Day 35

Miles: 120

Mileage from start: 3,072

Oh, bed. I have been daydreaming about you all day. And now that I’m here, you’re nothing like I imagined you.

Rather than camping in an established campground, with full water bottles and freshly rinsed legs, we are half a mile down a road of sand (that was marked on the map as pavement) because we couldn’t bear to go any further and hiding from the horde of mosquitoes that are the worst we’ve seen the whole trip. There is no water to refill our bottles or rinse off.

And an animal is outside our tent. Not sure what it is. Neither of us has ever heard a sound like that.

I slept poorly last night because the hotel mattress was so bouncy that every time Richard moved, I was jostled awake. And the pillows were solid. No give. No smoosh. Not sure how they did that.

We ate breakfast then packed up and caught a ferry off the island to Mackinaw City. From there we started pedaling and never really got in the swing of things.

Each restart after an intersection or stop sign was hard. Each hill was slow and plodding. It was humid, so we sweated a ton, but chilly so we didn’t drink much.

Somehow we made it 120 miles. We are covered in sweat and the road grime that sticks to our legs from the adhesive sunscreen.

It may rain tomorrow. Maybe afterward, the humidity will be less.