DAY 20 (6/30/05): Capac to Bay City, MI 90.9 mi.  Today was a day of fairly
unremarkable cruising through flat farmland, more corn and potatoes as far as
the eye could see.  I camped this evening in a little county park where I met
another adventure cyclist, a Michigan resident named Dave.  He was using the
same map as me but going the other direction, unfortunately.  We had a nice
chat, though.  He is a triathlete with four kids who somehow managed to get
away to tour around MI for a week.  Very nice guy.  Although the park where we
were camping was probably only 200yds from Lake Michigan, we got so caught up
in swapping touring stories that we entirely forgot to go look at the lake
until it was too dark to see the path.  Then, at around 11pm, I was awakened by
bright flashing lights and a lot of noise: the local nature police, spraying
for
mosquitoes!

DAY 21 (7/1/05): Bay City to Loomis, MI 73.3 mi.  After bidding farewell to
Dave, I rode about 15 mi west into Bay City proper, where I found an
outstanding bakery and also picked up a care package from home, including my
beloved and much missed New Yorker magazine.  The rest of the day I spent
plowing into a stiff headwind.    I rode almost all of the Pere Marquette rail
trail, which is a very nice trail and I'm sure it's a blast without the wind. 
However, by the end of the day I was pretty pooped and decided to end the day a
little early, at a county park in Isabella county.  The campground was very
pleasant and full of families camped out for the fourth of July.  I should
mention that Michigan is still in the same time zone as Boston, so it's light
out here very late.  So late, in fact, that I was reading the New Yorker in my
tent without a flashlight at 9:30pm, listening to the kids screaming outside.

DAY 22 (7/2/05): Loomis to Luther, MI 82.2 mi.  Today something old was
reintroduced into my cycling vocabulary: hills!  They felt very good after so
many flat, straight roads.  I gained about 1000 feet of elevation coming across
the 'fingers' of the mitten that is Michigan.  The scenery up on the higher
elevations was very pretty, and somewhat reminiscent of the Adirondacks,
actually, lots of forest and some lakes and farms.  I went through several
little summery towns on my way to Luther, which is located at the edge of a
huge national forest.  I camped in the forest, along with a whole lot of other
people (everything is very busy for the holiday weekend).  Unfortunately, this
campground is close to a lot of ATV trails, so everyone was their with their
'quads' and dirt bikes, zooming up and down the roads in the campground making
noise.  My neighbors were also pretty loud, staying up late next to their
campfire drinking 30-packs of Busch lite and railing about all topics.  The
last thing I remember before falling asleep was a rather inebriated guy
yelling, "Oh, yeah, well, I can tell you a thing or two about relationships,
because I been married four times, so let me 'splain it to ya..."