Rose had coffee ready by the time I awoke at 7. She had already started packing up. Our packing styles are very different and I am usually done first. I stuff everything into a pannier. My left rear is the bedroom. It has my air matress, hammock and rainfly, sleeping quilt and little inflatable pillow. My right rear is the closet and holds all my clothes. Rose is a bit more organized and has packing cubes for clothes and stuff sacks for everything else. I treat my panniers like a giant stuff sack. Today was the first day she was ready to go before me and we were headed out by 8:30. We went right by the Golden Brown Bakery so we had to stop for a doughnut and a coffee. The doughnut was huge. Big as a man’s head!
It was delicious. The coffee was ok but disappointing after the deliciousness of The Bean Box. If I’m ever in South Haven again I’ll by doughnuts from the Bakery and take them to the Bean Box to eat them with one of their awesome lattes.
Sugared up and caffinated, we headed out of town on route A2. It had moderate traffic but a really nice and wide shoulder. The temperature was great but the wind was a bit tough.We needed ice and drinking water and stopped at several stores. Nobody had any ice! We only buy water if it is in a one gallon jug. A gallon is usually as cheap as a 20oz bottle. We fill all 4 of our water bottles and if there is any left over it goes in a Platypus hydration reservoir so nothing gets wasted. Not only was there no ice we couldn’t find a cold gallons of water. Around 3 o’clock we found a grocery in Saugatuck that had cold gallons and it had ice! Under the shade of a big oak tree we sat down to put ice in our bottles and cooler and to rehydrate.
For some reason today was really turning out tough. Maybe I didn’t sleep well. I don’t know why, but the miles were not coming easy. I probably needed more coffee. haha. Rose must of been struggling too. We were both a bit grumpy and at times pretty short with each other. We found a little park that had a nice wooded area that we could stealth camp in once it was closer to dark. Even though we had only been 28 miles we were both ready to be done for the day. There were picnic tables near the parking area for us to cook and eat on. Unfortunately it was only about 300 feet from Interstate 196. It was noisy but we hoped it would quiet down at night. I did some fine tuning on my rim while Rose cooked dinner. My rim was out of round vertically so with every round it felt like I hit a small bump mostly it was only noticeable at speeds over 12 mph. But it was annoying. After I got that taken care of I did some weekly maintenance on both our bikes. By then Rose had dinner done. Eggs with capicola and bread. It was delicious.
After doing dishes and repacking everything we sat down to relax until it was late enough to hang our hammocks without being seen. A lady stopped to walk her two big dogs and two little dogs. They must of smelled our dinner because they would not leave us alone. Their owner, Jackie hollered to them several times before they finally ran back to her. Jackie did not seem too interested in us and gave us a wide berth. I think she may of thought we were homeless. As she was leaving the dogs came over to us again and wouldn’t leave. I tried and failed again to engage her in a conversation when she came to collect her dogs. After she put the dogs in her van she walked back over to us. I was kind of expecting the worst and thought she was going give us a hard time about camping. We hadn’t set up our hammocks yet but it was pretty apparent that we e planned on staying the night. After all it was around 7:00 pm. She walked up to Rose and asked have you guys ate dinner? Rose replied yes we just got done cooking and eating. Then Jackie said” can I pay for a motel room for you all?” We both said YES! At the same time. She made a phone call and said she got us the last room in the Best Western just ¾ of a mile down the road. She was so kind! I asked if I could take her picture and she said no but allowed me to take one of her dogs. Getting all four dogs to stand in one spot was impossible.
The Motel was a real treat! We couldn’t stop smiling at our good fortune. The last room that was available turned out to be the honeymoon suite! It had two rooms a little kitchen area and a jacuzzi! Such unbelievable kindness. Thank you Jackie!
Later that evening the phone in the room rang. It was Jackie inviting us to lunch at her resturant in town. Since we never get an early start when we stay at a motel we agreed.
After a great night’s rest, a free motel breakfast we headed out to downtown Saugatuck to have lunch at Jackie’s Restaurant. She was not there but we enjoyed a nice meal. The last time we ate at a resturant was back in the middle of Ohio. So today was a special treat. We each got fried perch. It was delicious!
The riding today was enjoyable. We were on trails along the water a lot.
Tonight we are at Holland State Park. There were only 5 campsites available when we got here. None had trees so we are in the tent tonight. Dinner was cheesy noodles with capicola. I don’t want to say Mac n Cheese because they were some kind of super food Rotini noodles from the discount store. It was really good.
To read Rose’s blog. https://wildrosepedals.com/
You have the best luck with kindness from strangers. Glad that a day that started out rough, ended smoothly.
Matthew what an angel jackie is!