German architecture.

There a good number of buildings with German architecture but to be honest, it feels very contrived. There’s lots of little walking streets like you find in a German village but the streets are all new, the buildings often feel like overblown mini-golf versions of German architecture and inside the buildings, there is either random shtick tourism trinkets or odd themed shops – think, cheeses of the world, the pepper emporium, bubble tea shops, fudge shops, crepe de jour, you get the idea.

Nancy wanted to stay in town so that we could be close to the action but Chris and I thought the $40 cheaper hotel on the edge of town would be just fine. Nancy eventually gave in and we picked the hotel on the end of town. After the three of us walked our bikes through the little Bavaria gift shop maze streets to reach the hotel, I think today, the edge of town was the right call. I have no idea who buys the stuff in those stores or why buying “Master Burn hot sauce” in a fake German village shop is remotely exciting. Lucky for us, we don’t have room for souvenirs.

We had to walk 10 minutes back through “little Bavaria” for dinner at Zehnder’s Frankenmuth where we had their self declared Famous Chicken. We had the “standard” dinner which was basically all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving dinner with chicken instead of turkey. Everything was tasty but just like on Thanksgiving itself, we all ate a bit too much. I’m sure glad we have 80ish miles to ride tomorrow.

Tomorrow we head to Port Huron and our last night in Michigan.  The day after we cross into Ontario, Canada. The forecast is much better for tomorrow and even if it does rain, we have a cabin booked at the Port Huron KOA. We are all a little trepidations about the KOA,  after the last Disneyland KOA we encountered back in Hayward, WI. At least it’s not the weekend, I’m sure it will be quiet, sure!