Let there be no mistake. Today's ride was about one thing: puting the industrial unpleasantness of NW Indiana behind us as quicky as we could.
That said, I'd like to register my diasappointment in one Harvey Botzman, author of the seemingly-perfect, self-published book "'Round Lake Michigan: A Guide for Bicyclists." Forget the fact that he wrote the whole thing backwards (as if anybody would ever take the CLOCKWISE route around the lake), and that it's filled with strangely-distorted maps that might actually prove useful if they weren't so misleading...
No. My beef with Harvey revolves around one issue: Route 12 through Indiana.
He goes to great lengths trying to convince folks that it is some kind of impenetrable death trap that no sane person should ever try and insists that all should use a workaround he developed that has dozens of turns and adds 10s of miles to the trip.
At one point he actually says that taking rt.12 would be "suicide."
Since Jay and I have proven by merely embarking on this trip that we have little regard for personal mortality (and couldnt stomach the idea of extra miles) we went straight to it... and it was FINE! Sure, some of the shoulders were chewed up and it gave an up-close tour of refineries and Gary's blighted downtown, but it seemed relatively safe and parts of it were quite lovely.
Mr. Botzman recommends that, should you accidentally find yourself on rt. 12, you should get off immediately and find the Calumet Trail... Which, as it turns out, seems to be a fancy name for a loose collection of ruts, sandtraps, gravel pits, and pond-sized puddles. One might argue that it's better than the traffic of the highway, but I would disagree. I think it merely replaces one fear with another: the fear of getting hit by a passing car (a fear, I'm proud to say, that I have tamed over the course of my life) with the fear of an 8 mph, face-first crash into a 6-inch-deep mini-swamp teeming with parasites dying to enter thrugh any available oraffice to inflict a nigh-undiagnosable and painful illness (a fear I haven't even been able to tell trained professionals about).
Still, the directions through the South Side neighborhoods of Chicago were quite helpful...
And it certainly didn't dampen our enthusiasm about the day's ride: 90 miles (100 for Jay) that got us to a gorgeous state park in time to witness a rarity for THIS "third-caoster"... An AMAZING sunset over Lake Michigan.
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Yay! You made it through Day 1 unscathed -- and despite prognostications to the contrary from folks like Nick and Nadine (who I ran into on respective bikes today, then joined for an al fresco cocktail), the Matt-Daly lookalike from Boulevard (who said, and I quote, "they're on their death march"), and yours truly.
Actually, we all think you have it in you. We just hope you can stop and smell the roses from time to time.
Btw, Johno, you're $50 in cash richer after a successful return of your bike rack. Lots of love and strength to you both. Sleep well.
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