Day 50 Grand Rapids to Laingsburg

We had a brief send off at Calvin College this morning, just out by our bikes a little before 8. Btw, the campus here looks very nice.

Because of the send off, most of the cyclists left around the same time which made the road a little congested, especially now that there are close to 200 of us. We had a very nice tail wind all day long so everyone enjoyed the day. I'm told this was only the 5th day all tour that we had a tail wind!

We had a pit stop at the CRC in Lowell. They had all kinds of snacks and food and nice, cold Gatorade too. We all enjoy those kinds of stops and appreciate the efforts the people put into it.

From Lowell, Fred and I heard about an alternate route to the State Park we were going to, and due to the congested road shoulders we thought that would be the way to go. Well, the road (M21) was free of cyclists except for a few (Barb M included), it also took us a little farther north than we wanted so we ended up doing an extra 10 K. It is now our goal to find an alternate route that will actually save us miles instead of add to them, but time is running out.

We passed a place whose sign read "Ryan's Road House - Warm Beer and Lousy Food". We didn't really need either so we kept on going.

We arrived at Sleepy Hollow State Park at 1 PM, the same time as the gear truck. It's a nice place to camp, but it's not the same being here without my family if you know what I mean.

Btw, we passed the 3,000 mile / 5,000 klm mark on Saturday.

Totals for day: 124 klm (75 mi), 4:10 on the saddle, 29.8 kph avg (18 mph)