Day 3. Tailwind… rain to finish the day

8/27/2025. Wednesday

Fox Park MI to Gladstone MI

Stats: 39 miles AIS: 3:23. Speed: 11.4 mph. Elev. 282 ft.

It was chilly again last night. I put off putting my socks on all night and my feet were cold. Finally about 5am I dug out my wool socks and slept great until 7am. We weren’t in a rush this morning because today was a shorter day than usual. Somehow we managed to be ready in less than 2 hours and headed out of camp at 9am.

The wind gods were in our favor today and we had a tailwind or cross tailwind all day. Hence the faster than usual pace! Felt rather easy today. Sure hope we get more of that.

Stopped for a few photos along the highway. Again the shoulder was superb except for a few miles where they hadn’t paved the wide part yet and we had to share a narrow shoulder with a rumble strip. Fortunately the traffic was pretty light during that stretch .. not very many semis.

We arrived in Escanaba about 1:30 or so. We followed the Lakeshore Drive along a lovely big park out to a lighthouse point. There was a nice marina there as well. We are on the north end of Green Bay. It narrows down into a smaller bay called Little Bay de Noc. We will ride up to the top of that bay then head east across the top of Big Bay de Noc. After we cross that we will be officially on the main part of Lake Michigan.

We headed downtown to Main Street to Mr Bike and Ski shop. Really nice guy who owns the shop. Jim found his bike shorts. He’s good to go!

As we walked out the bike shop I looked down the street and realized I was staring at my last name (maiden name) on a sign attached to the building. The LeMire Law Office. It’s the same spelling of my name but we use a lowercase “m”. Just the same…I don’t see that name very many places beside Quebec! At some point in past history we are related!

While we were downtown we saw a sign for Swedish Pantry. Hard to resist trying food there. It was 2:30 by now so we had ourselves some lunch! It did not dissapoint. Jim had Swedish pancake and Swedish meatballs. I had potato pancakes with applesauce and sour cream. I have a potato pancake leftover for breakfast tomorrow… or lunch. The inside has all kinds of kitsch. It was busy too!

Random Acts of Kindness…. As we were getting ready to ride away, a very nice woman (named Judy) approached us and asked where we’d come from and where we’re headed. She told us how she used to love to ride bikes but couldn’t anymore. Then she insisted on buying a cookie from the Swedish Pantry… if there were any left. She ran in and came out with 2 huge chocolate chip cookies! So very kind!

Jim just told me that we are now in Eastern Time Zone (EST)! No wonder the afternoon in Escanaba flew by! I thought my wristwatch had started to fail. Jim said it was 2:30 and I had 1:30 on my watch. It is now 8:30 EST, still light out and we just figured that out😊

It was just about 6 miles to Gladstone crossing the Escanaba River. We caught a bike path over the bridge. We were grateful for the path because we had just merged with US Hwy 2! This is the same Hwy 2 that runs across northern Washington, northern Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin! It’s a major highway and where we entered it was 4 lanes wide with a lot of traffic! So many trucks. We had to ride it for a short while after the bridge. Then took a side road for a few blocks. Just when we thought we’d have to re-enter there was another nice bike path all the way into Gladstone! Yeah! We will be riding Hwy 2 for the next 3 days. It has a nice big shoulder but busy and fast traffic and many, many semis. We’ll be okay… we survived Louisiana! Dump trucks and small shoulders for 3 days.

We’re staying at a city park campground. It’s a very nice park with nice big campsites and lots of grass. The bathrooms and showers get an A+ rating. Super clean and the showers were individual rooms… lots of hooks, chair, hot water and free. (No quarters) Everything you want for a great shower.

Now we are settled. Holed up in our tent for the night. It started to slightly shower about 5:30pm. Then about 7:30 the rain settled in and it’s 8:45 now and raining hard! It’s supposed to rain most of the night but be dry by morning. I’m hoping to see some sun tomorrow afternoon.

Also expecting my brother Paul to show up tomorrow afternoon. He plans to meet us for lunch. He’s getting a ride up north from his friend who lives in Sheboygan WI. Paul is joining us for part of the ride through Michigan.