Leg 2, Ride 6: Holland to Muskegon

Today was a fairly uninteresting ride from Holland to Muskegon. This is the end of the second leg of our trip. We're still in good spirits and feeling good, although honestly the last two day's rides weren't anything special.

I say we started in Holland, but we actually started in Beechwood, which is right across the river from Holland. Beechwood is gross: every road is a multilane high-speed road with a Burger King and a Chick-Fil-A. Sidewalks randomly just end. Every business is a chain store with a gigantic parking lot in front.

There were decent sidepaths once we got out of Beechwood. Just going on internet data, I wasn't sure how long we'd have the paths, but they actually lasted 90% of the ride, so that was very nice.

We planned our day around the weather today. A line of severe thunderstorms were forecast to hit around 2 or 3pm. So, we timed our ride to arrive in Grand Haven (about 2/3 through the ride) a little before 2. And, then we holed up at the public library for a couple of hours while the storms passed through.

As it turned out, the worst of the storms landed south of us, and we merely got some moderate rain. So, we could have ridden through that without much problem. But, I'll say it was much nicer hanging out and staying dry in the library! The Grand Haven library is pretty awesome, by the way.

One of the going concerns on this trip is hotel locations. In many locations, like here in Muskegon and yesterday in Holland, we had to choose between paying lots of money for a hotel in a good location, or saving money by staying on the outskirts of town. And, we're usually choosing to save money: Today, we're paying $60 instead of $210. That money adds up over the course of two months!

But, that means there's not much for us to do tonight. We got dinner at Chili's and we'll do laundry later.

We have a day off tomorrow, when we'll be able to explore the good parts of Muskegon a bit.