Leg 2, Ride 4: Union Pier to South Haven

Today was a bit of a "challenge day". It's our longest and hilliest ride so far, coming the day after the previously longest and hilliest ride, and is the 4th consecutive riding day. (Although, these rides are still relatively short and flat compared with the rides we were doing 15 years ago)

I'm very happy to say that the day went pretty smoothly. We're definitely not in tip-top shape by any means, and we were definitely a little lacking in extra power to get up hills... but neither of us had any pain or cramping, and we actually had the leg energy to make this our fastest average speed of the trip (I highly encourage you not to look up the weather to learn if we had a brisk tailwind pushing us!)

The ride itself was probably the least interesting one so far. It was all on-road, and the scenery wasn't super interesting. But, not every ride can be a banger like yesterday's was.

We keep meeting people who are curious about our route, and of course we are not super familiar with the areas we're going through. So, we'll say "We're not taking Red Arrow Highway, but we are going parallel to it". And, then they'll say something like "Oh, is that the road that comes out at County Road 1147? Or are you talking about the road that goes past Gleason's Farm?" I dunno, man!

A challenge for me this trip is ordering food. This is a long trip, and I feel like it's probably a good idea to occasionally have some vegetables, for example. Under normal circumstances, I only really worry about what I eat when I cook at home. When I go to a restaurant, my strategy is just to find the most delicious items on the menu. So, when the server comes, my temptation is just "Yeah, could I get the Loaded Chorizo Mac & Cheese, please, and then also a brownie sundae?". Anyhow, I'm happy to report I had a salad for lunch today, and veggie paella for dinner last night.

Tomorrow, we get a full day off to rest a bit before continuing north on Sunday.