The Continuing Journeys of the Bicyclists

I last posted about Ed and Kira's progress a while back, after they covered the ground from here to the Canadian border in western New York. They are now much further along, and last night I managed to get Ed on the phone to talk about how they have been doing.

Apparently the only really eventful thing to occur in Ontario was another huge thunderstorm, which can be seen below. Despite this, it only took them a few days to get to Michigan.


They then took a ferry from Walpole Island, Ontario to Michigan. They were greeted by a friendly and vigilant customs officer who allegedly almost forgot to check their passports, but I am sure this was just some sort of elaborate trick to weed out potential criminals. The customs officer then gave Ed and Kira ham from his lunch pail to fuel them on their mission.


That night Ed and Kira headed over to a state park to spend the night, then the next day headed northwest to try to make it to the site of a fireworks show before Independence Day. One of the towns they stayed in had a badger made out of driftwood, which appealed to Ed's love of wooden animals.


Much of their travelling through Michigan was done on small roads through the woods, the great beauty of which was tempered by a mosquito infestation. Ed went so far as to say that Michigan is the mosquito capital of the world. A quick google search for "mosquito capital of the world" does not really confirm this, but it does let me know that Winnipeg is the Slurpee Capital of the World. Interesting. Here is a picture of a horse in Michigan that looks like a cow:


Michigan is truly a land of wooden animals, unless Ed managed to run into the only two in the state. Here he is interacting with a wooden bear. The bear, being made of wood, apparently sustains itself with paper, but Ed was not having any of it. He went so far as risking his own hand to recover the message. How stoic!


Further on up the road they encountered a real live animal, a fairly large turtle that was stuck in the middle of the road. Ed and Kira decided to do it a big favor by transporting it across the road, but they put it on the wrong side of the road. This became evident when the turtle immediately sprinted back into the road to reach the opposite side (apparently turtles are actually somewhat fast when moving at full speed), but when a car drove by it decided to hide in its shell again. They then gingerly moved the turtle to the correct side of the road, making sure that they entered and left the situation with the same number of fingers.


Michigan apparently has a law where all bicyclists and walk-in hikers must be given a place to pitch a tent at any state park, regardless of how booked up the park is. Ed and Kira took full advantage of this by arriving at one of the most popular parks in the state on the fourth of July. Although most people had booked their spots up to a year in advance, their mode of transportation got them a real nice campsite with zero notice. They then went to watch the fireworks show from a spot on the beach. Ed also attempted to ride his bike through a sand dune and spend several hours cleaning sand out of bearings. Following is a blurry picture of fireworks:


They took a boat across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin to save some time. The boat is the last coal-fired steam ship operating on the lake, which sounds cool and historical but actually involved a lot of belching black smoke and coal dust. The ship pulled into port in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.


A couple days after leaving Manitowoc, Ed and Kira found themselves riding into a massive thunderstorm. They thought it was curious that the collision of the dark clouds with the clear air was causing the dark clouds to fold down underneath themselves. They continued riding through it, only later finding out from locals that the movement of the clouds meant they should have spent the afternoon in a ditch to protect themselves from tornados.

The house below in Baraboo, Wisconsin belongs to a friend of Ed's. It used to be the winter headquarters of the Ringling Brothers Circus. Ed and Kira received some well-deserved rest for a few days here, during which Ed was fed a stream of beer and a pile of steak. He says he got to meet a teenaged elephant and saw a woman jump rope while balanced on someone's hands, with a ball balanced on her head. It sounds like it was a real fun time.


That's it for now. Currently Ed and Kira are in western Montana, having just gone over a pass through the Rocky Mountains. There has not been a lot of internet access available to them between Wisconsin and where they are now, but hopefully next week Ed will be able to send me another load of pictures to put on here, so check back in a bit!