I sleep very well last night and awoke to find the temperature had decreased a bit, in fact it was a little chilly. We headed of saying goodbye to our host, and headed to Marine City which is on a river and has a $1 ferry for bikes cars and other vehicles it just costs a dollar for bikes not sure how much it costs for other vehicles, into Canada.

Entering Canada was very laid back and did prove to be any problem. We check with a USA border guard and we should be able to get back in to the USA!

I forgot to say that before we came into Canada we went to a Sandwich/Coffee franchise shop I have forgotten the name off. I think it was Tim or Tom and then the surname began with H.

It got very Windy in Canada lucky not a head wind. We cycled on a bit but not that far to a village park with shelter but surprisingly few benches. We asked some people playing street Hockey if we could camp there and they said that nobody would care.

Within a few minutes a truck and trailer arrived loaded with benches. They had borrowed them for a party the night before. They also said that it would be fine to camp. We helped them unload, before cooking our dinner.

After breakfast and carry our bike out of the house we left Flint, cycling out of the city wasn’t too bad as there were only a few roads to take, and the rest of the day was spent on the same road, although its name changed once or twice.

We arrived at our next warmshowers host and had an other good dinner with the best sweetcorn and cantaloupe melon I have tasted. After dinner we went on a walk around the little farm were there were quite a few chickens and a goat, which watched a tiny bit of TV before heading to bed.

It looked like it was going to be a rainy day today but somehow we managed to avoid the rain. Tomorrow, we hope to go to Canada, who knows what this new country will hold for us!

A short blog again because I am tired. We cycled a fair way on some good and some dirt roads, to Flint. A city which is meant to be dangerous, due maybe to a lot of unemployment. GM used to employ a lot of people here but they left.

We stop at KFC for lunch it wasn’t very nice, but the staff were friendly, and we thought we wanted fired chicken but it didn’t taste that good.

We carried our bikes into our warmshowers hosts house before eating some vegan tacos they were good. After we chatted for a while and our hosts father came round and chatted he was very interested in our trip and the experiences we had. He asked a lot of questions that I hadn’t really thought about. Like how are we going to deal with going back to “real life”. What are the reasons behind the trip and other similar things. It was really interesting to think about this and it was hard to answer some of the questions because there are lots of things I haven’t really thought about. I guess I have been enjoying the simple life of cycle touring.

After a lot of pancakes with a great selection of Jams, Rosemary and Rhubarb being my favourite maybe because it is the most surprising and it tastes great we said good bye to our hosts and their friends and cycled out of Grand Rapids. The roads were okay with a bit of a trail and some gravel roads which slowed us down a tiny bit.

We had lunch in a massive park that seemed to be miles away from anything before continuing over a covered bridge.

In Pewamo we found a nice park and checked with an elderly couple who were driving around in a golf buggy if it would be okay to camp in the park they said that it would be fine.

It was pretty hot for most of the day which meant for a sweaty ride. This is the first time we have camped in a while let’s hope I remember how to put up my tent!

Just a short one today as I feel very tired.

Another shortish days riding around 40 miles some of it on trails, we arrived at our hosts in Grand Rapids around lunch time. After lunch we headed to a community bike workshop, were we spent the afternoon cleaning bikes and chatting. There were some very interesting charters one who came to get his silver bullet fixed up and seemed very happy about it and was singing a lot, but came back shortly after as he got a puncture.

After this we headed back to the house for dinner in the garden with some of our hosts friends. It was hot in the afternoon which made everything tiring. Tomorrow we have a longer days cycling.

Today was an easy days cycling. Our ferry was not until 12:30 so we went to a coffee shop and then headed down to the port in good time. The ferry was very quick but the lake was quiet rough so a few people on the boat were being sick.

Once we docked in Muskegon it was a fairly short ride to our host house. Although google maps let me down for the first time. What was signed as a dead end was in fact a dead end and not as google suggested a through road. This resulted in a bit of back tracking but not too much.

We had a great dinner and chatted and did a little route planning.

Today was a short days cycling into Milwaukee. We stopped of in a park on the edge of town for lunch there were loads of picnic benches there, we had lunch in picnic area 3b.

Navigating our way into Milwaukee was not to bad as we just stuck on one road that took us to Lake Michigan. We arranged the ferry crossing for tomorrow, it was pretty expensive, but hopefully it will be a good crossing and save us some miles.

We headed to our warmshowers host an eco focused community spread across two next door houses. We had pizza at Chill on the Hill which was free music in the park it was really good and a great community atmosphere. It was good to learn about the eco community before heading to bed. It really has been a long time since we have camped it is going to be a shock.

I forgot to say that we tried our hosts recumbent bikes this morning before we left it was very different but I could see how it could become comfortable, it just didn’t seem to stable at first and it was like I had never ridden a bike before. I also forgot to say that as we were riding from the ferry office to the house were we are staying there was like a exhibition which comprised of signs of all the famous things in Milwaukee.

28.8.11

Yesterday we had a rest day in Madison, we had a good breakfast with some of our hosts friends who were interested in cycling and cycle. It was interesting to met them all. After this we did a bit of admin washing looking into the ferry and a bit of route planning.

Then we went to the ethics discussion group, were they were discussing immigration into the USA. It was an interesting discussion and most of the people there cycle.

29.8.11

Back to cycling! We headed out of Madison with one of our hosts, this made navigation much easier as we didn’t have to navigate at all. We cycled about 10 miles out of Madison to a trail head. We stayed on this trail for the rest of the day. Stopping of for lunch in Lake Mills. It was a good trail with a few pot holes and quite a lot of chipmunks.

We arrived in Wales, named as such because people from Wales first settled here. We stayed with our Warmshowers hosts and it was fascinating hearing about all the things they had done in their lives.

27.8.11

After breakfast we left our host and headed up and down some hills passing a lot of farms. I think most of these were dairy. We stopped of at Orchard something cheese factory and brought some cheese, the factory did offer tours but they weren’t making any cheese today so the tours were off.

The next stop was at a trap and at Sauk Prairie Trap and Skeet Club. Normally you need your own gun to shot but somebody lent us one and taught us how to shoot. It was pretty loud and pretty hard but I managed to hit one or two of the flying clay disc things.

We cycled into Madison which was not too bad although some of the roads had quite a few cracks in them. We were met by our host, a family friend of Cliffs girlfriend and cycle back to their house via a festival that was going on in a park near there house. There were a lot of stalls and a stage with different bands playing on it.

After a great dinner we headed out to the Madison University Union Terrace this was open to anyone and bands were playing on a stage in front of one of the lakes. You could see the boats in the background watching too, although I am not sure how much they would have heard. We were both feeling pretty tired and sleepy so after we saw a bit of VO5 we headed back to the house for some sleep. The slogan of the university union was “experiences for a lifetime” it was much nicer than any union I have ever been to before.

I didn’t take any picture in the city today so the one attached is just one of the farm land we cycled through in the morning.

Most of the day was spent cycling on the trail. There were three tunnels on the trail. They were very dark inside and cycling/walking through them was pretty tricky. We spoke to a ranger and he told us the tunnels have doors on to keep the snow out. When the trail used to be a railway the doors were kept closed in winter unless the trains were going through. Cycling ended when we arrived at our hosts. After a good meal we got taken on a drive of the local area. It seemed like we were going really fast but we were only doing 40mph. The landscape looked so different from the window of a car than from a bike. I think it is because you are travelling so much fast that it changes much quicker. We stopped at the elephant trunk rock on our drive as well as passing by an apple orchard. We are now watching a bit of tv before bed.