Leg 2 Epilogue: Muskegon

We took a day off here in Muskegon. Generally speaking, we planned our days off either as rest days (after a long stretch of riding), or as tourism days (when we want to see/do things in an interesting place).

Today was neither. Instead, this served as a kind of insurance day. If we had been unable to ride on one of the previous days due to weather/injury/sickness/whatever, then we could have got back on schedule here. Or, if we had been waylayed two days, we could have skipped Muskegon entirely by riding straight from Holland to Grand Rapids. We have a few more of these insurance days scheduled later in the trip.

But, as it happened, everything has gone according to schedule over the first 18 days. So, we had a day off here in Muskegon.

When I look at a map, it seems as if we've made almost no progress. Muskegon is only about 80 miles east of Milwaukee, but it has taken us 12 days to bike between the two! In fact, we are 25% done with the total distance, and I think progress will be more noticable on the map starting tomorrow, once we start going consistently eastbound.

Muskegon is actually not a very good spot for a day off, as it turns out. There's not a ton to see and do here. They do have a playhouse (nothing scheduled), and a couple of small museums (which we weren't interested in today), and not much else. We're staying in a very very odd location: our hotel has been recently renovated, and is actually fairly nice, but the area around us is essentially abandoned: there's a boarded-up Pizza Hut next door, and a huge abandoned gym that was definitely from the 90s that they didn't even bother to board up. There are gigantic potholes in the roads (like 4 feet across, and 1 foot deep).

Fun fact about Muskegon: in the 70s, they ruined half of their downtown in order to turn it into a mall. Of course, the mall only lasted 20 years or so, then they demolished it. They are beginning to redevelop that area now, and it's for sure nicer than the mall would have been, but probably not as nice as what they destroyed to make way for the mall.

Our big plan for today was the drive-in theater. I have wanted to ride a bike to a drive in since I was a little kid. My neighborhood actually did have a drive-in, but it closed before I was old enough to ride there. Today was the big day. I contacted the drive-in a few months ago to make sure that they allowed bikes, and they said "Yeah, of course. We even have a small number of chairs and FM radios to rent". We made sure to get there early so that we could be first in line to rent them. And, of course, when we arrived, the person running the booth told us that bikes were absolutely not allowed.

This is really a soul-crushing moment for me. Why did you lie to me like that, Getty Drive-In??

Instead, we had our own double-feature at the hotel: "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" and "Daughters of Darkness" The former spawned the 70s sitcom "Alice", and I really can't tell you how weird that is. This is a really really good movie, and I really have no idea how it inspired a vapid sitcom.

And, what can I say about "Daughters of Darkness"?? What a fantastic film this is. I saw this for the first time about 5 years ago as part of a Lesbian Vampire Film Festival at the Somerville Theater, and I dare say this is in the running for best film all-time in that genre. Why are you wasting your time reading this blog when you could be watching this movie?