I rode about 99 miles today (on purpose) with 6:30ish on bike and got to town around 6:45. Not bad. I wanted to get to St. Ignace tonight so I can get on the ferry to Makinac Island early in the morning to beat all the non-biking muggles trying to ride bikes. The ride was long but mostly uneventful, so lets talk about camping!
Wait, not yet. First let's talk about highway 2. Highway 2 is the only road really through the UP. It's very busy but with a wide shoulder. It's the busiest road I've been on all trip, and I've been on it for about 150 miles. It sucks. It's pretty up here, but I doubt I'll tour up here again because it's hard to enjoy much of anything with the constant noise of traffic in your ear. I'll come back if Iris wants to tour here again for a Menigitis Redemption tour, but that's the only reason.
But it is pretty. Not Eastern Oregon mountains or Montana desert pretty, but still nice. The lakes don't hold the same romantic place in my mind like the ocean or Mississippi does. Who knows why?
Anyway, camping! I slept great last night and when I woke up I decided to eat breakfast in my tent because of the hordes of mosquitos. This breaks the first rule of stealth camping, which is get your tent down ASAP in the morning so it looks like you are just visiting. I knew that, but I played the odds.
Then, as I was taking down, I heard a car door shut and the sounds of a radio. I peered through the brush and saw a guy in a reflective vest. A maintenance guy working on the grounds. He couldn't give me a ticket but he could be a hassle and could call the guys who can. I figured I could talk my way out of it (my former hoodlum years trained me well how to talk my way out of trouble with the cops), but I didn't want to risk it. Risk assessment and odds, touring is all about risk assessment and odds.
In full stealth mode I laid my tent flat and broke camp silently while staying below waist level on the ground. Again, I doubt I really needed too, but good practice is good practice. Bikes are silent, so after I got all packed up I waited until he was looking elsewhere and glided out of the woods away from him, and parked at another bathroom hoping it looked like I just showed up. Maybe it did and maybe it didn't, but I didn't get in trouble.
I did lose my sunglases in the pack though and ended up unpacking a bunch of stuff wondering where I had stuffed them (my tent? my sleeping bag?) until I thought to check where I'd parked my bike inititially last night when checking out the place and there they were. *sigh* I didn't get on the rode until 9am local time.
Then I rode my bike a bunch, burned the first 55 miles without stopping really, ate pasties and fudge, and 99 miles later I was in St. Ignace.
Now, I fully planned to pay to camp around here. I knew it was way too touristy to find a free place and I wanted a shower anyway. It'd been since Wellingville in mid-Wisconsin and with the humidity my... uhh... swampier parts were risking trench... "foot." There was a campground just before town but it was a KOA so I had to boycott it (they are assholes to bikers) and then as I got closer I saw that the road into town was super sketchy. The shoulder disappeared and it became 5 lanes.
Experience reared it's head and I realized that since I was travelling east I needed to travel this part now with the sun at my back instead of early morning tomorrow when the sun would be blinding drivers (assuming they looked up from their phones). I rode all the way into "town" which is just a collection of tourist shops and over priced motels. But, there was one last campground! Yay!
It's a state campground which means they should have hiker-biker spots for 5-10 bucks. I rolled up and asked for one and they said they only had RV spots left for $25. So, this is where it got silly. I couldn't handle paying for an RV spot, even if it was only 25 bucks. Surely they could squeeze me in somewhere. I've paid more than that for tent spots in some areas (not this trip), and I have a fine job and money, but I couldn't handle paying what RVers pay when on a tiny bike with no hookups. I mentioned that Michigan has a no-turn away policy for hiker-bikers and the 19ish worker shrugged and said she didn't know anything about that. I tried to reason with her, but she was polite and not willing to work any harder than what tiny amount she was being paid. She tried directing me to other campgrounds 15 miles away and at that point I realized she was clueless about bikes and bike touring and I just needed to ride away.
Ergh. So the smart move here would be just to pay $25 for a spot, but I wasn't thinking. I decided to go find somewhere to stealth camp. While sitting at the corner contemplating my next move Lorenso and Brandy, a couple RVers from California rolled up and offered to share their RV spot with my tent. They had heard the discussion and thought it was ridiculous! Win! Win and Validation!
So, here I sit, showered and in a nice campground, for free. I haven't paid to sleep since the continental divide campground in Montana, and before that somewhere in Oregon, maybe Austin Junction. I totally was willing to pay 5-10$ to camp on any piece of grass they'd give me (there are tons) but apparently they didn't want my money bad enough to think outside the box.
One of the hardest things about touring is not knowing where you'll sleep from day to day. You wake up everyday and ride out into the unknown. I wrote a verse about it in my touring song in 2007 (tune of abilienes)
Don't know where I'll sleep tonight,
but that thought don't give me no fright
people always help out with my plight,
when touring, bike touring.
ILYI
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