We left Jenison at 10:30 on Thursday morning, September 30 – Acey’s mileage 77,542.9, Thor’s 92,860, and 1419.4 miles on our bikes. It was a nice clear day for driving, which was great because a lot of road work was being done! We arrived at Bear Cave just after 1pm and were fortunate enough to get one of the few full hook-up sites this time. (We were not as lucky when we were here in August.) We took a walk around the campground, and down to the St. Joseph River
Friday we went for a bike ride. We started at the Hartford end of the Van Buren Trail and, after a mile on this grassy, washed out trail in the woods and past a downed tree blocking most of the path, we rode on the road back to the car and headed to Niles. We rode on the Indiana-Michigan River Valley Trail when we were here in August, so we drove to Plym Park at the north end of the trail.
The trail runs through Niles, Michigan, along the eastern bank of the St. Joseph River, and to the Michigan–Indiana border. At State Line Road, the trail meets the LaSalle Trail, which also was part of the New York Central Railroad but was abandoned by Conrail in 1980. So, we rode a ways into Indiana and turned back. In all, we rode over 17 miles. After our ride, we stopped in at Niles Brewing for some local craft beer.
For dinner on Saturday, we had pasties (pass- tees) – we had picked them up at Muldoon’s in Munising and they had been in the freezer since then. A family tradition, we generally make them ourselves, but in the UP, they can be purchased!
Mudoons uses a lot more potato than we do – we use more rutabega and no carrots. We make ours with beef AND pork – this one is beef. I don’t see any parsley either. Delicious nonetheless!
Sunday morning we worshipped via YouTube with our church in Nashville, Stephens Valley Church, watching last week’s service and then Zoomed with our Sunday School class. It continued to rain – its been raining since Friday evening – so we didn’t do much. We made pizza and Zoomed with the family in the evening.
Monday it looked like the rain had stopped, so we went for a bike ride on the LaSalle Trial that met up with the Kobb Trail and other bike paths around the Notre Dame campus.
Linda’s Apple Watch gives us lots of information while we ride – here’s our route before we stopped for lunch
It also shows our total time and distance, calories burned, elevation gain, average heart rate, average speed (speed each mile under splits), and Linda’s heart rate; a map of our route, and the weather; temperature and humidity.
Tuesday it rained most of the day, but cleared up Wednedsay afternoon, so we ran some errands and drove out to St. Joseph. The North Pier has TWO lighthouses on it, built in 1907.
We could only see one lighthouse as we walked down the pier.
And sure enough, we found the second lighthoue hiding behind the first one…
We had been hearing a train whistle and finally the train came into view – with three engines. Here is is crossing the drawbridge over the St Joseph River.
The catwalk would be used in inclement weather to access the lighthouse – the platform is no longer on the catwalk as the lighthouses are all automated now.
Beautiful Lake Michigan!
We drove around the inlet to SIlver Beach to see the other side and to see the sculpture.
We also saw this sign – interesting bit of history!
We noticed there was some boat traffic on the river, and the drawbridge was going to open – this one rotates rather than rises.
The sun was due to set in about a half an hour, but with all the clouds, we opted to head back to Acey for dinner. We leave in the morning to go to Charlottte, MI – Acey has a check-up scheduled at Spartan RV Chassis.
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Please be sure to comment – at least every now and then – to let us know you are reading the blog and keeping up with our adventures. Thanks for stopping by!
The fun continues. Your watch provides so much information. Is that on the ‘Workout app under Outdoor Cycle? Thank you for posting.