Third 10 Mile Hike

Close to 10.3 miles

May 27th, 2023

Since this time I wanted to get a Cooking merit badge requirement that has to do with trail cooking, the night before the hike I got a lot of trail food ready. Since it has been getting warmer, I didn’t have to wear as many layers or pack as much as the last two times. Also, this time the Wilsons unfortunately weren’t going to hike with us this time. We left at 7:00, and got there around 7:30. We started the hike at the Fullerton Woods parking lot at 7:40, and soon we were singing “one hundred bottles of beer on the wall” loudly. It was about 70 degrees and sunny, and a nice day. When we got to Schiller Woods South, we ate our nutella/peanut butter tortillas. The first section of the hike took longer than we had planned, which made Cora a little nervous, because she had homework she wanted to do that afternoon. We were next to the road, so we passed under a couple of bridges, all covered in graffiti on the inside. Under one of them, mom found a bouquet of flowers right next to the river that were actually pretty nice, so she decided to bring it home. I remembered that we still hadn’t brought out the snacks for the Cooking Merit Badge, so I brought that up. But then we agreed that we’d bring them out gradually. The hike didn’t go perfectly smoothly, though. Several times, Cora and Lydia got too far ahead, and had to pause for us to catch up, a factor of the hike going slower than we hoped, making Cora more and more stressed about her homework assignments. So when mom heard this, she decided that Cora, Lydia and I could walk ahead and not be slowed down by her and David, and we could walk all the way to the Fullerton Woods parking lot, the parking lot that we left the car at, and Cora could get some homework done on her computer while they caught up. This is when I put on the big backpack with all of the cooking gear and the four of us continued the hike, but mom drove to Sunset Meadow Bridge so that she didn’t have to hike the whole 10 miles. At the stop I made lunch using the backpacking stove. Joshua, Aaron and Elise arrived in time to eat with us, but they mostly wanted the trail snacks. We talked, then packed up our bags and cleaned the bowls and left for the last mile of the hike (they didn’t know they weren’t doing the full ten) with them. We finished up most of the trail snacks, but I forgot to get out the seaweed. We were done hiking at 1:15.

About to hike last mile

If you want to see how I mapped the route, my Merit Badge Counselor showed me this link that’s very helpful.

https://onthegomap.com/#/create

Second 10 mile hike

10.2 Miles in total

March 5th, 2023

I woke up at 6:10 and got ready. I packed everything that I packed last time, plus church clothes, steak strips, two fruit bars, a new trail mix, sandwiches, and two tangerines (I learned last time to bring more food). but this time we decided to hike separately (Kochs and Wilsons) from our houses, and meet up to go to church. We left ten minutes later then we planned at 6:55, and about three quarters of a mile in my mom realized that my boots were falling apart. So she texted Brittany (who was still asleep in bed) to call her when she woke up, and we continued hiking. A few minutes later, Brittany called, mom explained the situation, and asked Brittany to go to my room, get Joshua’s shoes, and drive over to a specific street to switch them out (which really wasn’t a great way to start the day). When we got there, Brittany hadn’t come yet, so we let David, Lydia and Cora go ahead to our meeting place with the Wilsons in Humboldt Park (it wasn’t very far away), while me and mom stayed behind to wait. Eventually Brittany arrived, we switched the boots, and she drove away. We hiked the rest of the way to where the Wilsons were waiting, and we continued. It was forty degrees Fahrenheit, and sunny. We actually passed by the Paynes (in their car) on the way to church. We got there at 9:00, changed into church clothes, and ate a couple of snacks and a scone from the cafe. After the service, there were extra snacks for the “snack and chat”, and we ate our lunch, and got ready to go. On the way to the Wilsons’ house, we passed by a lot of places that had lots of memories for Mrs. Wilson to talk about. We passed by the Lincoln Park Zoo, and took a short break at Oz Park. Mrs. Wilson realized that we’ve been going from park to park (Humboldt Park, Park Community Church, Lincoln Park, Oz Park. We also walked past Holstein Park). When we got to their house at 2:30, dad was waiting for us Kochs, and we drove home. It took a total of 4 hours of actual hiking.

Petting a nine week old puppy.

First 10 mile hike

(The red path is the one we first planned to take, and the blue path is the one we took)

February 20th, 2023

I got up at 7:30 and started getting ready to go. The night before I had made trail mix out of granola, dried goji berries, craisins, and dried coconut strips. We each had two snack bags of it to eat during the hike. I had to put those, a knife, water, a hat, and gloves in my bag (It already held my emergency kit). The Wilsons came, and we left soon after. While we were driving, Luke said he wanted to see the waterfall. We discussed this, and then Lina said that she wanted it to be at the beginning, not the end, because people would be tired toward the end, and wouldn’t want to do an extra loop. So then Cora decided that we could just go in the other direction, so that it would be only a third of the way through, because that would be better. That’s when Abby realized that there was a parking lot right next to the waterfall, and we could start there, and everyone agreed with that. We parked at the new parking lot, got out, stretched, and waited for Mrs. Wilson. Then we started the hike at 9:30. We went to the waterfall and back in the first half mile, and then we just followed the main trail for the rest of the hike. Soon after, we saw the waterfall again from higher up. I finished my first bag of trail mix in the first quarter of the hike, which wasn’t a good sign. David was in charge of the compass and map, so whenever we saw a marker that showed how far we had gone or an intersection, we would take a short break and David would check his map to see where we were. It was in the 40s and sunny, I felt good about the amount of layers I wore. Our first long stop was at a bench early on in the hike, and we ate some food. Then we continued our hike. We decided to eat lunch at the parking lot that we had originally planned to start at, and then there would only be 2.5 miles left. At some point we (the Koch kids) realized that none of us had brought lunch other than trail mix, and it turned out that mom had brought cheese sticks and salami. We should have brought more food, but we didn’t think about that. So when we got to the parking lot, the Wilsons shared their lunches, and it was fine. But we learned a lesson for future hikes: make sure to bring enough food! So lunch was from 12:30 to 1:00, and we were tired toward the end of the hike, but we were able to finish the hike by 2:15. Then we debriefed on the hike and decided that next time we’d bring more food, bring less water, talk more about planning stops and making sure we’re going at a good speed for everybody.

This is overlooking the waterfall.

Hiking Merit Badge

Caleb is a Star Scout in Troop 1. As part of his path to Eagle Scout he is currently working on several Eagle Required Merit Badges. For Communication Merit Badge, he has chosen to create a blog on our website. He will post his Hike Reports here after each Hike undertaken to earn the Hiking Merit Badge. There will be four 10-mile Hikes and one 20-mile Hike.

Day 48 – August 3: Home!

by Jeff

63 miles

Angela woke at 5:30 to the voices of LaToya and Louis discussing raccoons.  She looked up to see LaToya at the door of the tent watching the culprits hanging around the cooler.  She was trying to determine whether or not they had actually gotten into it or not.  She unzipped the door and all but one of the masked bandits dispersed.  Angela headed out with a “Git!” and stomped over to the cooler.  The leader only wandered off about ten feet, but it was enough for her to see that their nimble little fingers had indeed unzipped the cooler and they’d been fighting over the day’s lunch meat and cheese!  She yelled at the remaining raccoon and it skittered up the tree, then poked it’s head around the trunk as if to say, “I’m still here…”

After a short, but fabulous night’s rest in my own bed, I drove back with Elise and Cora to the campground by 8:30AM. We threw everything into the van to go back to Chicago: tent, sleeping bags, the rest of our clothes, etc… and only kept one bike trailer, the first aid kit, and the cooler with our lunch. We were traveling light today!  LaToya’s family, however, were traveling with all our gear tucked into every nook and cranny around them. Hopefully some of it worked well as comfy pillows for the ride home.

Before we got too far, we wanted to get a couple broken spokes fixed on my bike. So, we rode a few miles to Chesterton Bicycle Station, a great bike shop just off of the South Shore stop in Chesterton. The owner took at look at the bike, said he could do it that morning, and suggested we peruse the nearby shops while we waited. So, off we went! And the first store we found: a used bookstore.  Brittany promptly sat down with a book, and we didn’t see her again for an hour. The rest of us went to a park across the street, and Caleb and David made up a game involving little round seeds that they found. I think it was a game like marbles, but I’m still not sure.

The kids playing a game like marbles... except using seed pods to shoot :)

The kids playing a game like marbles… except using seed pods to shoot 🙂

We were soon on our way… with just 60 more miles to go. It was such a beautiful ride–there are amazing bike paths through northwest Indiana and into Illinois, including the Prairie Duneland Trail, the Oak Savannah Trail, and the Erie Lackawanna Trail. All asphalt paths, taking us through Gary, Hammond, and many more communities. Since I was the only one with a bike trailer, we cruised along pretty quickly. Our typical speed with trailers was 10-11mph; without the trailers, we were clipping along at 12-15 mph. It was so much fun!

At almost the exact halfway point, we reached the Cabela’s superstore in Hammond, IN. We grabbed some lunch meat and cheese from the Wal-mart across the street, then ate sandwiches underneath a pine tree in the Cabela’s parking lot. We had to take a look inside, and were amazed by all there was to see: a massive freshwater aquarium, mounted animals of every type, a trout stream, and every type of camping, fishing, and hunting accessory you could think of. We were entertained for at least an hour.

Back on the bike paths for the second half, we soon found ourselves going through Wolf Lake Memorial Park–on a causeway through a beautiful natural area within a quarter of a mile of the Chicago Skyway. Awesome!

Our friend, Brian Parache, is an avid cyclist, so we invited him to ride with us along the last part of our trip; he biked down from Soldier Field and met us with about 20 miles to go, in Calumet Park. It was so fun to have him travel with us! From that point, we met up with familiar sights and the kids began to call out, “this is where Mommy’s chain came off and we saw the huge boat!” and other mishaps from our practice trip. Excitement built as the kids realized we’d travelled this route before, and we could certainly do it again, but faster!

Our group continued on, finally hitting the bike path along Lakeshore drive and we knew we were getting close. The sun set just as we approached the Shedd Aquarium. We stopped for a few minutes to sit on the grass, share a few memories from the trip for which we were thankful to the Lord, and pray as a family. It was special to take that moment to celebrate the accomplishment of our trip, and give praise and thanks to the Lord for making it happen.

We missed you, Chicago!

We missed you, Chicago! (Brian is on the far left)

The rest of the trip was a blur; we were moving quickly (even after 63 miles!) and finally pedaled back into our garage around 9:30pm. We were exhausted, but exuberant. Brian’s mom, Julie, had come to our home beforehand and cooked a huge meal of tacos for us. It… was… awesome. What a night to complete our dream trip! We made it!

Day 47 – August 2: To Indiana Dunes State Park

by Jeff

34 miles

Leaving Warren Dunes State Park, we traveled along another fairly busy highway much of the day: the Red Arrow HIghway.. Until age 11, I lived just across the Indiana border, only 5 miles away from New Buffalo… and today’s journey took through an area where I had a lot of memories. We left the highway at one point to begin riding along the lakefront–again, we saw so many huge, beautiful houses on the beachfront (and a lot of Illinois plates in the driveways!). Growing up, when my family wanted to go to the beach, we would go to the New Buffalo City Beach–so on our ride, we had to make a stop to swim there. It was magnificent, especially since the temperature was in the high 80s. From there, we picked up the route along Highway 12–a busy road, indeed. At one point, a woman rolled down her window to shout at us, “This is not a bike path!” Yeah, we knew that, but there wasn’t any other way to get to where we needed to go…!

Shortly after that incident, Elise crashed when she hit some loose gravel at the bottom of a hill. It looked just awful, but she came through with just a few scrapes. It was painful, but we were grateful that it wasn’t so much worse!

We got off of the highway at our first opportunity, and began to ride along the beachfront. The homes were in communities named Michiana Shores, Long Beach, Grand Beach, etc… and they were packed closely together. Lots of gorgeous homes, as well as beautiful views of the lake. Coming into Michigan City, we stopped at the Armory for the National Guard–my father used to work as a fisheries biologist for the Indiana DNR, which had an office in that building. He passed away 16 years ago, so my kids don’t know much about him; it was a neat opportunity to tell my children about his passion for the environment, fish, and all the fishing we used to do. When you have nothing but time, you begin talking about things you may never have talked about before… and that became a pretty special part of this whole trip.

After Michigan City, our route took us back onto Highway 12. Ugh… this was miserable: not much shoulder, and a lot heavier traffic. At one point, a driver pulled over and said he could barely see us in the shade of the trees. He then opened his trunk and gave Jeff a bright fluorescent green vest with reflective tape. Honestly, I felt a little stung by his rebuke, but it was also really thoughtful and helpful.

Two flats on the way delayed our arrival at Indiana Dunes State Park, but it didn’t keep us from swimming as soon as we could. It was going to be our last opportunity this trip to take a dip in Lake Michigan, so the kids and I cooled off.  It was glorious!

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Woo-hoo! We made it to Indiana Dunes!

We had some special visitors that night: our friend Latoya drove our van to the park (from Chicago) and brought her family to camp with us that night–some of her kids had never before camped (yeah!). Dinner was simple, yet plentiful: brats, Italian sausage, and hot dogs. Our plan was this: the next day we had 63 miles to bike.  We couldn’t possibly make that distance with all the weight we were pulling, so we decided to drive everything we wouldn’t need back to Chicago. So, while dinner was being prepared, I loaded our van with most of our gear: tons of kitchen stuff, the bike trailers, clothes, etc… anything that would not be used in the tent that night. When darkness fell, Elise, Cora, and I piled into the van and drove back to Chicago, to sleep in our beds for the first time in 47 days. And, it was amazing! I unloaded our van first, so I didn’t get to sleep until 1:30AM, but the bed was absolutely heavenly. Even though we would get up at 6:00AM to drive back to Indiana Dunes, then bike 63 miles… it was absolutely worth it.

Only one more day to go to complete the adventure!

Day 46 – August 1: To Warren Dunes State Park

38 miles

By Jeff

Only 3 more days until we get home! Thoughts like those were beginning to dominate our minds and conversations.  We can do this!

Leaving Van Buren State Park, we jumped onto the Blue Star Highway (Hwy 63), not ideal for biking, but it had a wide shoulder to accommodate bikers.  Our route took us along the shore, through the communities of Lake Michigan Beach, Benton Harbor, and St. Joseph.  We passed by Whirlpool’s world headquarters, just north of Benton Harbor; it was interesting to see the massive building on the east side of the highway, and the land on the west side was a massive field all the way down to Lake Michigan. What a nice view for those with offices on the west side of the building!

Benton Harbor and St. Joseph are older communities, rich in history, made evident by some of the architecture we saw. We stopped in the St. Joseph Public Library to fill water bottles and use the restrooms… but we almost lost a few of our kids. If you know our kids, you know that they can’t resist a good book. Libraries are dangerous places for our family.

At one point, we needed to fix a flat tire, so we pulled into the parking lot of a wealth management business. The owner, Brett Dodds (www.brettdodds.com), a cyclist himself, came out to give us a hand and invited us to use restrooms, get water or a soda, anything we needed.  Again, the Lord showed His graciousness through Brett’s hospitality. We arrived at Warren Dunes State Park around 6:00pm, and after setting up camp our friends Sue and Jerry brought us an amazing meal of tacos and watermelon. I met Sue over 20 years ago while raising support in the Upper Peninsula, and she has been a source of great encouragement ever since then. Ever wonder what it might look like when a horde of locusts finds food? That’s about the same picture as what happens when our kids eat food on this trip…

Day 45 – July 31: To Van Buren State Park

46 miles

by Jeff

We got a few more quizzical looks in the morning (“why is there a tent in the playground area??”), but after getting breakfast and packing up our campsite, we started our journey toward Van Buren State Park in South Haven. We hadn’t realized this before, but apparently there is no way to cross Lake Macatawa by land except by a bridge on the far eastern side of the lake. And… we were camped on the western side. Bummer! That meant 6 miles added to our route, as you can see from the map below. Ugh!

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Yep, that’s Lake Macatawa… and it’s a loooong way around!

The ride along the Lake was beautiful, as we went through the communities of Saugatuck, Douglas, and South Haven. Riding along the lakefront of these towns was a huge treat, as we were able to admire the shops, boats, and attractions along the waterfront. As you can imagine, we saw a ton of magnificent homes along Lakeshore Drive – we were often amazed at the size and beauty of the homes on Lake Michigan.

We had a couple of bike issues along the way: I had to change a flat tire, and on one of the bike trailers a bolt sheared off that attached the trailer to the bike. Fortunately, we had anticipated that possibility, and had a couple of spare bolts with us. Glad we had more than, since the bolt sheared not only once, but twice on this trip. That meant we needed more spares, so Joshua and I made a quick detour to Menards to make sure that we would be prepared for future occurrences.

We arrived at Van Buren State Park just an hour before the sun set. We quickly set up camp, got dinner cooking, and took off for the beach. An east wind had come in a couple of days before, taking all of the warm water out to the middle of the lake. The water was freezing!  David and Caleb went in up to their knees and were content to splash Joshua and me. Silly boys.
We experienced the kindness of strangers a few times at this campground.  We found grocery stores scarce during the ride and ended up without the milk we needed for our dinner recipe, or for breakfast the next morning. So, what do you do when you’re short on food? Ask around!  A couple across the road from us gave us the ½ cup of milk we needed for our dinner entrée (Texas Pioneer Pie), and the next morning I went biking around the campground, looking for anyone who might be packing up to leave.  I found an RV pulling out, and when asked if they had any milk they weren’t using, they gave us half a gallon. Then our next door neighbor emptied out their larder as they pulled out.  We feasted on cereal, banana bread, apples, and orange juice.  We were grateful since the bananas we had planned on eating were dragged into the trees and eaten by raccoons in the middle of the night, along with an entire bag of delicious chocolate chip cookies (baked for us two days earlier)!  Promises to make more cookies when we got home helped the mood in the camp upon hearing the news of our lost food.

Day 44 – July 30: To Holland State Park: Beautiful Shores

34 miles

No need to rise early this day, since the bike shop did not open until 10am. So, everyone slept in (good thing, since some of the kids were up reading until who knows when). The bike shop we visited was Breakaway Fitness, in Muskegon, where one of the Service managers, Jeff, took care of me. The bad news: the hub on the back wheel is toast. The hub is the center part of the wheel, and it contains ball bearings and springs that enable it to turn smoothly on its own, yet also “catch” when you pedal. It’s fixable, but they didn’t have the parts, so our solution was to buy a new wheel. A fairly quick fix overall, and we were ready to leave by 12:30.

Our destination that day was Holland, and our route took us through Muskegon, Ferrysburg, Spring Lake, and Grand Haven. It was another beautiful ride; not always along the lakefront, but we got to see plenty nonetheless. My father lived in Grand Haven until he died, so that community has a lot of memories for me in particular. It seems like every Michigan town has it’s own summer festival: in Traverse City has the Cherry Festival; Holland has the Tulip Festival; and Grand Haven has the Coast Guard Festival – which started over the weekend. It was Saturday, so there were a TON of people enjoying the Grand Haven waterfront, but we managed to pick through them without running anyone over. I love the golden beach there, as well as the picturesque lighthouse at the end of the pier. Throughout the entire ride I had the opportunity to tell some of my kids about my Dad and some of our memories together. Obviously, I miss him; it doesn’t matter how old you are, the loss of a parent is a profoundly sad experience that can leave you feeling orphaned in some way.

We battled a lot of hills between Grand Haven and Holland, as we rode on a bike path that went along Lakeshore Drive. Some were really steep! The whole route felt a little like a roller coaster, and it wore us out. We were so glad to be meeting some dear friends at the end of the day: Brent and Karen Renkema. Brent and I were classmates in the Nuclear Engineering program at the University of Michigan, and we were often study buddies. He now works for Steelcase and lives near Holland. They not only came out to see us, but they also brought a truckload of food (again) for us. This trip has helped us come to appreciate the power and blessing of hospitality! Karen is an amazing cook (I remembered that from my college days), and she filled our bellies and our cooler with leftovers. Plus, three desserts: Rice Krispy treats, chocolate chip cookies, and key lime pie. Wow!

It had been 15 years since we’d seen the Renkema’s, and it was so good to reconnect. Our kids thoroughly enjoyed their kids, and did not want to leave. Such a blessing to see them.

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Fun with the Renkema’s at Laka Macatawa (Holland State Park)

We did not have a reservation at Holland State Park, so we counted on Michigan’s policy of never turning away cyclists who need a campsite at their state parks. We were assigned an “auxiliary” site next to a campground. We were in a fenced-in grassy area that was perfect for our tent. However, it did solicit some curious expressions from passers-by. They must have been thinking: “they can’t camp there, that’s not a campsite!” In fact, later that night, after we all went to bed, as two campers visited the playground in the dark, the following rant was overheard:

“Someone camped at the park! Who camps at the park? Their tent is right at the park.  Yoo-hoo!  Anybody home?!? They’re camped at the park and they’re not even home!”

Had the kid bothered to stop talking long enough to hear an answer to his question, he would have heard Angela tell him that we were indeed home and that some of us were even asleep. However, he was more interested in his loud rant than in what was going on five feet away in our tent.

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Our “auxiliary” campsite: “What is that family doing over there???”

I don’t know how current I’ll be able to post on this blog, so here’s our schedule for the next few days, until we finally get home!

July 31: To Van Buren State Park (46 miles)

August 1: To Warren Dunes State Park (38 miles)

August 2: To Indiana Dunes State Park (33 miles)

August 3: To HOME! (61 miles).

We’ll be sure to fill in the details soon!

Day 43 – July 29: Silver Lake to Muskegon: The Final Stretch begins!

45 miles

We spent last week at Silver Lake, reconnecting with Angela’s extended family at the 87th 93rd Annual Van Velzor Family Reunion. We swam in Lake Michigan (a lot!), played games with family, hiked over the dunes, and really enjoyed the break from biking. It was a tremendous week, and it ended much too soon. One more highlight from the week was on our last day there, when Joshua and Elise were baptized. It seems we are always away from Chicago when our church does its large baptism service, so we thought we would have our own. As a family we discussed the meaning of baptism, then Jeff baptized them both in Lake Michigan.

Posing for a hike before hiking the dunes with Angela's uncle Tom, aunt Sally, and cousins Sophie, Jake, and Zach

Posing for a hike before hiking the dunes with Angela’s uncle Tom, aunt Sally, and cousins Sophie, Jake, and Zach

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The hike took us from Silver Lake to Lake Michigan (in the distance). It was a blast!

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Baptizing Joshua and Elise in Lake Michigan

It was time to climb back on our bikes to begin the final stretch to Chicago. There was a threat of rain on the morning of our departure, so Angela’s grandmother let us all cram into her cottage so we—and all of our gear—would stay dry. We were so grateful not only to sleep in beds, but also to wake up in the morning and see that we had missed a thunderstorm.

As you can imagine, at this point various kids (and parents) are beginning to talk about home with a sense of longing, especially for comfortable beds and nice showers that you can walk away from barefoot. Ah, home… after six weeks, it’s tempting to let it occupy our thoughts. But there’s still six days of riding, so we try to put those thoughts aside so that we can truly enjoy what’s left of our trip. In the words of Jim Elliot: “Let not our longing slay our appetite for living.” So, here we go!

The ride from Silver Lake took us along the Hart-Montague trail, for the 3rd and final time. We rode this trail to and from the Reneker Family Camp the week before, and were well acquainted with it. It runs through some really cool towns, like Shelby, New Era, and Rothbury (where we came to learn that there’s a massive music festival every year). The path goes along cherry & apple orchards, fields of asparagus and corn, lush forests, and there are several sections where it’s completely covered by a canopy of trees. We stopped—as we did on the previous trips—and gorged ourselves on berries. This week the blackberries were super plump and ripe, and we found a patch that was bursting with them. Definitely a highlight for the day.

The Hart-Montague Trail: sometimes covered by canopies of trees.

The Hart-Montague Trail: sometimes covered by canopies of trees.

Our harvest of blackberries

Our harvest of blackberries

We were on the Hart-Montague trail went for 22 miles, then connected to several other bike paths in the North Muskegon area. Out of our 45 mile trip, less than 10 miles were on roads. That’s a good biking day, especially since these trails have very few hills to climb. The Muskegon lakefront path was especially gorgeous, as it took us right along the waters edge for several miles. Caleb counted boats (he lost count after 50 or so), while the rest of us just admired the beauty of the lake.

Our destination was my Aunt’s house, in Norton Shores. With only 4 miles to go, I began to experience some problems with the tandem: sometimes when I pedaled it would go completely free – no matter how slow or fast I pedaled, it wasn’t “catching.” That makes it difficult to move, huh? I tried changing gears, and it might catch again, but if I ever stopped pedaling, I would have the same problem when I started again. Time for another stop at a bike shop.

That would have to happen the next day, because 45 miles is a long way to travel, and we didn’t leave Silver Lake until 10:45 (lots of goodbyes). We arrived at my aunt’s house around 7:00pm, where we enjoyed a huge dinner that included chicken BBQ, hamburgers, banana cake, and other wonderful things… let me just say that we have a whole new appreciation for food after long days of biking!  After dinner we took a dip in Lake Michigan to wash away the sweat and grime from the day’s journey. The rest of the evening we were also able to visit with cousins, play games, and Brittany discovered their library. She read two books that night, I believe.

We’ll see what the next day brings as we seek to fix the bike!