Just a Short Bike Ride in St. Ignace, Michigan

Upon our arrival in St. Ignace, the harbor master gave us a packet of information about the town, events, coupons for local businesses, and maps for the area. Pretty nice. One of the booklets included information on 6 different bike routes that you could take. A 5 mile, 10 mile, 15 mile, 20 mile, 30 mile and 40 mile route. So of course we picked the 40 mile route. This route would take us from the Lake Huron side of this county to the Lake Michigan side and back. It was all paved so it should be a breeze compared to some of the riding we've done.

Breeze being the operative word in that sentence.

It started out nice. We biked through the main street of St. Ignace and past some tourist spot called Castle Rock (which you can climb if you like that kind of exercise). There were several other bikers doing a ride. This was good because we didn't really have a clue where we were going (Bernie was leading). The route ran along a highway but there was a very wide shoulder, weren't too many cars, and the drivers that were out were very nice about sharing the road with bikers. The trees are beautiful in this area. Pines, cedars, spruce, elm, oak, maple. Some of their leaves are starting to change color.

As we continued on our route, the wind picked up more and more. But there were enough sheltered areas that we could ride well. We were undaunted by the time that we stopped for a snack break and the wind blew Phil's bike over (in his attempt to stop it, he tumbled down a soft grassy slope, too. (harumph - I was just demonstrating my acrobatic abilities.)


As we neared the Lake Michigan side, the wind picked up a lot. This area is part of the Hiawatha National Forest. We thought it looked a lot like the Cape Cod area with the crashing waves and sandy shore on one side and high sand dunes on the other. We don't often see a sign warning about sand on the road. The sandy beach stretches for miles right beside the road and there is no development here because of the National Forest. Many cars were parked along the road as people spent the day at the beach. This is a really popular area, and it's easy to see why.


But the views along the way were so spectacular that you really didn't notice how strong the wind was blowing. (Yea, right!)













By the time we got back, the townspeople were so happy to see us there was dancing in the street.

And Ice Cream at Bentley's was well-deserved!