Grand Rapids, Grand Times / On the Road Again

The drive from Iowa to Grand Rapids went by in a flash. We were entertained by constant large thunderstorms and lots of lightning along the way. When we arrived in Grand Rapids we reassembled the bike, set up our tent (with our Alma Mater as the base camp), dropped off our car and then wandered around for 3 days. Our time in Grand Rapids was filled with hanging out with friends, visiting some of our favourite spots from college, tulip time festival, tasting wonderful local beer (Founders Brewing Co) and searching for places on Calvin's campus to get free food and coffee. It was absolutely wonderful.

Below: Pictures from Tulip Time Festival in Holland, MI rated the best small town festival in the US, and maybe the world?)








(disclaimer: the above photo is actually from Orange City, Iowa. They had no tulips left in Holland, MI.)

On Thursday, it was finally time to get back on the bike! It felt really great to actually pedal around with the fully loaded tandem. On our way out of the city we stopped to watch a minor league baseball game (the West Michigan Whitecaps) with our friend and my former roommate, Zach. The sun was shining and despite the thousands of children on field trips swarming around the ballpark, it was a quite enjoyable way to spent the last of our time in Grand Rapids.




We left the ballpark at 2:30 and headed north on the White Pine Trail, a beautiful paved bike path that runs north out of Grand Rapids. It was a very pleasant ride until the path turned to gravel about 25 miles north. Thankfully, the trail intersected a bike route that traverses mid Michigan. We took that paved route and headed the last 25 miles over some beautiful rolling hills to our destination in Blanchard, MI. We met some very friendly people in town that guided us to the campground and we settled down for the night in a field with our own private gazebo!




The next day we were planning to follow the mid-Michigan bicycle route that would take us toward Saginaw bay but then we looked at a map and realised that it made a lot more sense to take a straighter path toward Marine City, MI (our border crossing location). We stopped in a small town along the way, got some google map biking directions and headed on on way. We had a tailwind for most of the day and arrived 80 miles later at our campground near Vassar, MI. We were the only ones camping there for the night so we had our own private little place. The manager was really kind and came to our site delivering free wood and kindling. It was only our second campfire of the entire trip!




This morning we woke up to the sound of thunder in the distance so we quickly packed up camp and took shelter under an awning. Now we sit, waiting for the the storm to pass (hopefully) and we plan to split the ride to Sarnia, Ontario into two sections (probably taking a shorter day today so we can ride in the sun tomorrow.