Lake Superior lives up to it's name

After leaving Marquette, Michigan the cycling tribe meandered its way to the lovely town of Munising nestled into a beautiful harbor along Lake Superior. Lake Superior, the largest of America's Great Lakes, is the world's largest freshwater lake by volume and the largest by surface area. It also holds 10%m of all the world's surface fresh water which to a sun-soaked boy from the drought stricken State of Colorado is pretty impressive. 

Dome Sweet Dome

Its also extremely cold. The water a tad bit more than the air. O.K., I'm teasing (sorta) about the air, but the water temps are in the high forty degree range which means if you nip in you'll likely nip right back out. Not a lot of surface contact sports up this way. I almost had brought the SUP's (stand-up paddleboards) along on this trip thinking mistakenly what a pleasure it would be to paddle serenely along the calm shores while basking in the summer sun. Not so much. The cold of the lake has a cooling effect on the air temps and along with the higher humidity 60-70 degrees can feel downright cold. Most everybody is wearing a jacket or sweatshirt when near the water. Oh, and throw in a stiff breeze as we've had occasionally (makes the cycling really fun!) and its almost time to break out the gloves and tokes (that's Canadian for stocking cap since we're only about 150 miles away from the Great White North).

Grand Island Lighthouse

So what do people do for fun when the water is more suitable for cooling a beverage than cooling you? Boating! Kayaking! Taking scenic lake cruises. We partook of the latter not just once but twice while we were here. One afternoon after riding we took a jet boat tour around Grand Island which is sitting about two miles offshore in front of me as I write this. Said jet boats are really fast and capable of all sorts of hair-raising but exhilarating maneuvers designed to wow the unsuspecting passengers as well as soak them from head to toe in the aforementioned frigid waters of Lake Superior. The next day, after finally drying out, we decided on something a little more sedate. Pictured Rocks National Shoreline Park is just a couple of miles away via tour boat and treats the visitor to miles and miles of scenic cliffs colored in a myriad of shades due to minerals seeping through the rocks. Along the way you'll see formations such as Miners Castle and Battleship Row along with hundreds of kayaks bobbing in the swells on what passes for a calm day up here. If we had more time we'd have done the kayak thing as well but today we're off to the Town of Manistique known for an almost two mile-long boardwalk, the nearby Kitch-Iti-Kipi Big Springs featuring yet more ice-cold water, and for cycling fans the Haywire Grade Trail which was Michigan's first Rails-to-Trails conversion when the old railroad line shut down more than 50 years ago.

Speaking of cycling, we've had some rain and inclement weather. The day of the century ride we woke to drizzle and cloudy skies but still 60 intrepid riders braved the elements and rode the out and back 100 mile course from Munising to Grand Marais. My beloved and I opted for something somewhat shorter in length but rest assured it gave us an ample sampling of the liquid sunshine. 

some idiot out having fun

Bike tours are fun because, uh, cyclists are out having fun. Pretty simple stuff really. Give us two wheels and somewhere pleasant to ride to and we're a pretty happy bunch. Now, between point A and point B there may be some small amount of grumbling ("Who put this hill here?", "When's the sun going to come out?", "Where's the next rest stop?", "How far is the next town anyway?") but that all evaporates just past the top of the hill when you can stop pedaling and yell "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" all the way to the bottom before starting up the inevitable next climb where the grumbling starts anew. Give and Take, Yin and Yang, Hot and Cold, Dry and Wet. Words to live by atop a bicycle saddle. 

See you on down the road.