Day 27 (7/7/05): Brevort to Manisitique, MI 83.3 mi. 
I rode all day today on US-2.  It's a relatively busy
road but the shoulder is very wide and the traffic
didn't bother me.  The surrounding scenery is
beautiful, all Hiawatha National Forest.  There are
lots and lots of signs here advertising smoked fish
and pasties.  Due to my vegetarian nature I didn't try
either but if you are ever up here you might want to,
it seems to be popular.  One place where I stopped
actually had a bunch of operating smoking sheds right
next to the store.  I did have a nice breakfast along
the way at the Country Girl Cafe, whose name appealed
to me. I stopped briefly in Manistique to buy food and
then headed over to Indian Lake state park, just to
the northwest of the city.  It's a very nice spot and
I was tempted to go swimming until I saw all the signs
warning about "swimmer's itch" which might be
contracted by swimming in the lake.  I also learned
that Pizza Hut will deliver right to your campsite.  I
didn't take advantage of that service, but it's good
to know that it's out there...

DAY 28 (7/8/05): Manistique to Hardwood, MI 97.3mi. 
So far in this trip, milestones seem to come in pairs,
and today I had another two milestones roll by: I
crossed the 2000th mile of my journey and entered the
Central timezone.  The road this morning was not
great, there was a bunch of construction on US-2 that
involved tearing up the shoulder, and the road also
got much busier.  Again, the shoulder was wide and I
didn't feel too threatened but the noise got to me
more than yesterday.  I had initially planned on
stopping in Escanaba, but I didn't really like it
there and decided to bite the bullet and push on for a
long day.  In the end it was well worth it: I camped
at a county park with only five campsites on a lovely
little lake.  When I pulled in two little girls on
their pink two-wheelers rolled into my campsite and
were full of questions, the first of which was,
"where's your truck?"  The younger one was really
impressed by the bike, and her sister, who at the age
of 9 or so was a very worldly young lady, explained to
the younger girl, "oh, that's the kind of bike where
when you pedal backwards, nothing happens."

DAY 29 (7/9/05): Hardwood, MI to Nelma, WI 77.7 mi. 
At long, long last, I left the state of Michigan
behind today.  My last day of cruising through the UP
was very pleasant, almost completely unpopulated
forest except for the town of Crystal Falls, where I
once again stopped to do laundry and read Harper's
Bazaar with the other ladies at the laundromat.  I
crossed the Brule River into Wisconsin, amused the
people who lived along the river by struggling to find
the optimum position for Dagny in the obligatory state
sign photo, and camped about 100yds into Wisconsin at
another USFS campground.  I thought about going across
the street to the "Full Throttle" for a celebratory
beer, but found that I could here the music from there
just fine at my campsite and that there was no need to
get all smokey.  So, I had a nice cold bottle of well
water at my campsite instead.  After all, I wouldn't
have wanted to leave Dagny out of the celebration!

DAY 30: Nelma to Mercer, WI 83.1 mi.  Today was my
first full day in Wisconsin, and it was spectacular. I
spent all of it cruising back roads through more
national forest (referred to collectively as "the
North Woods," this being the northern portion of the
state).  I immediately noticed several differences
between MI and WI.  First, in MI the roads are
absolutely as straight as possible, whereas here they
are twisty, windy, and hilly.  Second, in Michigan all
the roads have numbers (I even rode something called
13.75 rd).  In WI, the county roads all have letters. 
I've ridden things like K, F, FF, and G.  Third, I
have never seen more dead porcupines by the side of
the road than I did while in the UP.  Here,
thankfully, there are no dead porcupines. 
Unfortunately, here there are an abundance of biting
flies.  Through some experimentation, I have found
that flies can only travel at around 11mph, which is a
great incentive to keep one's cruising speed up.  On
the hills, though, they circle around your head just
waiting for an opportunity to land on you and bite. 
Sadly, spandex does not deter them...