Posts Tagged ‘Lansing’

Against the wind

Sunday, 12th July 2009; 3:33 pm - Location: , ,

Most of the ride the rest of the way was windy. The current weather report says 15mph from the west, so the fact that I was able to keep my speed up to 35mph most of the time was pretty good, I guess. My gas mileage sucked, though: I filled up this morning in Pinckney, then again in Portland, and I’d gone only 80 miles on a gallon of gas.

I took a more rural route to Lansing, bypassing the traffic on Grand River Avenue, and taking lots of roads between cornfields. I took a route around the south side of Lansing instead of through the city center, but that was still kind of trafficky, kind of like riding 44th Street instead of Michigan Avenue in Grand Rapids.
farmhouse

Between Portland and GR I spotted Bambi just a little ways off the road in a field. I pulled over to take a picture, but by the time I got my camera out, he’d run off.

Brighton rec area

Saturday, 11th July 2009; 4:39 pm - Location: , ,

I had an uneventful ride east. I stopped briefly in Saranac, and again in Lansing, but mostly just drove straight through.

The ride thru Lansing itself was pretty bleak: just a bunch of urban decay along Grand River Avenue. There’s an immediate change when it enters EAST Lansing, where suddenly you’re in a fairly vibrant university town with a thriving retail business district. But it wasn’t until well past metro Lansing that the traffic thinned out. I’m going to try riding around it on the way home.

I got a rustic campsite at Brighton Rec Area. I scouted out their other site, which is a little closer to Brighton, but that turned out to be a mistake. It was a long hilly dirt road, and also wet. I had to go slow and keep my feet out in case I slipped. It’d be faster and easier to get back to the rustic campground further out, near the day-use area. The site I got is nice enough, just off Appleton Lake.