OK, pretty much everything’s been nailed down for “MI way 2011″… except the scooter, of course. I’ve got the vacation days and the camp sites all reserved. This year has more modest riding goals and less impressive scenery, due to some fairly minor surgery early in the summer, but it’ll still be more fun than a week at work.
I leave Grand Rapids on Sunday 8/14 heading southish for Fort Custer State Rec Area, between Kalamazoo and Battle Creek. Monday I’ll ride easterward, detour through the Irish Hills area, and end up at Waterloo State Rec Area east of Jackson. Tuesday I’ll resume riding easterly, hopefully avoiding too much traffic through/around AA, Ypsi, and Romulus, reaching Sterling State Park on Lake Erie.
All of which is set-up for the official “goal” of this ride, to finish one of the things I started on my previous two rides: riding all the way around the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. So the next two days will see me riding west, roughly following the southern border of the state. I’ll spend Wednesday night just over the Indiana border at Pokagon State Park. Thursday may involve trying to outrace an Amish buggy or two, a stop in Sturgis (no, the other one), and end at VanBuren State Park on Lake Michigan. From there it’s a fairly short ride home up the Lakeshore on Friday.
So only 5 nights of camping, and probably only about 600 miles on the road. But it’ll be nice to get away from the desk and phone, and to see something other than the same 10 miles of road that I typically ride around here. It’ll bring my tally of Michigan-counties-visited to 62 out of 83.